Między Słowiańszczyzną a Orientem. Na przykładzie wybranych powieści Michała Czajkowskiego

Abstract

The article offers an analysis of Michał Czajkowski’s three novels related to the problems of the Orient. In these novels the author presented a different image of the Eastern world, especially in the case of the earliest Kirdżali perceived an aftermath of literary traditions (Byron and Mickiewicz). However, in later novels ("Bulgaria and Nemolaka") Czajkowski created a unique world of oriental culture interwoven with the Slavic culture originating from the spirit of the Balkans. The Slavdom was depicted in these novels as a world intertwined with Eastern culture, but also marked by an ideology of the excluded. Paradoxically, heroes fighting for freedom were depicted as those for whom existence must be overshadowed by the hegemon. The oeuvre of this partly forgotten author, dedicated to the culture of the nobility of the First Republic and the Eastern Borderlands, constitutes an interesting combination, in which a biography naturally merges with literature. At the same time, this combination is a natural consequence of the culture of dialogue that existed along the borderline between the East and the West.