BRZOZOWSKI, STANISLAW (LEOPOLD)

born June 28, 1878, Maziarnia, near Chelm, Pol., Russian Empire [now in Poland] died April 30, 1911, Florence, Italy , pseudonym Adam Czepiel Polish critic, novelist, and playwright who is considered to be a major force in 20th-century Polish literature. Brzozowski was educated in Russian schools in Lublin (now in Poland) and in Ukraine. He was a student leader at Warsaw University but was suspended for a year for his political activities. Blackmailed by the police for a youthful indiscretion, he was accused (evidently falsely) of being an agent of the secret police. He went to Galicia (then under Austrian rule) in 1905 but, having contracted tuberculosis in a Warsaw jail, moved to Italy for his health. He continued his literary activities there until his death at age 33. Brzozowski's first novel, Plomienie (1908; Flames), is a fictional account of the Russian revolutionary movements connected with the secret organization Zemlya i Volya (Land and Freedom). His novel Sam wsrd ludzi (1911; Alone Among Men) is the first volume of what was intended to be a series of examinations of the philosophical and political transformation of European consciousness. A third novel was incomplete at his death. Brzozowski's philosophy was a complex synthesis of philosophical and literary influences including Romanticism, Marxism, and Roman Catholic modernism. Brzozowski's major philosophical achievement is his so-called philosophy of work, his belief that the foundation of freedom lies in the power of human hands over nature. He uses this thesis in his incisive analyses of the connections between culture and society, perhaps best noted in his critical work Legenda Mlodej Polski (1909; The Legend of Young Poland).