Bartłomiej Beniowski 1800-1867. Cosmopolitical Chartist and Revolutionary Refugee
Bartłomiej Beniowski 1800-1867. Cosmopolitical Chartist and Revolutionary Refugee

Author(s): Emma Harris
Subject(s): History, Language and Literature Studies, Cultural history, Studies of Literature, 19th Century, British Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Bartłomiej Beniowski; Polish post-1831 émigrés; Polish democrats; Chartism; Phrenotypics
Summary/Abstract: This is the first reconstruction in either Britain or Poland of the life of Bartłomiej Beniowski, a Polish post-1831 émigré who was the only foreign refugee to play an identifiable role in early London Chartism.It places Beniowski’s Chartist record in the context of his earlier political affiliations, and explores his post-Chartist political allegiances. It investigates his success in 1840s London as a mnemonist who developed a system that he called “Phrenotypics,” and his invention in the 1850s of printing techniques which were taken up for commercial exploitation by a group of entrepreneurial Liberal M.P.s.It is the biography of an exceptional and colourful individual, acted out against a vast multi-cultural backdrop, from tsarist Russia to Liberal England via Orléanist France and Muhammad Ali’s Egypt. It reveals a life-long commitment to the cause of Polish independence, along with consistent advocacy of democracy and championship of the oppressed, including vocal campaigns for Jewish civil rights. It provides the narrative of a life that illustrates contemporary European political and social movements and their bearing on 19th-century British labour history.

• Details
• Contents