Apokalipsa. Symbolika - tradycja - egzegeza, t.1

Abstract

The idea of editing a collection of papers which would include and confront different interpretations of the Revelation of St John the Divine was conceived at the close of the 20th century, and put into practice at the beginning of the new century and millennium. The editors' direct inspiration came from the increased presence of symbols, topoi and apocalyptic motifs of that time. In the culture of the close of the century one could observe coexistence of: the decadent mood and peculiar apocalyptic euphoria, elements of Christian orthodoxy and reflexes of postmodernist awareness, the New Age culture and millenary sects, liberalism or the ideology of "political correctness" and fundamentalism or conservatism. Nearly a two-year-"festival of humankind" which was the tum of the 20th and 21st centuries, did not end up with an epoch of carefree building of the new reality. Apocalyptic feelings were not a thing of the past. On the contrary, the events of the 11 th September 2001 in New York even intensified them. In the culture of the beginning of the 21st century there appeared a tone of apocalyptic hysteria, a war of cultures was declared and the illusions of the "new, wonderful world" to be born after the bloody century of the totalitarianisms were lost. One cold war was folIowed by another one connected with the phenomenon of terrorism. The changes in the social awareness of that time were accompanied by literature and art. The poems on the turn of the century, on the Apocalypse, on the 11 th September were written by all the great poets of the period: Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert, Julia Hartwig, Adam Zagajewski. Equally rich was the essayistic reflection; the apocalyptic representations spread to the mass culture, becoming a part of the "cosmos of imagination" created by television , press, popular literature, cinema and the Internet. The presented book - the first volume of a greater whole - also takes up the abovementioned problems. However, at the outset (Chapter l: Theological points ol view) it draws attention to fundamental traditions of interpretations of the Revelation of St John the Divine: the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox ones. The detailed studies deal with the symboI s of the Revelation, later spreading to art (the symbolism of numbers, animals, colours, the sun and the moon, etc.). This range of fundamental interpretations includes the papers on less known religious readings: on the Russian Old Orthodox believers and Polish Mariavites. Lastly, Chapter l comprises studies on the apocalyptic imagination of the Islam and on pessimism in the philosophy of Stoicism. Chapter 2 (Inspirations of philosophy) concentrates on understanding of the apocalypticism in the philosophical reflection, which, according to Małgorzata Kowalska, has apocalyptical character by nature. Every time it wants to reveal, to uncover the secret of existence, of man and God. These ideas are in the thoughts of: Heraclit, Origen, Voltaire, Leibnitz, Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche and Derrida or Foucault. The presented papers clearly show how philosophy, which wishes to keep away from "religious thinking", in fact constantly returns to it. How the declaration of successive phases of nihilistic thought and "death of man" transforms into the affirmation of existence and philosophizing. Chapter 3 (In a poet 's eyes )is a characteristic commemoration of great personalities which have influenced the Poles' collective imagination and shaped the apocalyptic cosmos of Polish culture. Here one can find the analyses of poems by: the Romantic poet Zygmunt Krasiński, Józef Czechowicz - tragically killed in the first days of the World War II and Czesław Miłosz, who died in 2004. Chapter 4 (Diagnoses oj the present)focuses on the apocalyptic events in the contemporary culture. We will find here a profound analysis of the threats which the Polish language is subject to, as weU as the interpretation of the apocalyptic motifs in the mass media. The authors of the studies also present the way in which historie events exist in the virtual reality of the Internet (Hanna Karp's paper on "the apocalypse live")and how the global reality appears in the works by the reporter Ryszard Kapuściński. These visions are complemented by two studies of a historkal character: on the 1 9th century anachronisms and the representations of the "World War III" in the communist Poland. Chapter 5 (Pictures and sounds) shows a different dimension of the apocalyptic imagination: it is connected with musie, painting and film. There is a particularly interesting study on "animai" self-portraits which were painted by the most eminent painters such as: Pablo Picasso or Frida Cahlo (a paper by Alina KowaIczykowa). Musical themes are in tum associated with the 20th century opera, requiem Masses, the 18th century Masses or compositions by less known Bemadetta Matuszak. A separate theme is represented by a study on black metal rock musie containing elements of satanic representations (a study by Maciej Aronowicz). The final part of the chapter contains a rich survey of symbolism of the Revelation by St John the Divine: from its artistic trend (Tarkowski, Herzog, Coppola) up to the current of the catastrophic cinema. The picture is complemented by two papers on the elements of the Apocalypse in painting: in the East Christian icons and pictures by Jerzy Nowosielski. The concIuding part of volume 1 (At literary sources)introduces the problems which are going to be developed in volume 2: the interpretation of Polish and world literature through apocalyptic symbolism and themes. There are papers on the oldest presentations of the problem: in the Old English poetry (an articIe by Magdalena Paśnikowska) or in Pascal's philosophy as interpreted by Leszek Kołakowski (a sketch by Bożena Chodźko). The volume concIudes with the analyses of the Old Polish Poetry: the imagination of the plagues and eschatological representations in the Baroque literature (studies by Teresa Banasiowa and Beata Cieszyńska). AU the papers comprised in volume 1 discIose two poles of the apocalyptic experience: that of individual terror and of the "uitimate anxiety" (Paul Tillich), given to man facing transition, illness, death - and the experience of collective, social terror or apocalyptic euphoria. Both the forrner and the latter have affected man hopefully entering the new 21st century, or the millennium full of promises which were already questioned at the beginning. However, paradoxically the very reflection on apocalyptic themes has appeared to be a sign of the will to live and of the development of human culture.