Hues of Sybir

Anna Pisula

Motto: The only beautiful thing there in Kazakhstan was the tulips blooming on the steppes in early spring. After winter, the vast steppes, saturated with meltwater, turned green. As soon as the snow had melted – sometimes as early as late March – tulips of various kinds, shapes and colours would come into bloom. I would find myself asking: who planted them here?

Tomasz Zan arrived in exile in Orenburg in December 1824 as a consequence of the events that went down in history as the ‘Trial of the Philomaths and Philarets’. A year later, he left the prison walls behind, although it should be remembered that he had already been held in custody at the Łukiszki prison in Vilnius since October 1823. All in all, this added up to a year and a half in prison for ‘Arcypromienisty’ [the Arch-Radiant – the leader of the Radiant Society]. It is not difficult to imagine the profound impact that confinement had on him, for in the years that followed, despite continuing hardship, he seemed almost to absorb the wealth of new experiences around him. Exile became for him an immense intellectual and exploratory challenge. The Philomath devoted great interest to observing the indigenous peoples living beyond the Ural Mountains, while also conducting extensive entomological, mineralogical, botanical and geological studies of the natural environment of those regions. Despite his thorough education in the natural sciences under the guidance of the Śniadecki brothers, Tomasz Zan – a graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Vilnius University – did not possess full academic training as a naturalist. Rather, he represented the still distinctly Enlightenment-era model of the explorer: a man who became a researcher somewhat by chance, ‘under the influence of an unexpected turn in his career, a chance encounter, political events, or the desire to fulfil youthful dreams’. To no lesser degree than the pursuit of knowledge about the world surrounding him, his forced departure from home also led Zan towards contemplation and profound reflection. These experiences found expression in the ways he portrayed the Siberian landscape.

Before the November Uprising

Particular attention should be paid not only to the place itself, but also to the historical moment in which the radiant poet found himself in exile. By the 1820s, compulsory residence in distant Russia had already been imposed on some members of the Bar Confederation and participants in the Kościuszko Uprising; however, the texts they produced remained largely unknown. Polish culture had not yet developed an established language for describing the Siberian experience (this would emerge only after the November Uprising, when deportations assumed a mass character). Consequently, Zan could not draw inspiration from earlier writings. Moreover, his own prose works, analysed in this article, did not contribute to shaping the intellectual atmosphere of the period. Naturally, his letters were received only by specific correspondents, while his diary was not published until 1929, owing to the efforts of Maria Dunajówna. To understand the historical moment in which Zan’s exile writings began to emerge, it is also important to remember that political sentiments before 1823 were far more moderate than in later years, especially those following the November Uprising. Although Polish writers were naturally conscious of the reality of the partitions, they rarely expressed strong hostility towards the Tsar or the Russian state at that time. The intellectual climate of the 1820s had not yet made room for phenomena such as Mickiewicz’s messianism. Exiles such as Zan therefore could not interpret their experiences through such a lens. Nevertheless, they too developed ways of transcending painful experience and seeking within it meanings that were both tangible and transcendent. The manner in which these ‘contemporaries of Mickiewicz’ approached exile was shaped by their generational experience of two distinct eras. Bearing in mind Zan’s Enlightenment education, and without definitively assigning him to the Romantic movement, I would like in this text to demonstrate how valuable the findings concerning the paths of Romantic epistemology are for the analysis of his writings – and, at the same time, how profoundly individual Zan remained in his search for meaning within his own experience.

‘Is the Romantic Eye Insensitive to the Colour Violet?’

The world that the exiled Philomath encountered after leaving the prison walls differed profoundly from the vibrant academic life of Vilnius. Fortified Orenburg, through its very architecture, resembled a vast prison. It stood on a frontier territory linking Europe and Asia, which only intensified the sense of estrangement. For the sake of precision, it should be noted that Zan’s exile did not belong to the category of Siberian deportations in the strictly geographical sense; nevertheless, Orenburg formed part of ‘Siberia’ as the term was understood in that era. Joachim Lelewel himself wrote in 1831: ‘Tomasz Zan […] confined for a year in prison in Siberia, in Orenburg, remains to this day a prisoner in that city.’ Zan’s stay in Orenburg began with the trauma of imprisonment in a fortress, among common criminals, in darkness and suffocating air. It is therefore hardly surprising that, once he regained his freedom, he sought solace in the natural world for which he had longed during his prolonged isolation, when he wrote: ‘how sweet it is for a prisoner, amid the stifling air, to dream of groves and flowers.’ His distinctive relationship with nature found expression in his descriptions of the landscape. As Alina Kowalczykowa observed, ‘the landscape of Sybir was appropriated by writers as something bound to Poland by particular ties, permeated with the Polish spirit and with Polish history.‘ ‘Poland,’ the scholar emphasised, ‘was perceived by the Romantics in every landscape – in mountains, steppe, and Siberia alike.’ A similar view was expressed by Jan Trynkowski, who argued that the unifying principle behind the landscape and nature descriptions written by Polish Siberian exiles lay in their tendency to relate every encountered phenomenon to their distant homeland. […]

It is therefore all the more striking that Zan’s descriptions differ from the most widespread model of experiencing and depicting Sybir. The Philomath not only perceived Siberia, but even contemplated it and discovered goodness within it. This attitude found expression in the landscape descriptions recorded in his diary and correspondence. These writings reveal a distinctive relationship with nature. The landscapes perceived by Zan transcended the oppositions of ‘one’s own’ and ‘foreign’, as well as ‘familiar’ and ‘exotic’. Nor did his reflections upon nature invariably lead him towards meditations on the fate of the exile. The following passage from the diary he kept during his exile may serve as an example:

Although, because of the darkness of the air, it was impossible to discern distant and unfamiliar objects, the steppes, covered in fresh greenery and enlivened by the breath of spring, nevertheless made a pleasing impression. We travelled south towards Azel, equidistant from the mountains. The higher steppes gleamed golden with cinquefoil, and the roads with yellow chicory; the valleys were abundant with buttercups, and at times also with wild tulips, while here and there appeared a tiny violet or pale iris.

T. Zan, Note from May 7–11, 1829, in: idem, *Z wygnania. Dziennik z lat 1824–1832*, ed. M. Dunajówna, Vilnius 1929, p. 169.

The richness of the colours perceived by Zan is remarkable, as Zbigniew Sudolski and later Paweł Sobol rightly emphasised. The diarist depicted colours in an extraordinarily varied manner. A comparison between Zan’s descriptions and Stefania Skwarczyńska’s study on colour in the Romantic era allows one to appreciate even more fully his exceptional sensitivity to colour. The distinguished scholar examined the ways in which the perception of colour changed across historical periods. For her, colour constituted the very essence of the processes unfolding between the author of a text and its reader, especially when they are separated by a temporal distance that may at times appear deceptively slight. […]

If the heightened sensitivity to colour sensations was indeed a harbinger of Romanticism, then Zan may be regarded as an excellent representative of that formation. Yet, in his perception of particular colours, he also departed from the conventions of his age. As Skwarczyńska observed:

The Romantic eye is not sensitive to the colour violet; today, within the whole of our chromatic sensibility, it plays a highly significant and autonomous role. […] It was Impressionism, in fact, that truly discovered it. Before then, it remained a value that was scarcely perceived. The Romantic poets scarcely distinguished it from shades of blue; it merged with them almost imperceptibly.

S. Skwarczyńska, The Semantic Value of Colors in Romanticism and Today: Against the Backdrop of Examining the Relationship Between Creator and Recipient, “Pamiętnik Literacki” 1932, no. 3–4, p. 284.

Yet for Tomasz Zan, too, violet played a significant role, as can be seen in the following diary entry: ‘A walk up the hill beyond the mill. The irises are in bloom, violet in colour – some inclining more towards blue, others towards reddish and straw hues, with darker oval markings upon the recurved petals.’ If, therefore, we place our trust in Stefania Skwarczyńska’s observations, we should conclude that Zan possessed an exceptional – indeed pioneering for his era – ability to distinguish between closely related colours, such as violet shading at times into red and at others into blue. He also recorded the presence in nature of such subtle and unusual colours as ‘sea-green’, as well as the previously cited ‘azure’ and ‘straw-coloured’. In the context of the Siberian myth, this is far from insignificant. Through colour, however, Tomasz Zan created an image of Siberia entirely different from the one that would soon be constructed in Part III of Dziady by Adam Mickiewicz and in Anhelli by Juliusz Słowacki, works that would define the Siberian landscape above all through whiteness. […] Zan’s multicoloured Siberia offers an example of how this land was imagined before the convention became firmly established in the 1830s of perceiving it as an empty, white, vast, snow-covered realm. […]

The richness of visual impressions in Tomasz Zan’s descriptions assumed a distinctive character. Such a diverse world blurred the boundaries between objects, creating an image of seamless unity. For Zan, the fluid transitions between the colours composing the landscape were a source of fascination. This preoccupation is reflected in the expressions employed by the diarist, such as ‘to dissolve’ and ‘the transition from one colour into another’:

At times, the whole sky is covered with a translucent cloud, dark and dense on the western side; from its edge there hangs vertically a white river dissolving away [all emphases – A.P.], which gradually reddens as the invisible sun approaches. At last it emerges, casting faint red rays upon the mournful sky; for several minutes it bathes incandescently before vanishing. The river ignites, reddens, turns golden, silver, azure, and dark. What a graceful and indescribable transition from one colour into another.

T. Zan, Note from March 5–8, 1825, in: idem, Z wygnania. Dziennik z lat 1824–1832, ed. M. Dunajówna, Vilnius 1929, p. 50.

Tomasz Zan sought to render nature in words by employing a principle familiar from Impressionist technique: the blurring of the contours of individual objects. For him, it was the transitions between elements of the natural world that became paramount. He effaced the boundaries separating individual forms, and his descriptions of colour focused on the landscape as a whole unfolding before the eye. The key word for understanding the Philomath’s relationship with nature is ‘wholeness’ – understood as the coexistence and harmonious interconnection of all elements within the landscape. […]

The Siberian Journey of (Self-)Discovery

Colours constituted an important dimension within Romantic concepts of cognition and perception. Significantly, the anthology on Romantic epistemology by Maria Cieśla-Korytowska opens precisely with the history of a particular polemic concerning colour. Theory of Colours by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – for it was this work that, in the scholar’s view, defined the debate – expressed opposition to the position represented by Isaac Newton, who regarded colour as an inherent property of the object itself. The author of Faust emphasised the importance of the perceiving subject in the reception of colour. Human beings, he argued, do not perceive the world objectively; rather, they confer qualities upon it, and in perceiving reality simultaneously participate in its creation. Optical impressions therefore reveal as much about the observer as about the object contemplated. Traces of such thinking can also be found in the writings of Tomasz Zan. The Philomath wrote explicitly that the images perceived through sight assume their form because they are interpreted in a particular way by the soul:

The eye alone is incapable of distinguishing the many impressions produced simultaneously by a multitude of objects; this is accomplished by the soul through comparing both the impressions formed in the eye and those impressions received through other thoughts. In this manner the notions of multiplicity and distance are created, and even of their magnitude.

T. Zan, A Survey of the Land [and People], in: Archive of the Philomaths…, p. 104.

Thus, it was not the eye but the soul that processed the impressions received and endowed them with meaning and quality. […] The colour impressions described by Tomasz Zan became particularly intense whenever his gaze turned towards the sky:

The most delightful moments – watching the setting sun, different each day: now through mist and dark clouds it kindles only a fiery column, setting the clouds around it ablaze; now, within the mist, a glowing orb reveals itself to the eye, vanishing and leaving behind a pure, transparent crimson brightness; now, having ignited a cloud stretched above it, it bathes radiant and flushed in a golden, translucent light, from which the white clouds hanging everywhere blush rosy-red, while the entire horizon is covered in pink.

T. Zan, Note from February 11–15, 1825, in: idem, Z wygnania. Dziennik…, p. 45.

Observations of sunsets and the delight in this phenomenon expressed in Zan’s diary were already noted by Zbigniew Sudolski. The scholar sought the source of Zan’s fascination in homesickness, emphasising that, in constructing his descriptions, the exile was ‘always turned towards the West’. According to Jan Trynkowski, such fascination with sunsets was common among exiles. One may, however, point to yet another highly plausible reason why Zan’s ‘most delightful moments’ were connected precisely with the observation of this astronomical phenomenon. As I have sought to demonstrate earlier, in the blurring and ‘dissolving’ of colours the Philomath discerned immense value – a visual sign of the harmonious interconnectedness of all elements of nature. Sunset, meanwhile, constituted a singular moment in the course of the day. It was then, through the diffusion of colours, that one could observe the bond uniting the whole of nature with the heavens. For Tomasz Zan as a Christian, this represented a manifestation of the sacred sphere, revealing itself precisely through the phenomena of nature Sunrise constituted a similarly significant moment. The entire landscape then shimmered with colours emanating from the sky:

Before they had assembled and arranged the seven sleighs, I contemplated the sunrise. The frost was intense; the clouds and mists assumed various forms and colours from the rays. A white pillar appeared above the sun, rising, brightening, and dissolving together with the cloud. Two rainbows, like two columns, stood before the mountain, while others, emerging between the hills, gleamed upon the snow.

T. Zan, Note from 1–15 December 1829, in: idem, Z wygnania. Dziennik…, p. 151.

The ‘dissolving’ and ‘stealthy emergence’ of colours once again reveal the phenomenon that fascinated Tomasz Zan most profoundly: the subtle appearance of colours, their mutual interaction, and the gentle blurring through which individual objects merged into one another. Sunrises and sunsets were of such importance to the Philomath that – as he confessed in a letter to Adam Mickiewicz – he would climb mountains and descend from them in order, by ‘altering the heights of perception’, to prolong the moments spent observing the phenomenon that captivated him.

Indeed, Zan described the sun in a similar manner even before his exile. This is significant, for it seems to challenge the readily suggested hypothesis that the experience of Siberia constituted a turning point for him, an impulse that transformed his perception of the world. […]

This therefore highlights the continuity in Tomasz Zan’s work. Descriptions of the aurora and of the falling evening are almost identical both before his forced departure from his homeland and after this event. It is therefore difficult to attribute to Zan the same attitude towards the transformations of the sky as that which, according to the previously cited scholars, was often characteristic of Siberian exiles. Nor does it seem that a longing for Poland constituted his principal motivation. Sunrise was no less significant for Zan than sunset; both moments were rendered in equally rich (and strikingly similar) detail, and comparable passages can also be found in texts written prior to his exile, even though these phenomena were undoubtedly experienced in Siberia in ways different from those he had known in his homeland. It seems that Zan discerned the meaning of these phenomena precisely in the qualities he himself most strongly emphasised – in the colours poured by the sun across the entire natural world. In this respect, the consistency of Tomasz Zan is striking. It is best illustrated by his own words, written in a letter to Onufry Pietraszkiewicz:

I am as if suspended, swaying upon a harmony hung on rays; you know how sweetly the blood flows, flying upwards and descending back to earth […]. What would they have done with me in Saint Petersburg? And even in Siberia there is for me only one pleasant, delightful light – the dawn, the sun, which we so love – never, never sets.

T. Zan, Letter to Onufry Pietraszkiewicz dated December 12/14, 1823, from Vilnius, in: Archiwum Filomatów [Philomath Archive], Vol. 4: Listy z więzienia [Letters from Prison], Warsaw 2000, p. 118.

The above passage comes from a letter written by Zan while still imprisoned in Łukiszki prison in Vilnius. It was a period in which Tomasz Zan’s access to sunlight was significantly restricted. Moreover, he was then positioned on the threshold between two stages of life – after the intellectually and emotionally fulfilling Philomath period, and before a fate still unknown and undefined, and therefore unsettling. He was confronted with a vague, uncertain future capable of bringing anything. In this context, the words from the letter – ‘and even in Siberia there shines for me only one sun’ – appear as a hyperbolic expression of reassurance. What is striking is that once exile ceased to be merely an imagined prospect and became a reality, Zan nonetheless maintained an unwavering serenity, inspired by the observation of the atmospheric phenomena that most deeply interested him. For this reason, his exile diary is filled with descriptions of sunrises and sunsets. They constitute a cyclically recurring ritual of nature, carrying a metaphysical message. The sun represented for Tomasz Zan the continuity and resilience of nature – its unwavering presence in spite of divisions among human beings. Each day it poured its colours across the globe, thereby affirming the interconnectedness of everything on earth with the heavens.

Particularly revealing is a diary entry in which the author laments the human condition, marked by suffering, yet punctuated at times by brief glimpses from beyond the veil – moments of delight akin to those associated with paradise. These are described in terms of colours and rays:

Sacred words command me to suffer; I see and hear the sufferings of those like me; through them we are to purchase the joys of a future life, which are often, though in a faint beam, granted to the living soul resting for a moment from suffering. Is this the delight of the mind? Is it not rather the power of imagination, which colours the happy dreams of one at rest?

T. Zan, Note dated 16 December 1824, in: From Exile. Diary…, p. 19.

Tomasz Zan blurred the boundary between metaphorical and literal meaning, as he consistently employed these terms within the same experiential context. Rays and colours became for the diarist an almost epiphanic sign of divine presence. […] During his imprisonment in Vilnius, preceding his exile, Zan wrote a letter in which light – and, inseparably from it, warmth – became a metaphor for inner maturation: ‘A prison is a lens for the gathering of thoughts and the intensification of light and heat.’ The conceptual motifs that interested Zan thus became a means of expressing all forms of goodness accompanying his lived experience. In moments of confinement he metaphorised colours, light, and warmth, reflecting upon them in abstract terms. When, however, he had access to fresh air and open space, he turned instead to the description of concrete optical impressions.

The sense of the unity of the world, as well as the merging of subject and object in the act of cognition, invites associations with mystical experience. Yet a few years later, Tomasz Zan himself urged caution in how such experiences – which can give rise to this impression – should be interpreted. Similar states, he argued, might in fact stem from mental illness or from a destructive form of pride:

Fanaticism and an excessively exalted piety lead away from sound imagination, filling the madman with the pride of one who believes himself to be privileged, called to lofty destinies, a messenger of the Highest, a prophet, even a deity; what speech can draw his attention back to reality and truth from such mystical delusions and revelations of his own?

T. ZAN, (Przyczyny chorób zwanych umysłowymi), IN: Archiwum filomatów…, t. 2, s. 123.

This passage, written in a markedly different tone from the earlier descriptions of landscape, appears to be a necessary complement to the theme of mysticising perception. It is, in fact, the only passage in Zan’s surviving writings that addresses such experiences directly. As suggested by Zbigniew Sudolski, the need to write the treatise cited here – a study on the origins of mental illness – may have stemmed from concerns about Tomasz Zan’s own psychological state. This would further support the assumption that the author of these reflections would have been highly cautious about attributing supranatural experiences to himself. Sudolski dates the text to 1841–1843, and thus to more than a decade after the fragments discussed so far. Should it be read as a form of resignation on Zan’s part, a bitter act of self-reflection accompanying his assessment of his Siberian exile (Zan returned to Lithuania in 1841)? This remains a difficult question, revealing the mature writer’s struggle to evaluate his own perception of reality, and for the time being it must remain unanswered.

Siberia – a Place of Self-Knowledge

Siberia, in the depiction of Tomasz Zan, thus became a site of profound self-knowledge. His search for stable and cyclical points in the world led him to transcend the condition of exile: in relation to nature, the Philomath did not perceive himself as an outsider, but as part of a single, harmonious whole. Zan’s manner of describing the Siberian landscape was therefore an expression of his individual spiritual experience, in which the perception of the world’s unity and harmony prevailed. He did not always look towards the setting sun in the direction of his homeland; more often, he devoted himself to contemplating within that sun the deeper metaphysical truths of existence.

Anna Pisula – doctoral candidate at the Doctoral School of Humanities, University of Warsaw. Graduate of Polish Philology (MA) and Iberian Studies (BA) at the University of Warsaw.

I dedicate this article with warmth and sincere respect to Ms Danuta Komorowska and to the memory of her Mother, Lucyna Ożarowska. During the conference, after I had delivered my paper, Ms Komorowska told me how deeply Zan’s experiences reminded her of her own Mother’s account as a Sybirak. This was the most valuable response to my presentation that I could have received. Through this dedication, I wish to express my gratitude for the beautiful conversation and for the opportunity to hear your story.

The full version of the article, including footnotes and bibliography, has been published in: A. Pisula, Romantyczne postrzeganie świata poprzez kolor. Syberia oczami Tomasza Zana [Romantic Perception of the World Through Colour. Siberia Through the Eyes of Tomasz Zan], in: Syberia i Polska, miejsca wspólne w literaturze i historii [Siberia and Poland: Shared Places in Literature and History], ed. M. Dąbrowska, P. Głuszkowski, M. Wyrwa et al., Białystok 2024, pp. 170–184.