Quote by Bolesław Prus: “A nation's freedom begins in the mind.”

Political liberation requires more than changed laws or new rulers. Before a people can be free in the world, they have to conceive of themselves as free in their own minds — to stop accepting subordination as natural or inevitable. The revolution happens first in how people think about themselves and what they deserve.

Prus wrote Pharaoh between 1894 and 1895 as a historical novel about ancient Egypt, but contemporary Polish readers understood it as an allegory about their own situation under partition. Poland had been divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria for over a century. Questions of how a nation regains its sovereignty and inner dignity were urgently current.

Polish novelist, journalist, and philosopher widely regarded as one of the greatest prose writers in Polish literature. His novel The Doll is considered the supreme achievement of Polish realism, and Pharaoh is a historical epic set in ancient Egypt that served as a political allegory about power and decline. He wrote during the period when Poland was partitioned among foreign powers.