Maria Konopnicka, Mr. Balcer in Brazil [1925]

Title: Mr. Balcer in Brazil.

Author: Maria Konopnicka (1842–1910) [poet, short-story writer, literary critic, and translator; author of *Rota*; one of the most important writers of Polish Positivism].

Publisher: Warsaw, published by Gebethner and Wolff.

Year of publication: 1925.

Format: 22 cm.

Number of pages: 414.

Binding: Period half-leather binding.

“Mr. Balcer in Brazil” is Maria Konopnicka’s greatest poetic work and one of the most important epic poems in Polish literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It was inspired by the so-called “Brazilian fever,” that is, the mass emigration of peasants from Polish lands to Brazil in the early 1890s. Thousands of families, lured by promises of free land, left their villages at that time to seek a better life across the ocean. Konopnicka worked on the poem for nearly two decades. Starting in 1892, successive sections of the poem appeared in magazines, including *Biblioteka Warszawska* and *Przegląd Poznański*. The complete work was published in Warsaw by Gebethner and Wolff in 1910, the year of the poet’s death.

The protagonist of the poem, written in octaves, is Balcer, a blacksmith who, together with his family and a group of peasant emigrants, sets out on a long journey. Konopnicka vividly depicts the hardships of the ocean crossing, exotic cities, the overwhelming vastness of the virgin forest, and the multinational community of the New World. Above all, however, she highlights the suffering of the emigrants: hunger, disease, exploitation, and longing for their homeland. The work was originally conceived as a realistic epic of peasant exile, but over time it took on a symbolic dimension. The tragic fate of the emigrants came to symbolize the plight of an entire nation, and their fidelity to their faith, language, and customs served as an expression of their attachment to Polish identity, preserved even on the other side of the globe. For this reason, the poem is sometimes referred to as a peasant national epic.

The volume presented here is the 1925 edition. It was published by Gebethner and Wolff, one of the main publishers of Konopnicka’s works, which also released the poem’s first book edition. This impressive volume, numbering over four hundred pages, attests to the enduring presence of “Pan Balcer” in the literary canon of reborn Poland.

Maria Konopnicka, née Wasiłowska, was born on May 23, 1842, in Suwałki. She was educated at a boarding school run by the Sisters of the Sacrament in Warsaw. She was a poet, short-story writer, literary critic, and translator. Her greatest achievements are considered to be her folklore-inspired poetry, short stories such as “Mendel Gdański” and “Nasza szkapa,” and works for children, foremost among them “O krasnoludkach i o sierotce Marysi.” She was actively involved in social causes, including protests against the Germanization of Polish children in the Prussian Partition. Her “Rota” became one of the most important Polish patriotic songs. She died on October 8, 1910, in Lviv.

Provenance: a clean piece, free of ownership marks and stamps.

This is a monumental poem about Polish emigration, Konopnicka’s magnum opus, in a perfectly preserved period half-leather binding. A must-have for lovers of Polish poetry, researchers of the history of emigration and the Brazilian Polish diaspora, and collectors of interwar editions by Gebethner and Wolff.

Clean piece. Period half-leather binding, in excellent condition. Solid block. Clean paper.

Catalog ID: 299-22-A-W