Żeromski. Piękno i wolność

Abstract

This is the second volume of the series of publications collecting papers delivered during The First International Conference „Stefan Żeromski and the Tradition of Polish Intelligentsia. Ideas – Aesthetics – Language”, which was held from 30 May to 2 June 2011. The conference proceedings took place at the University of Białystok, in Konstancin near Warsaw, and in Warsaw. Among the patrons of the conference were: the President of Poland Bronisław Komorowski and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The sessions gathered scholars from Poland, Ukraine, Israel, Belarus and Switzerland. The conference was organized by the following units and institutions: Chair in Interdisciplinary and Comparative Studies „East – West” (now functioning as Chair in Philological Studies „East – West”),the Polish Museum in Rapperswil, Łukasz Gornicki Książnica Podlaska (library),the Committee of Literary Studies PAN, the Adam Mickiewicz Learned Society, the International Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Grodno, the Municipal Council of Konstancin, and the Museum of Literature in Warsaw. Stefan Żeromski (1864–1925) was a notable Polish prose writer, journalist and playwright. Born in Stawczyn, he attended secondary school in Kielce and then studied veterinary medicine in Warsaw (due to financial problems he dropped out without obtaining a degree). Initially, he worked as a private tutor in landowners’ houses, then, from 1892, he took up a post of librarian at the Polish National Museumin Rapperswil, Switzerland. Upon his return to Poland, in 1897, he started to work for the Ordynacja Zamojska Library in Warsaw. In 1907 he left for Paris. After three years he was back and settled in Zakopane. When in 1918 Poland regained independence, Żeromski moved to Warsaw, where he joined literary circle sand initiated the project of Academy of Literature. In 1925 he set up the PEN center in Poland and became its first President. Among his major books there are: The Labors of Sisyphus, The Charm of Life, The Faithful River, Homeless People, The Wages of Sin, and Seedtime. The list of Żeromski’s literary accomplishments should be complemented by Diaries, in which the writer reveals his literary fascinations and emotional secrets. The present volume comprises four chapters: „I. Contemporary, Modern, Other”, „Experiments with Idea”, „III. Interpretative Close-Ups”, „IV. From Afar –Horizons of Reception”. There is also an introduction and extended biographical notes on the Contributors. The first chapter collects articles that demonstrate different relations (biographicaland intertextual) between Żeromski and other writers (Polish, Russianand Ukrainian) and the Romantic painter Artur Grottger. The list of scholars analyzing links between the author of Homeless People and Grottger, young positivists from Warsaw, Prus, Orzeszkowa, Lermontov, Shevchenko, Miciński, futurists and Konwicki includes (respectively): Piotr Rosiński, Anna Janicka, Sylwia Karpowicz-Słowikowska, Anna Kalinowska, Danuta Mucha, Bogusław Mucha, Marcin Bajko, Krzysztof Jaworski and Elżbieta Feliksiak. The texts that are included in the second chapter concentrate on Żeromski’ spreoccupations with ideologies: aesthetics (Magdalena Saganiak), ethics (GrażynaLegutko), particularism (Zbigniew Kaźmierczyk), visions of Russia (Jerzy Snopek),persecution of the so-called „united” Christians from Podlasie and Chełmno (Witold Kołbuk), religious life (Edward Jakiel) and metaphysics (Joanna Mrowcewicz). The following chapter, „Interpretative Close-Ups”, is dedicated to a separate group of themes and motifs (such as a generation gap, the motif of train, the figureof Napoleon) which can be found both in Żeromski’s oeuvre considered in its entirety and in his particular, selected works. The list of the Contributors to this part of the volume includes: Małgorzata Pietrzak, Urszula Gorska, Marcin Dzikowski, Katarzyna Karpacz, Agata Wąsacz, Tadeusz Linkner and Wiesław Trzeciakowski. The last chapter, „From Afar – Horizons of Reception”, shows how Żeromski’s oeuvre was perceived and interpreted by Adam Grzymała-Siedlecki (Maria Jolanta Olszewska), by Ignacy Matuszewski (Adrian Kołtoniak), by Juliusz Osterwa (Anna Sobiecka), by theatre directors from Kielce (Anna Wzorek), by Maria Dąbrowska (Ewa Nawrocka) and by Jewish and anti-Semitic press (Dariusz K. Sikorski). The reader will also find „mini-monographs” analyzing Żeromski’s ideas in the context of the interwar period (Anna Kieżuń) and the Young Poland Movement(Anna Wydrycka). During his lifetime, Żeromski was both a scandal – especially after the publication of his „grossly offensive” novels The Wages of Sin and Seedtime – and a cult figure. In the communist Poland his stories, saturated with empathy for the suffering and the poor, were used for ideological purposes. After 1989, he came to be perceived as an outdated, old-fashioned writer. These days, after the twilight of postmodernism, Żeromski is re-discovered and re-considered in different roles: as a patron of New Left or a conservative; as a an outstanding stylist and an artist audaciously tracing dark sides of the human nature (The Wages of Sin); last but not least, as one of those who are „unhealthily obsessed” with Poland and at the same time bent on becoming part of European heritage. The volume was edited by: Professor Jarosław Ławski, the Head of Chair in Philological Studies „East – West”; Anna Janicka (PhD), representing Research Unit of Polish Late Nineteenth-Century Literature and Literature of the Young Poland Movement; Grzegorz Czerwiński (PhD), from Chair in Philological Studies „East – West”; Iwona E. Rusek (PhD), a researcher in Literature of the Young Poland Movement. The publication of the volume was possible thanks to the cooperation between the University of Białystok (Faculty of Philology) and Książnica Podlaska Library (Department „Glogerianum”).