Florian Ceynowa

Florian Ceynowa (Kashubian "Florión Cenôwa") (May 4, 1817 – March 26, 1881) was a doctor, political activist, writer, and linguist. He undertook efforts to identify Kashubian language, culture and traditions. He and Alexander Hilferding were not the only ones to study the language and legends of the Kashubians, but they had the greatest influence and prompted others to take up investigations. The individual nature of the Kashubian character and language was first described by Hilferding, to whom we are indebted for the first data about the range of Kashubian dialects. In 1856, he and Ceynowa traveled to the Kashubia. He awakened Kashubian self-identity, thereby opposing Germanisation and Prussian authority, and Polish nobility and clergy. He believed in a separate Kashubian identity and strove for a Russian-led pan-Slavic federation. He strove to create a program aimed at the introduction of a Kashubian standard in grammar, pronunciation and spelling, based on the spirit of the 1848 Revolution. He compiled treatises on Kashubian grammar and published Kashubian texts along with their translations into other Slavic languages. An important person for Kashubian literature, he was also a translator of Russian texts into Kashubian language.
Ceynowa was a pioneer of the nationalist movement among the Kashubian people in the mid-19th century. He was part of an attempt to take the Prussian garrison in Preußisch Stargard (Starogard Gdański) during 1846, but the operation failed when his 100 combatants, armed only with scythes, decided to abandon the site before the attack was carried out.