Wacław Oszajca: From the Volume “Ukraine” / 7
Joanna Clark: The Rose of the Winds / 12
A story about three Polish women, two of whom – the narrator and Elżbieta Czyżewska – are real, as are the individuals mentioned by name in the text. The third character is fictional, but “with a key,” perhaps recognizable to readers familiar with the period from the late 1960s to the beginning of the current century. All episodes from the lives of the three protagonists, in both Poland and the USA, though true, are artistically transformed by the author, which at times may give the impression of a fairy tale, but it is not one.
All episodes from the lives of the three protagonists, in both Poland and the USA, though true, are artistically transformed by the author, which at times might evoke the feeling of a fairy tale – though it is far from one.
Dainius Dirgėla: poems / 25
Vasily Machno: Red Lantern; Heron; Hawk / 30
Three sketches from Vasyl Machna’s book entitled Z samogłosek i spółgłosek. Encyklopedyczny słownik nazwisk, miast, ptaków, roślin i wszelkich różności (From Vowels and Consonants. An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Names, Cities, Birds, Plants and all Sorts of Miscellaneous Things), the Polish-language edition of which – translated by Bohdan Zadura – is due to be published by the Częstochowa Literary Gallery in 2025. In the first of the texts, the Ukrainian author recalls his several-hour stay at the Beijing airport during a trip to Ulan Bator. His time waiting for a connecting flight was filled with reading English-language books on Chinese literature, which he found in one of the stores. This reconnaissance inspired him to consider the peculiarities of this literature, its complex political and cultural conditions, and the universality of some of the issues it raises, especially those concerning intimate human relations. The other two essays are a kind of literary portraits of two species of birds: hawks and herons. Starting from his own observations of birds in flight, the author shows how great a role they play in our attempts to cognitively tame the world, and how heterogeneous and rich their symbolism is in different cultures – especially in such exotic regions for Europeans as the Near and Far East.
Keywords: Chinese literature, communism, censorship, art of the Near and Far East, herons, hawks, symbolism, Egyptian mythology, Bible, Li Bo, Du Fu, Mo Yan, Gao Xingjian, Su Tong, Sufi poetry, early Christian text Physiologist
Uładzimir Lankiewicz: poems / 39
Marek Sołtysik: Jealous Talent. The Gierymski Brothers (excerpt) / 43
Anexcerpt from Marek Sołtysik’s novel Zazdrosny talent. Bracia Gierymscy (Jealous Talent. The Gierymski Brothers), which will be published in 2025. The story takes place in the second half of the 19th century, when Poland is under partition by neighbouring powers. The novel depicts the complicated domestic relations of brothers Maks and Aleksander Gierymski, later painters, who were among the leading artists in European art… The father, a tsarist servant, a tyrant at home, but a music lover at the same time, had to endure many humiliations to hold on to his position as intendant of a large military hospital despite Maks’ enlistment in the January Uprising – an armed movement of Poles against Russia. The cruelty of the battles and battlefields as seen through the eyes of a seventeen-year-old, his nevertheless unpunished return home, the beginning of his painting career and again the stain on the young man’s Polish honor: Maks receives from the hands of Berg, the tsarist governor and a cruel man, a scholarship for further studies at the Munich Academy…
Jaroslaw Cymerman: Writing a Biography – Józef Czechowicz. Part 3: Mythographers / 56
The article is devoted to the circumstances in which the biographical myth of Józef Czechowicz was created after his death in 1939. The author first describes how the works of the Lublin poet were received during World War II and then recalls the controversy that arose around his figure in the 1950s between the émigré writers Czesław Miłosz and Józef Łobodowski. In the following two decades, numerous memoirs, essays, and even books featuring Czechowicz as the central figure began to appear. The publication that most representatively reflects the nature of these works, and is analyzed in the article, is the 1968 memoir written by the poet’s friend, Wacław Gralewski, titled Stalowa tęcza (Steel Rainbow).
Keywords: Józef Czechowicz, biography, myth, legend, occupation, post-war emigration, Kazimierz Wyka, Czesław Miłosz, Józef Łobodowski, Wacław Gralewski, poetry reception
Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann: Seven Laments for Mum / 64
Ewa Dunaj: Maciej Bieszczad – a Continuing Invitation / 67
Maciej Bieszczad, who made his debut in 2010 with the collection of poems Elipsa (Ellipse), is a representative of the metaphysical trend in Polish poetry. His four latest volumes (Kołatanie, Niteczka, Miejsce spotkania, Pasaże – Knocking, Little Thread, Meeting Place, Passages) are characterized by stylistic and worldview homogeneity, marking the author’s maturity and artistic self-awareness. These poems, built from ephemeral, almost immaterial images, are a record of the search for the right form, stretched between the classical sonnet or villanella and syncretic imagery or ascetic micro-prose. But they always remain a consistent confession and testimony of faith, the certainty of God’s tangible presence, the inalienable need to exist and experience the sacred in the most basic dimension of human existence. The crises and breakdowns that Maciej Bieszczad documents in his lyrical entries do not weaken this faith; rather, they appear to affirm and deepen it. Bieszczad’s poetic works are complemented by two volumes of short stories – testimony to overcoming one’s own limitations in the search for what escapes rational evaluation.
Keywords: Maciej Bieszczad, Polish poetry, Polish prose, sacrum, God, existential crisis, metaphysics
Maciej Bieszczad: poems / 74
Małgorzata Skałbania: City, Republic, Empire / 77
The story was born out of a desire to organize random images and books, objects gathered in the author’s Lublin apartment. The central theme is Serenissima (Venice), specifically the tale of an anonymous sculptor of the seventh column capital of the Palazzo Ducale (facing the Grand Canal). An event described in Venice evoked traumatic experiences related to Paris. In this way, the historical, the distant, and the present all pulse with a shared life.
Elżbieta Wicha-Wauben: poems / 82
Tomasz Kłusek: A Writer Deceived by History. On the Complications in Tadeusz Jasiński’s Work / 86
Tadeusz Jasiński (1928-1992), a writer and journalist, was connected with Zielona Góra for the first twenty years of his creative career, and from 1974 until his death, with Lublin. He worked in artistic prose, literary reportage, and journalism, occasionally writing dramas and poems. A prominent romantic theme, set within a socio-political context, appears in most of his novels. From today’s perspective, these works can easily be classified as historical romances – though it is important to note that, except for the stories set in the history of the Lubusz Land, Jasiński never ventured further back in time than the early 20th century in his literary texts. Typically, his writing aimed to understand and evaluate the transformations that took place in Poland after World War II. These evaluations may now be controversial, but it is difficult to deny Jasiński’s fidelity to the ideals of his youth, and his works reflect the reality of those times in an interesting way.
Keywords: Tadeusz Jasiński, Lubusz Land, “Nadodrze”, Lublin, Lublin literary community, “Kamena”, social journalism, Polish prose, historical romance, rural-to-urban migration, communism, People’s Republic of Poland (PRL), propaganda, anti-communist underground
REVIEWS
Prose writers, prose writers …
Konrad Zych: That Unlikable One [Jacek Dehnel „Łabędzie” (“Swans”) Volumes 1-2)]; Kinga Wyskiel-Szandecka: Always on Stage, Never in the Audience! [Michał Witkowski „Autobiografia. Tom pierwszy: Wiara 1975-1990” (“Autobiography. Volume One: Faith 1975-1990”)]; Mariusz Lubyk: The Magician in Warsaw – the Would-be “Jewish Raskolnikov,” or the Penitent from Lublin [Isaac Bashevis Singer „Sztukmistrz z Lublina” (“The Magician of Lublin”)]; Magdalena Rabizo-Birek: Dance Across Borders [Iwona Mesjasz „Tańczący dom” (“The Dancing House”)]; Dariusz Nowacki: The Old Woman Spread Fear [Marta Hermanowicz „Koniec” (“The End”)]; Józef Franciszek Fert: People and Other Animals – On the Road to Nowhere [Rafał Jakub Pastwa „Nadchodzi nic” (“Nothing is Coming”)]; Adrian Gleń: Along the River, to “Reveal the Deepest, Primordial Meaning of Events” [Andrzej Stasiuk „Rzeka dzieciństwa” (“The River of Childhood”)] / 104
Written by literary scholars and critics, these reviews of the latest prose books contain detailed analyses and aim to characterize the most important contemporary literary trends and phenomena.
ART
Łukasz Wiącek: An Artist still Undiscovered. On the Art of Jerzy Durakiewicz / 130
The article is dedicated to Jerzy Durakiewicz (1934-2016), who was a founding member of the Lublin artistic collective “Zamek” (Castle). He engaged in painting, graphic design, interior design, and poster art. He experimented with structural art, painted works in the style of tachism, used geometric forms, created abstract compositions, and employed his own mixed technique, combining different media, usually gouache, tempera, and watercolor. The author analyzes the style, technique, and dominant themes in Durakiewicz’s work from 1956 to 2016. The article presents the Lublin artist in a broader context, considering not only his period of membership in the avant-garde group “Zamek”. Since many of Durakiewicz’s achievements remain unknown or insufficiently appreciated, the author advocates the need for further, in-depth research focused on finding and documenting his works and projects.
Keywords: Jerzy Durakiewicz, “Zamek” Lublin group, abstract painting, Lublin avant-garde, interior design, poster
Lechosław Lameński: Jolanta Żuk-Orysiak, a Modest Painter with a Big Heart / 141
Jolanta Żuk-Orysiak is a conservator of artworks, a graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and an artist by passion. For 40 years, in addition to her professional work, including many years at the Lublin Museum in Lublin (now the National Museum in Lublin), where she served as deputy director, her great passion has been painting pictures. In the last several years, it has also served as a form of therapy for Żuk-Orysiak and contributed to her victorious fight against a fatal illness. However, her primary goal is to capture on canvas or cardboard a fragment of the world that interests her – whether it is a landscape or a vase with a bouquet of favorite flowers. As a result, these are not entirely modern or avant-garde paintings. Jolanta Żuk-Orysiak, painting from the heart, creates exclusively realistic works, but they are very well composed, emphasizing the role of light and carefully arranged color palettes – simply paintings meant to be admired.
Keywords: landscape, nature, mood, nostalgia, floral still lifes, portrait, realistic painting
BARDS
Maciej Białas: Song Does Good. Bonnes Chansons by Piotr Selim and Hanna Lewandowska from the Perspective of Semiotics / 146
The Lublin artists Piotr Selim and Hanna Lewandowska have been active on the Polish music scene for over thirty years, successfully cultivating a relatively niche genre, i.e. the literary song, which, due to its local specificity and character, deserves to be called “Polish chanson”(by analogy to“French chanson”or “Russian chanson”).The author of the essay, focusing on the songs from Selim and Lewandowska’s latest album Uważnie (Mindfully) from 2022, examines their work from the perspective of semioethics – a research approach within semiotics that concentrates on the ethical aspects of semiosis.
Keywords: Piotr Selim, Hanna Lewandowska, music, poetry, popular song, literary song, Polish chanson, bonnes chansons, semioethics, cantology
AT THE VERNISAGE
Grzegorz Józefczuk: The time of the Theater and the Time of the Museum / 164
The text dedicated to the exhibition Światło i Mrok. Teatr Leszka Mądzika (Light and Darkness. Theater by Leszek Mądzik)presented at the Center for Polish Scenography in Katowice from June 2024 to September 2025. The main part of the exhibition consists of scenographic objects used in the performances of Scena Plastyczna KUL (The Visual Stage of the Catholic University of Lublin) – an experimental theater founded by Leszek Mądzik in 1969, which limits the role of the actor in favor of moving images that create a symbolic and emotional narrative, unfolding at the boundary of light and darkness. The author frames his analysis of the main themes of the exhibition with reflections on the differences in the ways two fundamentally different institutions of cultural life – the theater and the museum – function and affect their audiences.
Keywords: Leszek Mądzik, Scena Plastyczna KUL (The Visual Stage of the Catholic University of Lublin), Agnieszka Kołodziej-Adamczuk, theater, museum, exhibition, light and darkness, traveling
HISTORY
Jan Władysław Woś: The Polish Orthodox Church in the First Years after Regaining Independence / 169
After the end of World War I and Poland’s regaining of independence, the new authorities had to confront the challenge of integrating the territories that had previously been part of the three partitioning states. In addition to legal, national, cultural, and economic differences, a significant factor complicating unification was religious diversity, with a particular challenge being the need to regulate the situation of Orthodox believers due to their dependency on the Moscow Patriarchate. It is no surprise that throughout the interwar period, efforts were made to achieve as much autonomy as possible for the Polish Orthodox Church, and these issues remained significant even after 1945, in “People’s Poland.” The author of this text recounts the history of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church from its founding to the early 21st century, recalling important figures, events, and the political background of those times, while also emphasizing the importance of achieving autocephaly for the development of the Orthodox Church in Poland.
Keywords: history, Orthodoxy, autocephaly, Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Poland regaining independence, interwar period, PRL (People’s Republic of Poland), Third Republic of Poland, Moscow Patriarchate, communism
POSTCARDS FROM THE ISLAND
Grażyna Lutosławska: Disappearance / 176
CANADIAN NOTEBOOK
Marek Kusiba: Bone writers (3). “Razor-Sharp and Peppery” Prose of Rafał Malczewski / 179
NO TITLE
Leszek Mądzik: Sound / 184
PASSIONS
Marek Danielkiewicz: An Attempt to Touch the Sacred / 185
FILM TASTINGS
Jacek Dąbała: Beauty for Loneliness and Sadness / 187
NOTES
Stefania Michalska: 6th International Literary Trilogy in Włodawa / 188
Józef Franciszek Fert: On the Strings of the Cosmos / 191
Joanna Pawłat: Cherry Petals Glisten in the Full Sun / 193
Information about well-known artists and cultural phenomena, as well as discussions of the most interesting initiatives, events and publications of the past few months.
Notes about the authors / 195
