Przemoc działania, pokój bezczynu
The violence of action, the peace of inaction

On the (im)pos sibility of a religious reform on the example of the circle of Towiańskiites (anthropological perspective)

Author(s): Agnieszka Bednarek-Bohdziewicz
Subject(s): Cultural history, Studies of Literature, Polish Literature, 19th Century, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: religious reform; communitas; violence; Church system; Mickiewicz; Towiański; mysticism; silence
Summary/Abstract: In the article, I discuss the concept of moral-religious renewal proposed by the Circle of Towiańskiites and the failure of the idea in practice. The main question in the article is: why did these passionate reformers of the official Church follow down the path of ecclesiastical mechanisms even faster than the Church itself? Is the implementation of the idea of moral-ethical and religious renewal necessarily doomed to the dialectic of orthodoxy, reform, and counter-reform? And is this practice always a dangerous existential experiment ending in violence? My answer is inspired by Victor Turner, who has described the phenomenon of communitas, as well as the work of Eugen Drewermann and Tomasz Polak’s analysis of unsuccessful attempts to reform the church system. At the same time, I try to add nuance to the understanding of the ideas of individual activists of the Circle of God’s Cause. For instance, Mickiewicz’s ideology appears as slightly different to that of Towiański’s. Mickiewicz, more than Towiański, calls for a return to metaphysical questions (Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?) instead of focusing only on moral renewal and ethics. Therefore, his religious path cannot be boiled down to two stages: the word and the deed. The poet leans more towards freedom of silence (understood as an attitude). These ideas are present not only in "Liryki lozańskie" and in "Zdania i uwagi" but also in Mickiewicz’s letter to Towiański of 12 May 1847, a moving reckoning with the sins of Towianism.

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