Obraz Polaków w felietonach Henryka Sienkiewicza

The aim of the article is to reconstruct the linguistic image of the Poles on the basisof Henryk Sienkiewicz’s feuilletons. This image is determined by the speaker’s pointof view. Creating his image of Polish society, Sienkiewicz adopted the following pointsof view: the POV of a Pole, the POV of a thrifty economist, the POV of a positivist andthe POV of a Christian. As a Polish citizen, he criticizes his compatriots for the fact that  they do not respect their native tongue. As a thrifty economist, he exposes numerousinstances of their profligacy. As a positivist, Sienkiewicz notes the backwardness of thecountryside and proposes specific initiatives to address this problem. Finally, assumingthe perspective of a Christian, he unmasks false piety. This image of the Poles is predominantlynegative. The fact that Sienkiewicz highlighted his compatriots’ weaknesses andfocused on their wastefulness, rather than on their positive attributes, could be motivatedby censorship concerns. Russian censors were very effective in suppressing all forms ofmanifesting Polish national identity and were more inclined to accept critical opinions.