Obraz Odessy w „Sławie i chwale” Jarosława Iwaszkiewicza

Abstract

The author analyses the image of Odessa in a famous novel by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (1894-1980) Glory and Vainglory. The poet was born in Kalnik in 1894. In Ukraine, he spent his childhood and young adult years. The city that was especially important in his biography, was Kiev, where Iwaszkiewicz lived since 1909 and where he learned in the upper secondary school (lyceum) no 4. Here he met his artistically gifted friends. It is here where he made his first creative attempts, trying to create musical compositions and to write poetry. He attended the Faculty of Law at the University of Kiev and studied at a music seminar. The image of Odessa in the work of Iwaszkiewicz, which also applies to Glory and Vainglory, fits perfectly with the philosophy of his work. The cityscape reveals not only the tastes of the artist, but also his way of seeing the world, based on the subjective acts of perception. What is important in this case is the way of presenting the reality and the content accompanying these presentations. So we can say that the poetically transfigured Odessa, described by Iwaszkiewicz, can be treated as variations of the imagination.