Janion died on Sunday evening in Warsaw. She was a tutor for many generations of Polish humanists: writers, publicists, scientists, academic lecturers, journalists, publishers and teachers.
She was the author of several dozen books and several hundred studies, articles, sketches and reviews. She has written over 20 books, incl. “Romantic fever” and “Amazing Slavic region”. In his publications, prof. Janion dealt with Polish national myths.
Maria Janion has a special place in Polish humanities. She has developed her own, very personal and contemporary understanding of Romanticism. After many years, when Romantic poetry was treated as a kind of untouchable historical and literary open-air museum, her “Romantic Rush” (1975) was a revelation for many. Under her pen, romantic characters came to life, a romantic understanding of the world suddenly turned out to be the key to understanding the present day. Maria Janion brought Romanticism out of the ghetto of literary and historical terms, creating a category out of it that defines a certain way of thinking and evaluating the world, valid in all times and epochs.
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