As aventuras de Mikołaj Doświadczyński

by Ignacy Krasicki

É considerada a primeira novela polaca. O protagonista, Mikołaj, é un nobre que narra a súa vida con intención didáctica. Remóntase á súa infancia e censura a súa educación contaminada por demasiadas supersticións. Entre as súas aventuras destaca a estadía en Nipu, unha illa ficticia na que Krasicki sitúa unha utopía política para satirizar a sociedade europea da época. Ao longo dos tres libros nos que se divide a novela, Mikołaj aprende a comportarse como un bo cidadán. Tradución de Lúa García Sánchez.

Genres: Polish Literature, Classics, Fiction, School, Literature, Audiobook, 18th Century

186 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 1776

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first ever Polish novel (from 1776) is a curious semi-picaresque, with the titular hero romping through the overgrowth of arcane Polish land law, clashing with an aristo over ownership rights of a village, who later finds himself shipwrecked on a tropical island where he encounters a utopian tribe who teach him valuable lessons on European decadence in a section that challenges the Enlightenment philosophy of the period while shamelessly ripping off Robinson Crusoe. A mishmash of Voltaire, Defoe, and Fielding, the first ever Polish novel never quite strikes a balance between the legal arcana, philosophical lectures, and swashbuckling rompery, but as a way to light the fuse of Polish literature, this remains a robust ickle powder keg. Witam serdecznie!

[Czarny Pies · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom is a treasure for anyone of Polish descent living in North American wishing to understand the cultural and intellectual history Poland. The author Ignacy Krasicki was born into a prominent noble family. He was bishop of Warmia for many years, before becoming the Arch-Bishop of Gniezno, the seat of Poland's primate. Krasicki is considered the leading intellectual figure of the French Enlightenment in Poland.
In Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki (a.k.a The Adventures of Nicholas Wisdom), Krasicki presents an overview of the chief ideas of the Siecle des philosophes. By coincidence it was published in 1776, the year the Americans declared their independence and their desire to found a society based on the principles of the Enlightenment. In Adventures of Nicholas Wisdom, Krasicki praises freedom. He attacks the slave trade, colonialism, and inhumane penitentiaries. He proposes that people reject artificiality and dandyism in favour of simplicity. He describes Quakers and Deists in positive terms.
Krasicki represented a very important current in the intellectual culture of his era. Indeed, Polish noblemen such as Tadeusz Kościuszko and Casimir Pulaski served in the American Revolutionary army out of a desire to serve the new cause of liberty. Stanislaw Poniatowski, the last king of Poland, attempted to implement a highly progressive reform program in his country.
The Adventures of Nicholas Wisdom is divided into three books. In the first we are introduced to Nicholas Wisdom a naive hero like Candide. He attempts to emulate fashion in Poland which consists of imitating all things French and spending extravagantly. False friends, swindlers and a crooked court system quickly reduce him to poverty. At the end of Book One, our hero sets sail for a meeting with his bankers.
While the influence of Voltaire can be seen in Book One, Swift and Rousseau come to the fore in Book Two. Nicholas Wisdom washes up on the island of Nipu which is peopled by virtuous primitives. The Nipuans have no metals and no written language. They are egalitarian as all people wear the same clothes and live in similar homes. Their education of children follows that the path suggested by Rousseau. They are vegetarians and pacifists. The legal system is fair and honourable. Nicholas Wisdom senses he is about to settle down to a happy existence, but then comes upon the wreck of his ship. He discovers gold coins and letters of exchange. The thought of wealth in Europe causes him to flee the island in a rowboat.
In Book Three, the narrative returns to the style of Voltaire. Nicholas Wisdom is picked up on by a slave boat and sold to work in the mines of Potosi. He is rescued by an American Quaker who is militantly opposed to slavery. Having retained the letters of exchange, our hero takes a boat back to Europe. On his journey he meets a Frenchman who explains to him how it is possible to live in society without being corrupted by it. One must study philosophy but have simple tastes. One should puts one energy to helping society progress. Once back in Poland, our hero buys back his family estate, marries his childhood sweetheart and enters the parliament determined to support a progressive agenda.
The translation by Thomas Hoisington won the PEN/Book-of-the-Month-Club Translation Prize in 1993 and is a major reason why this book is such fun to read. The pacing is swift while the style is humorous. Hoisington finds several tricks to make the book more fun. He has the benevolent Quaker speak in the manner of the Pennsylvania who retained the use of "thy-thine-thou" and other anachronisms such as "dost" into the twentieth century. I find it hard to believe that Krasicki who never spoke English would have been aware of the speaking habits of American Quakers. However, Hoisington's device works admirably well. It clearly defines one character and links him to the Quakers who were the leaders of the early abolitionist movement.
This is a five star book with a five star translation. I recommend it to GoodRead members of Polish descent or having Polish in-laws. It is a wonderful introduction to one of Poland's finest intellectuals.

[carol. · Rating 3 out of 5]

krasicki, kocham cię, ale TAK się zawiodłam, liczyłam na coś… hm, innego? językowo bardziej ujmującego? znając talent księdza biskupa. i co? i wracam do wzdychania nad kubusiem (fatalistą)

[Veronica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pozycja obowiązkowa dla każdego, kto jest miłośnikiem literatury (zwłaszcza polskiej).

[Weronika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biorąc pod uwagę, że jest to pierwsza polska powieść to naprawdę nie było tragedii!

[Iza Bela · Rating 2 out of 5]

[2.5] No takie średnie

[LaCitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Forse mi aspettavo qualcosina di più da questo romanzo che comunque è carino, ma un poco lento nella parte centrale.
Niccolò viene presentato come un giovane ricco, viziato e sprovveduto che si fa letteralmente spennare da chiunque finchè, per colpa di un naufragio, si ritrova a vivere sull'isola di Nipu in mezzo alla popolazione indigena. La seconda parte è un tantino noiosa fatta degli insegnamenti che Niccolò riceve da uno degli isolani, Xiaoo. Per l'amor del cielo, tutte cose condivisibilissime e di assoluto buon senso, ma dopo un po' parte lo sbadiglio anche perchè il mito del "buon selvaggio" opposto alla corruzione dei costumi europei stanca. Nella terza parte il romanzo si riprende e racconta il viaggio avventuroso per tornare nella madre patria. Qualche intermezzo morale c'è anche qui, ma inframezzato da avventure varie.
Complessivamente per quanto non rientrerà tra i miei preferiti, sono contenta di avere letto questo romanzo perchè è pieno di stimoli ed un modo per farsi un'idea la Polonia dell'epoca.

[gluchoWICZKA · Rating 2 out of 5]

Albo mi mózg wypadł uchem, albo panu Krasickiemu.
Nie wiem kogo odkleiło bardziej... mnie podczas czytania, czy jego podczas pisania.

Niby to Kandyd po 15 latach w Polsce, ale w sumie nie do końca.

(2.5 bo naprawdę bawiłam się zaskakująco dobrze)

[Marcelina Szulc · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tu się wydarzyło więcej niż w całym moim życiu XD

[Nikkie 🧚🏻 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Szczerze mówiąc, nie spodziewałam się, że w pierwszej polskiej powieści NIE dostanę typowej polskiej ksenofobii a wręcz przeciwnie - zwrócenie uwagi na wady naszego społeczeństwa przy przedstawieniu społeczeństwa wyspy Nipu - pacyfistów i weganin, a nawet krytykę kolonializmu i niewolnictwa. Całkiem inne niż satyry - co pokazało mi jak wybitnym twórcom był Krasicki.

[leniwyczytacz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ta książka mnie przeorała psychicznie - dalej się zastanawiam, jakim cudem to skończyłam 🫡.

[księgi zakazane · Rating 2 out of 5]

końcówka miła

[viks · Rating 1 out of 5]

huj ci krasicki

[Hadrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

6,5/10
Pierwsza polska powieść, polski "Kandyd", polska robinsonada. Można byłoby wymienić znaczną ilość wpływów i inspiracji, które skłoniły Krasickiego do napisania "Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego", ale to właśnie powiastka filozoficzna Woltera jest najbardziej oczywistym pierwowzorem. Podobny schemat fabularny, elementy utopii, szczypta humoru.

Niestety, powieść Krasickiego to po prostu przetworzenie zachodnich wzorców z zaszczepieniem zaledwie kilku własnych idei i spostrzeżeń. Te zwykle dotyczą sytuacji wewnętrznej Polski - zły stan edukacji i tradycyjnego wychowania, marazm polityczny, braki w wykształceniu prawników. W czasach, gdy pisane były "Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki" to były palące problemy, które pośrednio przyczyniły się do upadku Rzeczpospolitej dwie dekady później, ale nawet słynny biskup warmiński nie zaproponował realnych wskazówek do naprawy stanu rzeczy.

Można powiedzieć, że całkiem nieźle bawiłem się przy niektórych fragmentach przygód Doświadczyńskiego, a kilka żartów zapadło w pamięć (scenka z nożem czy w zakładzie obłąkanych). Nie miałem wysokich oczekiwań wobec pierwszej polskiej powieści, więc nie czuję szczególnego rozczarowania. Ale mogło być znacznie lepiej.

[Kato But Tolkien's version · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nie spodziewałam się, że będzie to fajna historia, chociaż czasami trudno się czytało, głównie przez język, ale zostałam miło zaskoczona :> Myślę, że bardzo warto przeczytać to raz w życiu chociaż więc polecam :>

[Natalia575 · Rating 3 out of 5]

,,Serca czułe nie potrzebują wykwintnych oświadczeń."

,,(...) kochana żono; ty wiesz, ale niech wie świat cały, żeś jest słodyczą życia mojego."

,,(...) a w szczęśliwym pożyciu milsze zmarszczki poczciwej żony niż modne płochych amantek pieszczoty."

[zuzanka · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
im genuinely excited abt stateczki, skarby i dramy o hajs zupełnie mnie nie obchodzi, że celem tej powieści jest coś innego

[Monika]

ej chłopaki, dajcie spisać zadanie domowe/j

[Hania♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

fajne to było

[Maja Glimasińska · Rating 3 out of 5]

skończyłam..spóźniona miesiąc ale skończyłam, całkiem mnie mikołajek rozbawił

[Werka · Rating 3 out of 5]

taka baja

[ola · Rating 3 out of 5]

zdecydowanie wybrzmiewają wolterowskie echa: utopia, charyzmatyczny dowcip, „absurdalne” zwroty akcji i pewien nadmiar w tym; po prostu „Kandyd” przełożony na realia polskiego oświecenia, a moze nawet gorszy? (chociaż inspiracja Wolterem z pewnością nie jest tu jedyną)

[madzia · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Zionist Lover Of Israel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicholas Wisdom, opens by announcing that he writes to occupy himself while avoiding gout and boredom. His tone is wryly self-satisfied, but the reader soon learns that he was raised among fools and flatterers. His father is a small-town noble who mistakes drunken hospitality for patriotism and his own gout for martyrdom to the fatherland. His mother is a pious simpleton who believes ignorance to be virtue and education a mortal threat to her son's innocence. Between them, they produce a child soaked in superstition, vanity, and laziness.

Their Enlightenment household is a museum of rural backwardness where servants gossip about witches, dream omens, and village scandals
The young boy Wisdom listens, memorizes, and imitates.

He learns to lie before he learns to read. His earliest triumphs come from being called clever by indulgent adults too inebriated to notice that he is merely talkative. Then one day his uncle arrives, an educated man who does not drink to excess, does not laugh at childish nonsense, and asks a horrifying question: can the boy read? The answer is no. Within days Nicholas is packed off to school, and his tearful departure marks his first encounter with discipline, learning, and disappointment.

At school he meets the Polish Enlightenment's favorite villain: the incompetent teacher. Lessons are dull, beatings frequent, and curiosity punished. Nicholas learns to hate books almost as much as he hates the Latin grammar used to teach them.

When he returns home, his parents hire a private tutor, a Frenchman named Damon who embodies everything the age despised about false sophistication. Damon pretends to culture, quotes philosophers he has not read, and lives on flattery and borrowed cash. He fills Nicholas's head with sentimental novels, teaches him the poses of fashionable melancholy, and assures him that reason is vulgar when compared to refined feeling. The young man, eager to imitate civilization, begins to confuse desire with virtue and sighs his way into moral idiocy.

Nicholas's education continues through humiliation. He falls in love with Julie, a woman as vapid and theatrical as the heroines of his novels, and soon learns that romance is a form of self-ruin disguised as taste. His efforts to live like a man of feeling cost him his dignity, his money, and eventually his estate.

When he ventures to Warsaw, he finds that the capital is a stage where everyone performs wealth while secretly drowning in debt. The city reeks of powder, perfume, and hypocrisy. Society lives on gossip and fashion, politics runs on bribery, and the courts function as a comedy of corruption where influence triumphs over justice. Nicholas wins one lawsuit only to lose another through the same frauds that had helped him before. Lublin proves no better, its lawyers a parody of reason and its judges a chorus of venal incompetence.

From there he travels to Paris, the glittering heart of European folly. There, he is welcomed into the salons of libertines and swindlers who applaud his gullibility while relieving him of his last coins.

He meets Count Fickiewicz, a Polish aristocrat transformed into a French rake, whose dissipations convince Nicholas that wit without virtue is simply vice with vocabulary.

Surrounded by courtiers and courtesans, Nicholas begins to see that civilization itself can be as barbaric as the provinces he left behind. When at last his fortune collapses, he flees Europe in disgust, sailing eastward in search of peace and finding instead shipwreck.

He washes ashore on the island of Nipu, a place that looks like paradise until one spends more than an hour there. The Nipuans live according to the pure principles of reason: they eat vegetables, reject money, refuse weapons, and never quarrel. Their society is serene, uniform, and almost entirely dead. Books are forbidden, emotions discouraged, laughter regarded as frivolous. Their language contains no words for sin or deceit, which makes conversation brief but exhausting. The island's philosopher, Xaoo, explains that they have perfected happiness by eliminating every cause of desire.

Work replaces pleasure, obedience replaces curiosity, and ignorance passes for peace. Nicholas admires their virtue until he realizes that virtue without imagination is another form of stupidity. Still, he learns from them moderation, industry, and the wisdom of avoiding extremes.

After years among the Nipuans, Nicholas leaves and is immediately punished for doing so. He is captured by a Spanish slaver, chained, and sent to the mines of Potosi. From there he is rescued by a benevolent Quaker named William, who introduces him to a different kind of virtue: active charity.

Later, he is taken aboard the ship of the margrave de Vennes, a worldly philosopher who serves as the final and most balanced of Nicholas's mentors. De Vennes teaches that moral purity without practicality leads to tyranny, and that wisdom lies not in fleeing the world but in navigating it sensibly. He believes in tolerance, moderation, and the usefulness of experience. Where Xaoo preached detachment, de Vennes advocates participation. A man, he says, must live among other men or else cease to be one.

Nicholas's education, after so many schools, teachers, and shipwrecks, finally converges into clarity. He returns home through Spain and France, observing both superstition and sophistication with equal irony.

Once back on his inherited estate, he applies what he has learned: he manages his lands fairly, governs his peasants humanely, and avoids both fanaticism and idleness. He marries Julie, now suitably chastened by time, and builds a house dedicated to the memory of Xaoo, though he lives according to the common sense of de Vennes.

By the end, Nicholas Wisdom has discovered that the true adventure is not travel but equilibrium.

Krasicki’s satire spares no one, not peasants or nobles, not patriots or philosophers. Poland, Paris, and paradise all receive their share of mockery. What survives unscathed is moderation itself, the only enlightenment that does not expire in excess.

Ignacy Krasicki was the Enlightenment's most polished Pole: a prince of poets, a bishop with the mind of a satirist, and an intellectual who preferred order to ecstasy. He lived in a country that was crumbling politically while pretending to be philosophically modern. As the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth collapsed under its own aristocratic inertia, Krasicki tried to civilize it with literature. His sermons came disguised as fables, his political despair hidden behind wit.

He was a man born into contradiction. A cleric who admired Voltaire, a subject of both the Polish king and Frederick the Great, a reformer who distrusted revolution. His life was a balancing act between obedience and irony.

He saw Poland's noble class drunk on freedom yet ignorant of its duties, and he diagnosed their disease as a failure of education and moderation. The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom was his remedy: a handbook for moral rehabilitation dressed up as an adventure story.

He believed that virtue could be taught, that folly was curable, and that a nation might save itself through reason. Nicholas's journey is the education Poland never had. The hero begins in provincial darkness, travels through the fashionable corruption of Europe, discovers the sterile perfection of utopia, and ends by finding balance at home.

The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom is a curious hybrid. Half sermon, half satire, and entirely a product of its age's faith in Reason, that fragile deity of the Enlightenment who promised to make men good if only they would stop being interesting. The novel is intelligent, neat, and well-behaved. It smiles where it ought to laugh, instructs where it ought to wound, and congratulates itself on never losing its temper.

[мая · Rating 4 out of 5]

kandyd w wydaniu polskim tyle że mikołaj lepiej traktuje swoją dziewczynę

[Martyna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Szczerze mówiąc, podobała mi się ta książka. Język jest trudny, konstrukcja zdań i zastosowane słowa sprawiają, że na pewno nie można przy tej książce się zrelaksować. Trzeba zachować czujność, aby nie zgubić się w akcji i nie cofać się, by ponownie przeczytać minione strony. Mimo to, ma w sobie wiele wartości i widzę oświeceniowe ideały. Mieszkańcy Nipu niosą ze sobą bardzo ponadczasowe wartości, z których można wywnioskować coś dla siebie i dla ówczesnego świata. Zastanawiałam się nad trzema gwiazdkami, ale myślę, że zasługuje na więcej. Jedynym mankamentem był dla mnie język, ale to nic dziwnego, skoro książka została napisana w czasach oświecenia. Polecam, choć to nie jest lektura dla każdego.

[ravenvsawyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Przez początek strasznie ciężko było mi przebrnąć, zważywszy na oświeceniowy styl pisania (i to, że nigdy mnie zbytnio nie porywały problemy polskiej szlachty), jednak gdy już się przyzwyczaiłam, przez księgę drugą i trzecią dosłownie przeleciałam. Bardzo szybko zmienia się bieg wydarzeń, co nadaje tempa i utrzymuje ciekawość. Nie dam profesjonalnej recenzji, bo jeszcze będę tę książkę omawiać na zajęciach, ale ostatecznie zostawiła mnie z pozytywnym wrażeniem.

[Marcin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considered the first Polish novel with elements of fantasy (a utopian story) and read on the 250th anniversary of Polish Fantasy (according to its publication date of 1776).

What can be said about this novel... the first book is irritating, the second astonishing, and the third entertaining.

Is it worth reading? Yes, but you need to be prepared and not be put off by the language, which can be a bit intimidating at first.

[Serny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel demonstrates how Polish literature is at the same time one of the most original and underestimate (that's so sad) of all. What a great novel! A XVIII's book with such an original and contemporary philosophy. Loved it!!

[julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

nahhh bro
why this was actually SO good??

chyba moje ulubione dzieło krasickiego, sam styl był wielką ulgą, bo naprawdę przyjemny w odbiorze. a jakie mądrości tu są, serio

mikołaj i xaoo chodzący po tej wyspie kinda jezus chrystus i jakiś ewangelista vibes