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Monika Bednarczuk

• Jan Czeczot (1796–1847) was a poet and ethnographer, one of the Philomaths and youth friends of Adam Mickiewicz. The article presents the development of the poet’s work and ideas and analyzes the political context of his literary and ethnographic activities. As a poet, he is not worthy of much attention. However, both Polish and Byelorussian scholars highlight his enthusiasm for folk culture thereby almost self-evidently creating a link to his supposedly democratic ideas – but this is only partially justified. It is true that the Philomaths were inspired by the local folklore and that Czeczot was more interested than the others in the culture and the situation of lower social groups. But the opposite is also true to a certain extent. Whilst at University of Vilnius, neither he nor his student mates appear to have questioned the old socioeconomic order based on serfdom, for even the progressive students drew a rigid distinction between the gentry (with Polish as their main language of communication) and the peasantry (with Byelorussian as their native language). The same goes for ethnic identity: Czeczot did not define himself as Byelorussian. Byelorussian and Lithuanian gentry families gradually polonized after the Polish-Lithuanian Union of 1569. However, important changes in the power relations took place at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Due to the partitions, Poland lost its independence, but the Byelorussians became in a way united thanks to the Russian Empire. The paper explores the consequences of these circumstances and assesses their impact on Czeczot's ideas, for his efforts to preserve the folk culture and strengthen the solidarity between Polish or Polonized landowners and Byelorussian peasants resulted notably from historical developments in the region. The author maintains that Czeczot's ethnographic and social engagement was to a great extent an attempt at bringing the Byelorussians back, in a metaphorical sense, to the Polish-Lithuanian nation.