Romanticism towards history

The article concerns the attitude of Romanticism to history: the phenomenon of historicism and its pre-Romantic development, reaching out to the traditions of other cultures and nations, publication of works distant in time and space, the cult of the North and medievalism, interest in pre-Christian times and in the Middle Ages. Another perspective is constituted by relativisation of the point and time of reference in aesthetics, religion and poetic, visual and musical imagination, the emergence of the concept of picturesqueness, which defies clearly defined criteria. The issues of freedom and patriotism, determined by the historical situation of various countries, contribute to the special places in romantic culture held by Greece (its culture, art and eventual decline) and Poland. The article contains fragments of selected works created by Romantic writers and their predecessors from a number of European countries.