The Creative Echoes of Żeromski’s Neurotic Youth, or Writing Derived from Diaries

Until now, Stanisław Żeromski’s writings have not been viewed with regard to literature common to the age of anxiety from the turn of the eighties and nineties of the 19th century, though there are numerous common aspects shared by both. These are clearly discernible in the early works of the writer, written in his youthful days, and shaped among others by J. Ochorowicz’s literary piece Z dziennika psychologa (“From a psychologist’s diary”) concerning the latter’s views on the neuropsychological system of man, the acquired habitual self-analysis and autobiographism rooted in the practical activities of a diarist; all of which surface both in the subject matter, the singularity of style, narration, as well as the composition of later works by the author. By devoting the majority of space and attention to identifying and tracing literary awareness in his intimate notes from 1882 to 1891 – of which one volume carries the title Dziennik człowieka nerwowego (“Diary of the anxious man”) – R. Okulicz-Kozaryn portrays its role in Siłaczka (“The Strongwoman”), Mogiła (“The Grave”) and Źródło (“The Source”), also in Ludzie bezdomni (“The Homeless”). He further claims that Żeromski’s Dzienniki (“Diaries”) should be presented as its laboratory sample, whereas the entire literary output of the writer ought to be interpreted as more advanced consequences of the then initiated experiment.Until now, Stanisław Żeromski’s writings have not been viewed with regard to literature common to the age of anxiety from the turn of the eighties and nineties of the 19th century, though there are numerous common aspects shared by both. These are clearly discernible in the early works of the writer, written in his youthful days, and shaped among others by J. Ochorowicz’s literary piece Z dziennika psychologa (“From a psychologist’s diary”) concerning the latter’s views on the neuropsychological system of man, the acquired habitual self-analysis and autobiographism rooted in the practical activities of a diarist; all of which surface both in the subject matter, the singularity of style, narration, as well as the composition of later works by the author. By devoting the majority of space and attention to identifying and tracing literary awareness in his intimate notes from 1882 to 1891 – of which one volume carries the title Dziennik człowieka nerwowego (“Diary of the anxious man”) – R. Okulicz-Kozaryn portrays its role in Siłaczka (“The Strongwoman”), Mogiła (“The Grave”) and Źródło (“The Source”), also in Ludzie bezdomni (“The Homeless”). He further claims that Żeromski’s Dzienniki (“Diaries”) should be presented as its laboratory sample, whereas the entire literary output of the writer ought to be interpreted as more advanced consequences of the then initiated experiment

W gościnie i u siebie. Karol Irzykowski w „Skamandrze”, „Ponowie” i „Krokwiach”

W latach 1919–1922 Karol Irzykowski podejmował współpracę z trzema czasopismami literackimi: „Skamandrem”, „Ponową” i „Krokwiami”. Okoliczności i przebieg tej współpracy za każdym razem były różne, ale motywacja podobna – krytyk, po I wojnie światowej mieszkający na co dzień w Warszawie, próbował bowiem nie tylko zdobyć orientację w nowych, gwałtownie rozwijających się ruchach poetyckich, ale też uzyskać na nie wpływ. Uważał, że stanowią one – często nieuświadamianą przez ich uczestników – kontynuację awangardowych idei i eksperymentów sprzed wojny, w których brał wydatny udział. Dlatego skamandrytów i ich konkurentów z „Ponowy” obejmował wspólną nazwą Najmłodsza Polska. Od wszystkich wymagał najwyższej świadomości artystycznej wyrażającej się nie tylko w utworach, ale i w programach. Na charakterystyczną dla autorów „Skamandra” niechęć do ich formułowania zareagował słynnym artykułem polemicznym Programofobia. W „Ponowie” docenił skłonności programotwórcze, lecz miał wiele zastrzeżeń do praktyki związanych z nią poetów. Pomimo przynależności do komitetów redakcyjnych obu czasopism jawnie dawał wyraz swoim zastrzeżeniom do ich linii oraz zawartości, stając się dość osobliwym, starszym recenzentem, co prowokowało młodych autorów do ironicznych czy złośliwych reakcji. Inaczej wyglądała współpraca Irzykowskiego z założonym przez Romana Zrębowicza i udatnie nawiązującym do tradycji „Chimery” czasopismem „Krokwie”. Skupione wokół niego środowisko próbowało wylansować kierunek stworzony jeszcze w przedwojennym Lwowie, zwany konstrukcjonalizmem. Krytyk, który uczestniczył wówczas w zebraniach konstrukcjonalistów, sprzyjał ich zamiarom również po wojnie. W ich organie zamieścił rzeczy dla siebie szczególnie cenne: wiersze zmarłego przyjaciela – Stanisława Womeli – i esej Alchemia ciała. Można przypuszczać, że wiązał z „Krokwiami” nadzieje na rozwój twórczości własnej, dla której w „Skamandrze” i „Ponowie” nie znalazłby dogodnego miejsca. Niestety, po wydrukowaniu dwóch zeszytów Zrębowicz musiał zaprzestać wydawania swojego czasopisma

A jednak monady mają okna, czyli jak otworzyć zamknięte na siebie światy literackie

After all the monads have the windows, or how to open the literary worlds that look inwardsThe author reviews the pioneering work of Mindaugas Kvietkauskas dedicated to multilingual literature, which was created in Vilnius at the beginning of the 20th century. The book of the Lithuanian historian of literature emphasises multicultural and multi-ethnical trait of the early literary modernism in Vilnius that was created in five different languages: Lithuanian, Polish, Yiddish, Belarussian and Russian. It proves that what is the most interesting in the multilingual cultural environment takes place at the crossroads of apparently looking inwards and isolated worlds of different language and different literature.

The play of nerves. Chopin in the era of mental disorder

This article concerns the neurotic image of Chopin that took shape in the 1880s and became popular during the Young Poland period. At that time, features highlighted from earlier descriptions of the composer’s character – over-sensitivity, over-sentimentality, excessive delicacy, emotional instability and inner complexity – were most spectacularly portrayed in the works of painters and sculptors such as Władysław Podkowiński, Wojciech Weiss, Bolesław Biegas and the designer of the monument in the Łazienki Royal Baths Park in Warsaw – Wacław Szymanowski. Critics and writers also helped to form the new portrait of the composer: Stanisław Przybyszewski, Cezary Jellenta, Wacław Nałkowski and Antoni Potocki. Their utterances allow us to grasp the dependency of the new picture on the theory of neuroses, advanced in 1881 by George Miller Beard and then developed and popularised during the last quarter of the nineteenth century by Richard Kraff-Ebing and Paolo Mantegazza, among others. Nervousness was considered to be the dominated feature of modern civilisation. These concepts were also influential in music criticism. Representatives of nervousness in music proved to be the Richards – Wagner and Strauss – and also Juliusz Zarębski and Ignacy Jan Paderewski. The latter, in a speech from 1911, depicted Chopin implicitly in terms of nervousness, which was also becoming a feature of the Polish national character. However, theories of neuroses were applied first and foremost to the individual psyche. The fundamental inner conflict of modern man, exposed to a surfeit of external stimuli, supposedly arose between the over-developed brain and the rest of the nervous system, as the centre of feelings and will. And it was the paresis of emotions and volition that brought a growth in the role of music, which, depending on a particular author’s assessment, either was itself the result and expression of nervous disturbance and contributed to the further deepening of the process of destruction (the stance of Antoni Sygietyński) or else filled the space left by subordinated emotions and enabled them to rebuild (the opinion of the novelist Eliza Orzeszkowa). The view of Chopin as a eulogist of new sensitivity was made manifest in Maurice Rollinat’s volume of poetry Les Nervoses, which caused quite a stir in the mid 1880s, and it was represented in Poland by Zenon Przesmycki’s Życie, and a philosophical treatise by Jean-Marie Guyau published in that periodical in 1887

The play of nerves. Chopin in the era of mental disorder

This article concerns the neurotic image of Chopin that took shape in the 1880s and became popular during the Young Poland period. At that time, features highlighted from earlier descriptions of the composer’s character - over-sensitivity, over-sentimentality, excessive delicacy, emotional instability and inner complexity - were most spectacularly portrayed in the works of painters and sculptors such as Władysław Podkowiński, Wojciech Weiss, Bolesław Biegas and the designer of the monument in the Łazienki Royal Baths Park in Warsaw - Wacław Szymanowski. Critics and writers also helped to form the new portrait of the composer: Stanisław Przybyszewski, Cezary Jellenta, Wacław Nałkowski and Antoni Potocki. Their utterances allow us to grasp the dependency of the new picture on the theory of neuroses, advanced in 1881 by George Miller Beard and then developed and popularised during the last quarter of the nineteenth century by Richard Kraff-Ebing and Paolo Mantegazza, among others. Nervousness was considered to be the dominated feature of modern civilisation. These concepts were also influential in music criticism. Representatives of nervousness in music proved to be the Richards - Wagner and Strauss - and also Juliusz Zarębski and Ignacy Jan Paderewski. The latter, in a speech from 1911, depicted Chopin implicitly in terms of nervousness, which was also becoming a feature of the Polish national character. However, theories of neuroses were applied first and foremost to the individual psyche. The fundamental inner conflict of modern man, exposed to a surfeit of external stimuli, supposedly arose between the over-developed brain and the rest of the nervous system, as the centre of feelings and will. And it was the paresis of emotions and volition that brought a growth in the role of music, which, depending on a particular author’s assessment, either was itself the result and expression of nervous disturbance and contributed to the further deepening of the process of destruction (the stance of Antoni Sygietyński) or else filled the space left by subordinated emotions and enabled them to rebuild (the opinion of the novelist Eliza Orzeszkowa). The view of Chopin as a eulogist of new sensitivity was made manifest in Maurice Rollinat’s volume of poetry Les Nervoses, which caused quite a stir in the mid 1880s, and it was represented in Poland by Zenon Przesmycki’s Życie, and a philosophical treatise by Jean-Marie Guyau published in that periodical in 1887

From the Editorial Team

Wprowadzenie do numeru Poeci za bramą utopii

Sztuka wileńska ze skarpy na Zarzeczu : recenzija

Reikšminiai žodžiai: Laima Laučkaitė; Vilnius; Menas; Laima Laučkaitė; Vilnius; Ar

Poezja przypisów. Czesława Miłosza „Gdzie wschodzi słońce i kędy zapada”

Poemat Cz. Miłosza Gdzie słońce wschodzi i kędy zapada uznawany jest za summę twórczości poety. R. Okulicz-Kozaryn w artykule zatytułowanym Poezja przypisów dowodzi, że ta skądinąd trafna opinia ma podstawy raczej intuicyjne niż interpretacyjne, brak bowiem pełnej kontekstowej interpretacji, szczegółowej analizy, a nawet próby linearnej lektury poematu, który nie doczekał się dotąd krytycznego, komentowanego wydania. Tymczasem im uważniej próbuje się odczytywać znaczenia, tym więcej trudności sprawia jego rozumienie, choćby z tego powodu, że autor wplótł w swój utwór fragmenty po litewsku i staro-białorusku. Umyślnie pozostawiając część przytoczeń bez tłumaczenia – jako swego rodzaju naddatek liryczny – Miłosz cytuje też pisarzy polsko-litewskich i wprowadza do poematu wiadomości o tych twórcach, uważanych w Polsce za pomniejszych, a najczęściej w ogóle nie znanych. Ponadto dołącza różne objaśnienia na temat litewskiej krainy historycznej – Laudy. W ten sposób „PRZYPISY” – słowo to zostało wyróżnione przez autora wersalikami – otrzymują wartość poetycką i znaczenie elementu konstrukcyjnego dzieła. Miłosz adaptuje staropolską formę silva rerum, a jednocześnie, przywołując bezpośrednio Mickiewiczowską Grażynę, korzysta z tradycji romantycznej powieści poetyckiej, której istotny składnik stanowiły przypisy.Miłosz’s poem From the Rising of the Sun is said to encapsulate the most important features of his poetry. In his paper entitled The poetry of footnotes, Radosław Okulicz-Kozaryn shows that this opinion about the poetry of Miłosz is based rather on the critics’ intuition than contextual interpretation, thorough analysis or even close, comprehensive reading of his poem. Moreover, the closer the reading the more troublesome the question of understanding the poem becomes, as in some fragments (which do not have editorial notes) the Polish language is interwoven with excerpts in Lithuanian or old Balto-Russian. Leaving some of them only in their original form as an irreducible lyrical value, he also quotes from other minor Polish-Lithuanian authors and provides information about them. Milosz also includes some detailed explanation of the forgotten region of Lauda. The word “footnotes” is marked out with caps, thus being imbued with the importance of the constructional element of his work. Besides, Miłosz adapts an old form of silva rerum and meanwhile, by mentioning Mickiewicz’s poem Grażyna, he evokes the tradition of romantic tales in which notes were originally conceived as an integral part of the poetical work.

Čiurlionio kūrybos šaltiniai Druskininkuose

The article contemplates on the role of Druskininkai in M. K. Čiurlionis’s life and art. The thesis shows that the resort was characteristic of nature’s and intellectual climate, and had a specifically rich national aura. Despite political pressure, post-uprising repressions and depressions, Druskininkai developed in the view of civilisation. The local young generation, who was not indifferent to nationality, considered it absolutely natural to maintain the land of ancestors, and this fact did not require constant argumentation, or everyday sacrifice of own happiness. Such patriotism was enhanced by live sense of the site and this sense based the conscious aspiration to maintain and develop cultural individuality. Čiurlionis’s focus or concentration to Druskininkai was proved by letters of the composer and painter, which were full of nostalgia to Druskininkai. He called Druskininkai the village, also was interested not only in his family, but also in the neighbours and other local personalities. For Čiurlionis Druskininkai was the centre of Lithuania. His universe span around it. Such love of Druskininkai is related to the European nature. Druskininkai was a very European location. It gave Čiurlionis an opportunity to get to know the big world, but he didn’t use it or used it in his own way. The greatness of the Lithuanian artist and dramatics of his life has a peculiar ratio to the attitude of the person, who remained true to himself and his closest environment, not only to the idealised childhood, but also to places and people among whom he grew up and lived. It is the loyalty to home that is the secret of his genial abilities