This article represent an attempt at interpretation of the work Hymn by Zygmunt Krasiński
which was written at the turn of 1838/1839. Three planes of experience are incorporated in this
verse — the Passion of Christ, the sufftering of the Mother of God and the martyrdom of Poland
rent asunder by the partitions — all closely interwined, forming together a Messianic vision of the
history of the nation viewed in the categories of martyrdom, sacrifice and resurrection against the
background of the catastrophic picture of the contemporary world. The title of the work — Hymn
— is meant to recall not the genre as in Classicist understanding (ceremonial laudatory ode) but
the traditions of hymns as religious songs. Depiction and style of the work, and also the vision of
the world based on a play of opposites, with roots reaching back to the Baroque and the poetry of
the Barska Confederation growing out of that tradition, conjoining Patriotic calls with the
religious element Comparison of Krasinski’s poem, his poetic vision with the verse by J. Słowacki
under the same title (,,O! Holy Mother of God! O Holy Virgin!”), written during the time of the
November Uprising, being a call to take up arms, ilustrates the passage in Romantic poetry from
Tyrtaic challenges to the Messianic concept of sacrifice and the attempts to understand the sense of
history by creating one’s own historiosophic conceptions
