MICINSKI, TADEUSZ

born Nov. 9, 1873, Ldz, Pol., Russian Empire died February 1918, near Chirikova, Russia writer, poet, and playwright of the Neoromantic period of Polish literature, a forerunner of Expressionism and Surrealism. Micinski studied philosophy at the University of Krakw, traveled in Germany and Spain, and was influenced by Polish messianism and by Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Micinski's passionate metaphysical concerns led him to an obsessive concentration on the problem of good and evil. His major works are strange and fantastic depictions of imaginary societies in which human embodiments of moral opposites engage in combat, using the weapons of mystical awareness and revolutionary political action. His novel Nietota. Ksiega tajemna Tatr (1910; Nietota: The Secret Book of the Tatra Mountains) is an imaginary re-creation of Polish life at the beginning of the 20th century. In the apocalyptic visions of his novel Xiadz Faust (1913; Father Faust), Micinski predicted that PolishRussian brotherhood would come about through revolution. At the end of World War I Micinski was assassinated in the chaos of the Russian Revolution while he was helping to organize the Polish armed forces.