“Roads which move...” On Kraszewski’s rivers (introductory exploration)

The rivers of Polesia and Volhynia (the Horyn, Styr, Sluch, Pina, Prypiat Rivers and other) are analysed in the present paper as waterways which bring along modernity and carry it further inland on the one hand, and on the other, as guards of patriarchal hierarchies, which according to Orgelbrand’s Encyclopedia, are equivalent to a civilization referred to as moral, affirming simplicity, religion, and selfless relations with others. In the descriptions of places which constitute Kraszewski’s autobiography (travelogues, memoirs, letters, journalistic and fiction works) one may observe a kind of internal tension of the perceiving subject, who continues to value antiquity, but notices with certain nostalgia the anachronism of the world “at the banks of great rivers” and recognises the need for civilizational transformation