Mein Gott, jak pięknie – Filipa Springera wędrówki po krajobrazie historycznym

Abstract

The aim of this article is to interpret Filip Springer’s fictionalized historical reportage Mein Gott, jak pięknie [My God, so beautiful]. In the work, which is a record of a journey through the so-called Regained Territories in search of traces of historical landscapes, Springer presents the engineering and architectural interventions in the landscape of the eastern Prussian provinces. On the basis of numerous historical sources, he builds fictionalised narratives about the regulation of the Oder River in the 18th century, the construction of the Eastern Railway linking Berlin and Königsberg, the creation of palace and garden complexes, the modelling of Lower Silesian landscapes in the fashion of an idyllic wonderland, dubbed the ‘Silesian Elysium’, and the art of inscribing the architecture of East Prussian towns into the local landscape. The author reads Springer’s book as an argument on the art of human-arranged space that turns the landscape into a carrier of aesthetic values and enables the experience of beauty.