Młoda Polska ezoteryczna: wymiar środkowoeuropejski

Abstract

The article presents the main assumptions of interdisciplinary research on the literary image of esotericism, spiritualism, and mediumship in Young Poland (1890–1918). The research culminated in the conference „Young Poland Esoteric. Metamorphoses of Poetics – Ideas – Personalities” in Bialystok on May 17, 2022. The research on this topic and sessions were organized by the „East-West” Department of Philological Research from the Faculty of Philology at the University of Bialystok and the Department of the History of Positivist and Young Poland Literature from the Faculty of Polish Studies at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. The joint research project called „Young Poland: Revisions and Reinterpretations” with the leading theme „Irony of Modernists” was initiated in 2017. The result of the research on esotericism can be found in the present monograph. The author of the introduction to the volume tries to outline the peculiarities of Central European and Polish esotericism, deeply inscribed in the fabric of artistic works, which is usually only one of many elements of their symbolic and mythical construction. After all, esotericism in Central and Eastern Europe and the Polish lands of the Russian Empire in its declining phase is shaped under the high pressure of turbulent historical processes, nation-building processes, ethnic conflicts, and disputes model of civilizational development of emancipating countries and cultures, drawing on the cultural sources of the West.