Obrazy Wilna i Wileńszczyzny w twórczości Antoniego Gołubiewa

Abstract

This article describes the literary echoes of Vilnius in the work of the outstanding Polish author of historical novels, Antoni Gołubiew (1907–1970). Born in Vilnius, Gołubiew spent his childhood, youth, and part of his adulthood in a borderland, within the sphere of influence of several cultures, traditions, religions, and languages. Evidence of the influence of this land’s atmosphere recurs in his autobiographical essays – in the books „Searching,” „Carried Away by History,” „Witnesses of Change,” and in „The Greatest Adventure of My Life,” or an Attempt at a Literary Genealogy of the Historical Novel „Bolesław the Brave,” in which the writer delves into the genesis of the novel, the historical concepts underlying it, and the secrets of its craft. Vilnius returns in Kazimierzówka – a book that is unique in Gołubiew’s oeuvre, as it is his last literary work, which leads us to view it as a form of the writer’s literary testament.