Home Army in the Poetry of Jerzy Ficowski

The article presents the evolution of the theme of Armia Krajowa (Home Army) and the Warsaw Uprising, in Ficowski’s poetry. The theme, engaged by the poet in the late 1940s (Ołowiani żołnierze, 1948), was quickly abandoned as incompatible with the imaginary, magical direction in the development of young Ficowski’s poetry. Neither was the theme fostered by the general political background of the “dead season” of Communist Poland, by censorship, and by Ficowski’s fear of settling for the post-Romantic stereotype and patriotic myth-making. The theme returned in the 1970s (Gryps, 1979; Errata, 1981), which was related to Ficowski’s decision to liberate himself from self-censorship, and his readiness to express the once repressed content in his own, mature poetic idiom. The present study presents two aspects of historical narration in the Home-Army poems from the 1970s: the fabulous quality, which positions history in Ficowski’s private topics and intimate memory, and the scientific, naturalistic quality, which relates history to physical and cosmic categories. Both aspects redeem the poetry from the narrow specificity of Polish national myth, and make it possible to reconcile individual truth of the experience of death and suffering with the discourse of concepts and historiosophy, which also touches upon the cosmic order

“I think that poets and, more broadly, all artists have some certain cognitive impatience in them”: An Interview with Professor Jerzy Kandziora about Stanisław Barańczak, Conducted by Karolina Król

The interview covers the subject of Stanisław Barańczak and his works. Pondering on the way the poet pictures the existence of God in his poems is an important part of the text. Another crucial subject is the way Barańczak deals with his illness and portrays it in his poetic works. In the interview Jerzy Kandziora – an exquisite reasercher of the poetry written by Barańczak and Jerzy Ficowski − mentions his private relationship with both Barańczak and his wife

Sorcerer’s Apprentice (jerzy Ficowski and Julian Tuwim Meet on A Gypsy Trail)

Szkic rekonstruuje w oparciu o archiwalną korespondencję między poetami wczesny okres zainteresowań cyganologicznych Jerzego Ficowskiego, którym towarzyszyła znajomość z Julianem Tuwimem, jego życzliwy, choć ambiwalentny, bo ideologizujący patronat. Przyciąganie się tych dwóch osobowości – Tuwima i Ficowskiego – w ówczesnym stalinowskim kontekście politycznym miało także negatywne następstwa. Nadało szczególny dramatyzm tej ryzykownej sytuacji, polegającej na przekraczaniu przez Ficowskiegobadacza granic zamkniętej obyczajowości cygańskiej, i równoczesnym wprowadzeniu do oficjalnego, skażonego ideologią życia literackiego poetki cygańskiej Bronisławy Wajs – Papuszy. Ceną za przyswojenie jej poezji szerszemu odbiorcy stał się ostracyzm wspólnoty cygańskiej, który wykluczył Papuszę z tej społeczności i zrodził u niej chorobę nerwową wynikającą z poczucia zagrożenia.Based on archival correspondence between the two poets, the sketch reconstructs theearly period of Jerzy Ficowski’s interest in the Romani people, together with his acquaintancewith Julian Tuwim and the latter’s benevolent albeit ambivalent – highly ideologised - patronage.In the period’s Stalinist political context, the mutual intellectual attraction of the two personalitieshad also negative consequences. The precarious situation that involved Ficowski-the researchercrossing the borders of insular Romani customs and, simultaneously, introducing theRomani poet Bronisława Wajs (Romani name: Papusza) into the official literary mainstreamtainted by ideology, was, therefore, particularly dramatic. Ostracism of the Romani community,which eventually banished Papusza, proved to be the price for presenting her poetry to a widerrange of readers. The ensuing sense of threat she experienced eventually led to a mental disorder

Odwoływanie granic (Biograficzne i poetyckie przekroczenia Jerzego Ficowskiego)

Revoking boundaries (Jerzy Ficowski’s biographical and poetic transcension) The article describes the phenomenon of “revoking” or transcending boundaries, present both in the family tradition and biography of Jerzy Ficowski and in his artistic choices. The biographical reflection focuses especially on the figure of the poet’s father, a bearer of the multicultural experiences of Polish communities in pre-revolutionary Russia, the post-war contacts Ficowski had with emigrant authors and the Jewish diaspora, as well as on the poet’s transcending the boundaries of state-censored works in the mid 1970s. At the same time, the article is looking for a iunctim between the openness encoded in Ficowski’s biography and his poetic language. In doing so, it describes the latter’s qualities, such as meaning inconstancy, semantic opalization of words, homonyms and antonyms incessantly destabilizing the boundaries of word and verse, that seem to be an equivalent of the discussed openness. In particular, attention is drawn to the influence the 1970s had on boosting the semantic potential of Ficowski’s poetry. Key words: Jerzy Ficowski; Tadeusz Ficowski; multiculturalism; hieroglyph; history in poetry; immigration literature

Hidden Witnesses, or What Is Left (in Ficowski’s Book and in the Real World) of Two Colleagues of Bruno Schulz

Among the earliest witnesses of Bruno Schulz’s life known by Jerzy Ficowski were two lawyers from Drohobych, Michał Chajes and Izydor Friedman (after the war Tadeusz Lubowiecki). Although they played a particularly large role in the early formation of knowledge about Schulz and gave a detailed characteristic of the writer, they were not mentioned by Jerzy Ficowski in his Regions of the Great Heresy and remained hidden witnesses. The reason lies deep in the realm of genre conventions of Regions, conditioned by literary culture of Ficowski who, formed in the circle of the nineteenth-century

Portraitist Bruno Schulz and His Adolescent Muse. The Photography of Irena Kejlinówna

The article focuses on the photography of eleven-year-old Irena Kejlinówna taken in 1921. Living in Warsaw with her parents, Cecylia and Aleksander, the girl would meet Bruno Schulz in August 1922 during holidays that she spent with her mother in a spa resort in Kudowa (located then in Germany)

The intensity of A. Wat

The article discusses a collection of literary essays "Elementy do portretu. Szkice o twórczości Aleksandra Wata" published and edited by Poznańbased specialists in Polish literature and dedicated to Professor Ewa Wiegandt. The starting point for the discussion is the observation that the authors of the essays had to grapple with the elusiveness and multidimensional character of the output of A. Wat, with the entanglement of the text of his works with the text of his biography, and finally with the multitude of its cultural contexts. The reviewer distinguishes four research currents in the collection of essays, each being a different answer to these particular traits of Wat’s writing. Historical and literary studies in the book show the author in his relations and as a non-categorizable author, and challenge the Futurist character of his juvenile writings by juxtaposing them with earlier Symbolism and later Catastrophism. The interpretative study current tries to find ways to define Wat through reading his individual works. Here, the overriding opposition between ”closeness” and ”openness”, so pivotal in the poet’s works, becomes apparent. The current of thematology that present Wat’s literary topoi in relation to his biography is well represented in the volume. Finally, the studies that cross the strictly literary horizon try to capture the multi-tier structures of Wat’s works, reinterpreting them from the sociological, historical or axiological perspectives. The final conclusion of the review is the acknowledgement of the richness offered by the book that corresponds well to the intensity of works and the biography of the author.Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne. Seria Literack

Jerzy Ficowski on Schulz

According to the title, the author makes an attempt to reconstruct and analyze the rhetoric of Jerzy Ficowski’s works on Schulz. Since rhetoric is understood here as a way of articulating the text, in many cases it overlaps with poetics. The author’s intention is to approach Regions of Great Heresy as a careful reader of both Schulz and Ficowski to show ideological and stylistic affinities between them. An important part of the essay are many statements by Ficowski himself, drawn from his private correspondence (including letters sent to Schulz) and poetry (particularly his first book of poems, Lead Soldiers of 1948, very significant in the context of his Schulz studies). Supplemented by Kandziora’s commentary, Ficowski’s statements shed new light on the methods of critical research on an author whose biography is incomplete, while his manuscripts, letters, and works of art have been either destroyed or scattered. Thus, Ficowski alternates biography and interpretation, trying to reintegrate the entire output of Schulz. The essay belongs to a research project supported by Narodowe Centrum Nauki