«Мы были поляки, католики…» („польский след” в творчестве Юрия Олеши)

Abstract

The Odessa atmosphere of multiculturalism and tolerance softens the stereotypes and conflicts between Russia and Poland, which are repeatedly manifested in the „mainstream” Russian literature. For the ethnic Pole Yury Olesha, the Polish autobiographical myth explores the author’s version of fate that the writer has been creating for many years. For Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, Polish realities are an integral part of the Black Sea, that is, the Odessa text of their novel The Golden Calf, albeit in a humorous discourse, satirical lighting (one of the main characters, the Pole Adam Kozlevich). For Isaac Babel, who displayed the Soviet-Polish war in his Konarmy, neither Poland nor the Poles are perceived as something alien, hostile, and hateful. In his book Not a Day Without a Line, Olesha talks about Poland in many contexts, for example, in connection with the political component. The book also pops up episodes of Polish history. However, the questions of Polish politics and history appear much less frequently than the Polish language, which is native to the writer, and literature. It is characteristic that the history of Poland manifests itself through the literary prism (the first book read in Polish). It is noticeable how important the world of Polish science and culture played for the writer. In the memoirs of Yuri Olesha, the historically Polish part of Odessa appears several times. The Polish chronotope in Not a day without a line is also depicted as part of a wider Odessa topos. The most common, diverse and significant Polish motive Olesha connected with the religious aspect. The most productive of his concepts – Catholicism, the Church and the priest. The constant positioning of himself as a Pole by a writer is inseparable from religious self-identification. Catholicism in the perception of Olesha marks his otherness, marginality, confrontation with the world of the majority. Catholics are perceived by Olesha as outcasts among the Orthodox. In the description of the Odessa Poles, Olesha persistently emphasizes not just individual traits, but national signs. Most often they are aimed at refining, even the idealization of the image. This clearly shows the image of the Polish nobility. Similarly, in the book Not a day without a line by Olesha, not only the Poles, but even the realities of Polish life are idealized. In the life, worldview and work of Yury Olesha, the „Polish trace” occupies an important, meaning-making and text-forming place. In his memoirs the main auto- and heterostereotypes, ideas and concepts of the long-term Russian-Polish literary dialogue (the image of a Polish Catholic, the image of Polish nobility, etc.) are displayed. The writer also constructs a personal, autobiographical myth about an integral part of which is Polishness with its literary genealogy. Catholicism, otherness created the image of multicultural and poly-religious Odessa, unthinkable without a Polish cultural presence.