page_title: Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
section_title: Early life and studies
hierarchical_section_title: Józef Ignacy Kraszewski / Biography / Early life and studies
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Romanów - zespół pałacowy, obecnie muzeum: - pałac (1806, 1962) - grobowiec rodziny Kraszewskich (XIX) - park otoczony fosami (XVI-XIX) zabytek A-49 z 11.11.1966
context_page_description: Józef Ignacy Kraszewski was a Polish writer, publisher, historian, journalist, scholar, painter, and author who produced more than 200 novels and 150 novellas, short stories, and art reviews, which makes him the most prolific writer in the history of Polish literature and the seventh most prolific in the world. He is best known for his epic series on the history of Poland, comprising twenty-nine novels in seventy-nine parts.
  The son of a nobleman, Kraszewski studied at the University of Vilna between 1829 and 1830. He was imprisoned from 1830 to 1832 for participating in a secret patriotic organization. Banished from Congress Poland in 1863, he settled in Dresden, where he remained until 1884. Throughout his life he was active in publishing and journalism. He began publishing in 1830, gradually evolving from a romantic to a realist writer. His literary legacy consists of about 600 volumes of prose, poetry, drama, literary criticism and works on history and philosophy.
context_section_description: Kraszewski was born on 28 July 1812 as the oldest son of Jan Kraszewski and Zofia Kraszewska née Malska. He was born to a noble family whose manor was located in Dołhe near the town of Pruzhany, however, he was born in Warsaw because of his mother who came there in 1812 in fear of the military activities of Napoleon's army heading for Moscow. He spent his childhood in his grandmother's mansion in Romanów in the Podlasie region, where he would come back eagerly when he was young (nowadays the J. I. Kraszewski Museum is located there). From 1822 he went to schools in Biała Podlaska, Lublin and Świsłocz, and in 1829 he commenced studies in Wilno: first he studied medicine, then – despite his father's disapproval – literature. After the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising in November 1830, he and a group of his friends were arrested and he was kept in a Russian prison for more than a year, and, once released, he stayed in Vilna under strict police surveillance. When he was finally allowed to come back to Dołhe, Kraszewski continued the literary work he had started in Vilna and completed his education (as the Russian authorities had closed down the local University). The habit of avid but careful reading of literature and reviews from all around Europe would not leave him till his death.
caption: Childhood home in Romanów
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