The author of the article demonstrates the ways of functioning of the biography, intellectual thought and work of Ignacy Krasicki in the literature of the second half of the nineteenth century. References to the literary, ideological and biographical heritage of the poet by positivists and modernists reveal Krasicki’s importance to culture and literature during the second half of the 19th century. The basic goal is to extract from different texts (poet’s biographies, portraits, profiles, studies, synthetic approaches as well as literature - poetry, novels, drama) written by writers, critics and historians of Polish literature, positivism and modernism of modes of references to the shape and heritage of the prince’s poets. The return of positivists and modernists to Krasicki means the possibility of diagnosing one’s own present, and also facilitates defining the identity of culture with its limitations and deficits