Vegetarianism on the Vistula River in the Literature at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Abstract

The article is devoted to the reception of vegetarianism in Polish literature at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The study recalls the most important popular science publications raising the issues of the vegetarian diet (including the works of Moes-Oskragiełło, Drzewiecki, Jankowski and Jastrzębowski), which are confronted with the literary images of vegetarians (in the works of Reymont, Weyssenhoff, Rodziewiczówna and Mazanowski). The subject of vegetarianism and vegetarians presented in Polish prose evolved over the first decades of the 20^th century. Initially, it was identified mainly with a type of diet, and its followers were the elderly, often marginalized by society. Combining vegetarianism with the ethical issue regarding killing of animals can be seen in Rodziewiczówna and Mazanowski’s novels. In literary images of vegetarians, we will also find echoes of popular science publications about a vegetarian diet that has been emerging since the 1890s.