Young Poland was a modernist period in Polish visual arts, literature and music, covering roughly the years between 1890 and 1918. It was a result of strong aesthetic opposition to the earlier ideas of Positivism. Young Poland promoted trends of decadence, neo-romanticism, symbolism, impressionism and art nouveau.
Palace of Art, also known as "Secession" headquarters of the Kraków Society of Friends of Fine Arts, in Kraków Old Town
Stanisław Wyspiański self-portrait in soft pastel, 1902
Kazimierz Stabrowski, Peacock. Portrait of Zofia Borucińska, 1908
Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland over the centuries have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Latin, Yiddish, Lithuanian, Russian, German and Esperanto. According to Czesław Miłosz, for centuries Polish literature focused more on drama and poetic self-expression than on fiction. The reasons were manifold but mostly rested on the historical circumstances of the nation. Polish writers typically have had a more profound range of choices to motivate them to write, including past cataclysms of extraordinary violence that swept Poland, but also, Poland's collective incongruities demanding an adequate reaction from the writing communities of any given period.
Title page of the 1834 edition of Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz, the most notable poet among Poland's Romantic bards
Image: Stanisław Bizański H.Sienkiewicz (cropped)
Image: Władysław Reymont
Image: Isaac Bashevis Singer (upright)