Anna Frajlich: poems / 7
Andrzej Jaroszyński: Poland’s “Solidarity” through the Eyes of the British / 9
An article dedicated to the image of Poland, especially the “Solidarity” movement in the 1980s, in British prose. The works of Brian Moore, Nik Gowing, William Brodrick, David Brierley, and Tim Sebastian focus on spy plots, betrayal, entanglement in the mechanisms of history, disillusionment with unattainable ideals of freedom, and powerlessness in the face of global superpowers’ interests. Novels by Sue Gee and Joanna Czechowska address the emotional reactions of Polish emigrants to martial law and their struggles with identity. Carl Tighe and David Lodge depict Poland from the perspective of Western visitors attempting to navigate life under communism. British authors focus not on national heroes, but on ordinary people – Poles and foreigners – confronting the events of the time. Notably, these writers reject stereotypes and present Polish society as divided and complex, portraying Poland not as an exotic place on the continent’s edge, but as close and full of paradoxes.
Keywords: British literature, spy novel, Poland, history, “Solidarity” movement, 1980s, August ‘80, martial law, Polish People’s Republic, the West, emigration, British Polonia, politics, conspiracy, political opposition in the PRL, military intelligence, coup, revolution, USSR, Malcolm Bradbury, Brian Moore, Nik Gowing, William Brodrick, David Brierley, Tim Sebastian, Sue Gee, Joanna Czechowska, Carl Tighe, David Lodge, Martin Amis
Wojciech Kudyba: poems / 23
Karol Samsel: Curse of Sisyphus / 26
Klątwa Syzyfa (The Curse of Sisyphus)is one of the opening passages of Karol Samsel’s three-volume novel Prima. The Prima of the title is a substance of unknown origin discovered in the distant future, capable of creating cultures, literatures and religions. As scientists gradually uncover its potential, they decide to create – using only Prima – the first synthetic extraterrestrial literary civilization. The first volume structurally references the works of Stanisław Lem, especially the vision of future science in Głos Pana (His Master’s Voice). The second volume of Prima tells the story of space colonization through synthetic literature. The third attempts to present a literary representation of eternity, something akin to self-replicating literature.
Krzysztof Lisowski: poems / 34
Łukasz Marcińczak: Konstanty Jeleński – a Useful Nihilist or a Busy Hermes / 37
Konstanty Jeleński, the author of excellent essays and a penetrating commentator on the events of the twentieth century, also went down in Polish historiography as an outstanding promoter of the work of many Polish artists – above all Witold Gombrowicz and Czesław Miłosz – as well as a reliable guardian of the Paris-based “Kultura” (“Culture”), who ensured to Jerzy Giedroyc the resonance of the ideas he put forward in the most opinion-forming circles in Europe. Trying to sketch a spiritual portrait of Jeleński, one cannot overlook (or trivialize) his long-standing relationship with the famous Trieste painter Leonor Fini. With Fini’s participation, Jeleński tried to realize Gombrowicz’s postulate of self-determination and authenticity in a world where the need to wear masks prevents a person from reaching the truth about himself. His efforts to find the crevices of another being in a reality doomed to annihilation led Miłosz to describe this declared atheist as “pious,” and Józef Czapski saw in him a model of humanity.
Keywords: Konstanty Jeleński, Paris “Culture”, emigration, Witold Gombrowicz, Czesław Miłosz, Józef Czapski, Jerzy Giedroyc, Leonor Fini, literature, painting, religion, Catholicism, atheism, homosexuality
Stefan Jurkowski: poems / 51
Bernard Nowak: Spiritual Products, Volume II (excerpts) / 54
Using the convention of a diary, the author describes ordinary situations from everyday life, which, however, have something unique about them, sometimes instructive or amusing. In one passage, the protagonist deals with an intrusive telemarketer who cannot cope with the norms of Polish grammar. The conversation is amusing, though certainly frustrating for the woman. A longer sequence deals with a visit to a modern barbershop, run by young barbers who offer not only haircuts, but also strive to create a unique atmosphere and a shockingly far-reaching sense of male camaraderie. In Nowak’s lyrics, the world is full of difficulties, surprises, but also of humor and kindness.
Grzegorz Wróblewski: poems / 65
Jarosław Cymerman: Writing a Biography – Józef Czechowicz. Part 4: The Father’s Line / 68
An essay that raises the question of the place occupied by the figure of Józef Czechowicz’s father, Paweł, in his life and artistic work. The author recalls well-known facts from the biography of the Lublin poet and presents new findings, based, among others, on entries in parish records. By bringing closer the image of the father that emerges from Czechowicz’s works, he also draws attention to the poems in which the poet’s childhood traumas found expression. These poetic testimonies are compared with the recollections of the author of Poemat o mieście Lublinie (Poem about the City of Lublin) himself, as well as those of his friends and family.
Keywords: Józef Czechowicz, Paweł Czechowicz, biography, Polish interwar literature, poetry, drama, children literature, childhood, 1905 revolution, trauma, mental illness, biographical myth
Zofia Zarębianka: poems / 80
Grzegorz Pełczyński: miniatures / 82
A collection of short forms presenting humans in the funhouse mirror of everyday life within a world where seriousness blends with absurdity, and ordinary situations reveal surprising truths about human nature. The protagonists, both children and adults, dream big, search for meaning, strive for peace or excitement, yet ultimately always collide with the unpredictability of life and their own limitations.
These stories are unified by an ironic distance from reality and a subtle play with convention: children speak like adults, a coat enables flight, a blackmailer gets blackmailed, and doubles never meet. Echoing in the background is the persistent question: do we really know who we are and what we want – or are we merely playing the roles assigned to us?
REVIEWS
Prose writers, prose writers …
Bogusław Bakuła: An Antidote to History, or the Cruel Little Prose Pieces of Herkus Kunčius [Herkus Kunčius „Zdradzeni, wyklęci, oczernieni” (“Betrayed, Cursed, Slandered”)]; Magdalena Ruta: The Treasures of Yiddish Literature Revealed to the World [Isaac Bashevis Singer „Trzydzieści sześć opowiadań” (“Thirty-Six Stories”)]; Aleksandra Kanar: “This Story Goes On and Is Meant to Continue” [Izabela Tadra „Hotel ZNP” (Polish Teachers’ Union Hotel)]; Jarosław Petrowicz: Aperture Number [Jadwiga Malina „Przysłona” (“Aperture”)]; Konrad Zych: The Dodo and the Polish Question [Bartosz Sadulski „Szesnaście na Bourbon” (“Sixteen on Bourbon”)] / 85
Reviews of the latest prose books written by literary scholars and critics. They offer detailed analyses and aim to characterize the most important contemporary literary trends and phenomena.
Not only analytically …
Jarosław Anders: Life – Nevertheless Wonderful [Anna Frajlich, Sławomir Jacek Żurek „Szklany sufit języka. Trzynaście rozmów” (“The Glass Ceiling of Language. Thirteen Conversations”)]; Iwona Hofman: A Dialogue on Art [„»Mistykę trzeba ROBIĆ«. Listy Józefa Czapskiego i Joanny Pollakówny” (“Mysticism Must Be DONE”. The Letters of Józef Czapski and Joanna Pollakówna”)]; Andrzej Pieńkos: Do We Know Him Today? [Lechosław Lameński „Nie znali go wcale. Tomasz Oskar Sosnowski. Polski rzeźbiarz w dziewiętnastowiecznym Rzymie” (“They Didn’t Know Him at All. Tomasz Oskar Sosnowski. A Polish Sculptor in Nineteenth-Century Rome”)]; Józef Franciszek Fert: Horror and Gnosis…, or Art and Suffering. 55 Years of the Visual Stage of the Catholic University of Lublin [„Sztuka a cierpienie. Referaty z sesji z okazji 20-lecia Sceny Plastycznej KUL (27-29 IV 1990 r.”) (“Art and Suffering. Papers from the Session on the 20th Anniversary of the Visual Stage of the Catholic University of Lublin (April 27-29, 1990)”). Edited by Leszek Mądzik, Wojciech Kaczmarek]; Tomasz Kłusek: Debunking the Debunker [Monika Śliwińska „Książę. Biografia Tadeusza Boya-Żeleńskiego” (“The Prince. A Biography of Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński”)]; Sara Akram: To Reclaim the Story and the World Once Again [Wojciech Jagielski „Inna strona świata” (“The Other Side of the World”)] / 105
Reviews of recently published scholarly, essayistic, and documentary books, seen against the background of the most significant phenomena of contemporary culture.
ART
Lechosław Lameński: Andrzej Nowacki – Polish Master of Geometric Abstraction in the Artistic Life of Contemporary Berlin / 130
For many years now, the large community of Polish artists has played an important role in the multicultural artistic life of Berlin. One of its most fascinating representatives is Andrzej Nowacki (born in Rabka-Zdrój in 1953). After years of studying in Sweden (Scandinavian languages) and Austria (German studies and art history), he settled in Germany (first in Düsseldorf, and from 1984 in Berlin), where abstract painting, particularly geometric abstraction, became his life’s calling. Andrzej Nowacki’s painting captivates with the originality and uniqueness of his three-dimensional reliefs, which cannot be mistaken for similar compositions by other artists. He has developed his own, distinctive painting style whose formal maturity, marked by a splendid symbiosis of vibrant, dynamic, and lively colors with simple, strictly geometric construction elements (slats) that precisely fill the entire surface of the works, leaves a lasting impression.
Keywords: Kreuzberg, Andrzej Nowacki, reliefs, geometric abstraction, three-dimensional compositions, slats, squares, light and shadow, symmetry, optical illusion, color as a carrier of emotion
ALL THE HUSTLE AND BUSTLE
Jacek Zalewski: In the Beginning there was the Babble. Dorota Masłowska Years Later / 141
Magiczna rana (Magic Wound), Dorota Masłowska’s latest book, is a collection of short stories. The genre is not very popular nowadays, but the writer exceeds its limitations, giving her texts the hallmarks of – so fashionable today – intertextuality. Expectations for Magic Wound were high, as Masłowska has accustomed readers to the fact that her books redefined our approach to literature. The author of the text wonders whether the writer has once again succeeded in creating an innovative work, or whether this potential has already been exhausted, and she is only consolidating her position as one of the most original contemporary Polish prose writers.
Keywords: Dorota Masłowska, contemporary Polish prose, short stories, intertextuality, literary creation, literary style, literary language, irony, Polish society
AT THE VERNISSAGE
Lechosław Lameński: What’s a Woman Got to Do with a Paintbrush?! / 151
Co babie do pędzla?! (What’s a Woman Got to Do with a Paintbrush?!) is the title of another highly interesting exhibition organized in recent years by the Art Department of the National Museum in Lublin. Its protagonists are Polish women artists who worked from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. The curator, Bożena Kasperowicz, presented nearly 600 works, primarily paintings, but also graphics and sculptures, by as many as 133 female artists. Alongside the works by widely known and highly regarded artists such as Olga Boznańska, Zofia Stryjeńska, Mela Muter, and Katarzyna Kobro, the exhibition showcased pieces by dozens of equally interesting creators who, unfortunately, have been unjustly forgotten or deliberately overlooked in academic studies. The extensive catalogue accompanying the exhibition, which contains seven essays, all written by women, is an important and necessary textual supplement, highlighting the difficult and winding path that talented women artists had to navigate to achieve independent artistic careers.
Keywords: National Museum in Lublin, women in art, women’s art, Polish women artists, history of feminist art, art from 1850-1950, painting, graphic art, sculpture, still life, landscape, portrait
HISTORY
Janusz Golec: Lublin as a Place for Exploring Jewish Identity / 161
The author analyzes selected texts by German, Austrian, and Polish intellectuals of Jewish origin who, during World War I or shortly after its conclusion, spent time in Lublin and engaged with its Jewish residents. At that time, Lublin was an important center of Jewish life, learning, and spirituality. Therefore, staying in the city prompted the writers discussed in the article to reflect on their perception of Jewish identity, influenced their thinking about the Jewish nation, and inspired them to envision the future – both their own and that of the entire Jewish community, particularly in Eastern Europe.
Keywords: Jewish identity, Jewish city in Lublin, World War I, the future of the Jewish nation, Zionism, Judaism, Jewish culture, Ernst Weiß, Robert Weltsch, Majer Bałaban, Karl Richard Henker, Alfred Döblin
PROFILES
Piotr Gutowski: Stefan Swieżawski: Scholar, Christian, Master / 171
The article presents a brief intellectual biography of Stefan Swieżawski (1907-2004), one of the most important professors of the Catholic University of Lublin, an outstanding historian of philosophy, reviewer of the habilitation of Karol Wojtyla, initiator of his employment at the Catholic University of Lublin and his friend, the only lay auditor of the Second Vatican Council from communist countries. Prof. Swieżawski was a well-known figure in Polish postwar public life, and called for the use of the Jagiellonian Poland model, tolerant of ethnic and religious diversity, in building the post-communist homeland. Swieżawski came from a middle-class landowning family, but entered the circles of the Polish aristocracy through his marriage to Countess Maria Stadnicka. He studied philosophy in Lviv with Kazimierz Twardowski and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, and considered the French Thomist Étienne Gilson, whom he met in Paris, to be his master. In 1946, after receiving his habilitation, he was hired at the Catholic University of Lublin, and here, over time, he created a well-known school of research on the history of European and Polish philosophy of the medieval period and the turn of the Middle Ages and modernity. Among Swieżawski’s students were many prominent intellectuals. The article concludes with a call for the Lublin local government to consider naming one of the city’s streets after Stefan Swieżawski.
Keywords: Stefan Swieżawski, Karol Wojtyła, Kazimierz Twardowski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Jerzy Kalinowski, Étienne Gilson, Adam Sapieha, Adam Schaff, „Tygodnik Powszechny”, Kraków, Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Second Vatican Council, philosophy, history of philosophy, Christianity, Thomism, politics in the People’s Republic of Poland
POSTCARDS FROM THE ISLAND
Grażyna Lutosławska: Nicer / 181
CANADIAN NOTEBOOK
Marek Kusiba: With Bichler in Paradise, or Guadeloupe Mon Amour / 185
FILM TASTINGS
Jacek Dąbala: Artful Juggling with Criminal Conventions / 190
NOTES
Tomasz Otocki: In the Courland World of the Komorowskis, in the Lithuanian World of the Radziwiłłs / 191
Teresa Dras: Andrzej Cwojdzinski, a Master Still Underestimated / 195
Waldemar Michalski: Józef Bilski’s Passions and Realizations / 197
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 / 200
Anna Frajlich: poems / 7
Andrzej Jaroszyński: Poland’s “Solidarity” through the Eyes of the British / 9
An article dedicated to the image of Poland, especially the “Solidarity” movement in the 1980s, in British prose. The works of Brian Moore, Nik Gowing, William Brodrick, David Brierley, and Tim Sebastian focus on spy plots, betrayal, entanglement in the mechanisms of history, disillusionment with unattainable ideals of freedom, and powerlessness in the face of global superpowers’ interests. Novels by Sue Gee and Joanna Czechowska address the emotional reactions of Polish emigrants to martial law and their struggles with identity. Carl Tighe and David Lodge depict Poland from the perspective of Western visitors attempting to navigate life under communism. British authors focus not on national heroes, but on ordinary people – Poles and foreigners – confronting the events of the time. Notably, these writers reject stereotypes and present Polish society as divided and complex, portraying Poland not as an exotic place on the continent’s edge, but as close and full of paradoxes.
Keywords: British literature, spy novel, Poland, history, “Solidarity” movement, 1980s, August ‘80, martial law, Polish People’s Republic, the West, emigration, British Polonia, politics, conspiracy, political opposition in the PRL, military intelligence, coup, revolution, USSR, Malcolm Bradbury, Brian Moore, Nik Gowing, William Brodrick, David Brierley, Tim Sebastian, Sue Gee, Joanna Czechowska, Carl Tighe, David Lodge, Martin Amis
Wojciech Kudyba: poems / 23
Karol Samsel: Curse of Sisyphus / 26
Klątwa Syzyfa (The Curse of Sisyphus)is one of the opening passages of Karol Samsel’s three-volume novel Prima. The Prima of the title is a substance of unknown origin discovered in the distant future, capable of creating cultures, literatures and religions. As scientists gradually uncover its potential, they decide to create – using only Prima – the first synthetic extraterrestrial literary civilization. The first volume structurally references the works of Stanisław Lem, especially the vision of future science in Głos Pana (His Master’s Voice). The second volume of Prima tells the story of space colonization through synthetic literature. The third attempts to present a literary representation of eternity, something akin to self-replicating literature.
Krzysztof Lisowski: poems / 34
Łukasz Marcińczak: Konstanty Jeleński – a Useful Nihilist or a Busy Hermes / 37
Konstanty Jeleński, the author of excellent essays and a penetrating commentator on the events of the twentieth century, also went down in Polish historiography as an outstanding promoter of the work of many Polish artists – above all Witold Gombrowicz and Czesław Miłosz – as well as a reliable guardian of the Paris-based “Kultura” (“Culture”), who ensured to Jerzy Giedroyc the resonance of the ideas he put forward in the most opinion-forming circles in Europe. Trying to sketch a spiritual portrait of Jeleński, one cannot overlook (or trivialize) his long-standing relationship with the famous Trieste painter Leonor Fini. With Fini’s participation, Jeleński tried to realize Gombrowicz’s postulate of self-determination and authenticity in a world where the need to wear masks prevents a person from reaching the truth about himself. His efforts to find the crevices of another being in a reality doomed to annihilation led Miłosz to describe this declared atheist as “pious,” and Józef Czapski saw in him a model of humanity.
Keywords: Konstanty Jeleński, Paris “Culture”, emigration, Witold Gombrowicz, Czesław Miłosz, Józef Czapski, Jerzy Giedroyc, Leonor Fini, literature, painting, religion, Catholicism, atheism, homosexuality
Stefan Jurkowski: poems / 51
Bernard Nowak: Spiritual Products, Volume II (excerpts) / 54
Using the convention of a diary, the author describes ordinary situations from everyday life, which, however, have something unique about them, sometimes instructive or amusing. In one passage, the protagonist deals with an intrusive telemarketer who cannot cope with the norms of Polish grammar. The conversation is amusing, though certainly frustrating for the woman. A longer sequence deals with a visit to a modern barbershop, run by young barbers who offer not only haircuts, but also strive to create a unique atmosphere and a shockingly far-reaching sense of male camaraderie. In Nowak’s lyrics, the world is full of difficulties, surprises, but also of humor and kindness.
Grzegorz Wróblewski: poems / 65
Jarosław Cymerman: Writing a Biography – Józef Czechowicz. Part 4: The Father’s Line / 68
An essay that raises the question of the place occupied by the figure of Józef Czechowicz’s father, Paweł, in his life and artistic work. The author recalls well-known facts from the biography of the Lublin poet and presents new findings, based, among others, on entries in parish records. By bringing closer the image of the father that emerges from Czechowicz’s works, he also draws attention to the poems in which the poet’s childhood traumas found expression. These poetic testimonies are compared with the recollections of the author of Poemat o mieście Lublinie (Poem about the City of Lublin) himself, as well as those of his friends and family.
Keywords: Józef Czechowicz, Paweł Czechowicz, biography, Polish interwar literature, poetry, drama, children literature, childhood, 1905 revolution, trauma, mental illness, biographical myth
Zofia Zarębianka: poems / 80
Grzegorz Pełczyński: miniatures / 82
A collection of short forms presenting humans in the funhouse mirror of everyday life within a world where seriousness blends with absurdity, and ordinary situations reveal surprising truths about human nature. The protagonists, both children and adults, dream big, search for meaning, strive for peace or excitement, yet ultimately always collide with the unpredictability of life and their own limitations.
These stories are unified by an ironic distance from reality and a subtle play with convention: children speak like adults, a coat enables flight, a blackmailer gets blackmailed, and doubles never meet. Echoing in the background is the persistent question: do we really know who we are and what we want – or are we merely playing the roles assigned to us?
REVIEWS
Prose writers, prose writers …
Bogusław Bakuła: An Antidote to History, or the Cruel Little Prose Pieces of Herkus Kunčius [Herkus Kunčius „Zdradzeni, wyklęci, oczernieni” (“Betrayed, Cursed, Slandered”)]; Magdalena Ruta: The Treasures of Yiddish Literature Revealed to the World [Isaac Bashevis Singer „Trzydzieści sześć opowiadań” (“Thirty-Six Stories”)]; Aleksandra Kanar: “This Story Goes On and Is Meant to Continue” [Izabela Tadra „Hotel ZNP” (Polish Teachers’ Union Hotel)]; Jarosław Petrowicz: Aperture Number [Jadwiga Malina „Przysłona” (“Aperture”)]; Konrad Zych: The Dodo and the Polish Question [Bartosz Sadulski „Szesnaście na Bourbon” (“Sixteen on Bourbon”)] / 85
Reviews of the latest prose books written by literary scholars and critics. They offer detailed analyses and aim to characterize the most important contemporary literary trends and phenomena.
Not only analytically …
Jarosław Anders: Life – Nevertheless Wonderful [Anna Frajlich, Sławomir Jacek Żurek „Szklany sufit języka. Trzynaście rozmów” (“The Glass Ceiling of Language. Thirteen Conversations”)]; Iwona Hofman: A Dialogue on Art [„»Mistykę trzeba ROBIĆ«. Listy Józefa Czapskiego i Joanny Pollakówny” (“Mysticism Must Be DONE”. The Letters of Józef Czapski and Joanna Pollakówna”)]; Andrzej Pieńkos: Do We Know Him Today? [Lechosław Lameński „Nie znali go wcale. Tomasz Oskar Sosnowski. Polski rzeźbiarz w dziewiętnastowiecznym Rzymie” (“They Didn’t Know Him at All. Tomasz Oskar Sosnowski. A Polish Sculptor in Nineteenth-Century Rome”)]; Józef Franciszek Fert: Horror and Gnosis…, or Art and Suffering. 55 Years of the Visual Stage of the Catholic University of Lublin [„Sztuka a cierpienie. Referaty z sesji z okazji 20-lecia Sceny Plastycznej KUL (27-29 IV 1990 r.”) (“Art and Suffering. Papers from the Session on the 20th Anniversary of the Visual Stage of the Catholic University of Lublin (April 27-29, 1990)”). Edited by Leszek Mądzik, Wojciech Kaczmarek]; Tomasz Kłusek: Debunking the Debunker [Monika Śliwińska „Książę. Biografia Tadeusza Boya-Żeleńskiego” (“The Prince. A Biography of Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński”)]; Sara Akram: To Reclaim the Story and the World Once Again [Wojciech Jagielski „Inna strona świata” (“The Other Side of the World”)] / 105
Reviews of recently published scholarly, essayistic, and documentary books, seen against the background of the most significant phenomena of contemporary culture.
ART
Lechosław Lameński: Andrzej Nowacki – Polish Master of Geometric Abstraction in the Artistic Life of Contemporary Berlin / 130
For many years now, the large community of Polish artists has played an important role in the multicultural artistic life of Berlin. One of its most fascinating representatives is Andrzej Nowacki (born in Rabka-Zdrój in 1953). After years of studying in Sweden (Scandinavian languages) and Austria (German studies and art history), he settled in Germany (first in Düsseldorf, and from 1984 in Berlin), where abstract painting, particularly geometric abstraction, became his life’s calling. Andrzej Nowacki’s painting captivates with the originality and uniqueness of his three-dimensional reliefs, which cannot be mistaken for similar compositions by other artists. He has developed his own, distinctive painting style whose formal maturity, marked by a splendid symbiosis of vibrant, dynamic, and lively colors with simple, strictly geometric construction elements (slats) that precisely fill the entire surface of the works, leaves a lasting impression.
Keywords: Kreuzberg, Andrzej Nowacki, reliefs, geometric abstraction, three-dimensional compositions, slats, squares, light and shadow, symmetry, optical illusion, color as a carrier of emotion
ALL THE HUSTLE AND BUSTLE
Jacek Zalewski: In the Beginning there was the Babble. Dorota Masłowska Years Later / 141
Magiczna rana (Magic Wound), Dorota Masłowska’s latest book, is a collection of short stories. The genre is not very popular nowadays, but the writer exceeds its limitations, giving her texts the hallmarks of – so fashionable today – intertextuality. Expectations for Magic Wound were high, as Masłowska has accustomed readers to the fact that her books redefined our approach to literature. The author of the text wonders whether the writer has once again succeeded in creating an innovative work, or whether this potential has already been exhausted, and she is only consolidating her position as one of the most original contemporary Polish prose writers.
Keywords: Dorota Masłowska, contemporary Polish prose, short stories, intertextuality, literary creation, literary style, literary language, irony, Polish society
AT THE VERNISSAGE
Lechosław Lameński: What’s a Woman Got to Do with a Paintbrush?! / 151
Co babie do pędzla?! (What’s a Woman Got to Do with a Paintbrush?!) is the title of another highly interesting exhibition organized in recent years by the Art Department of the National Museum in Lublin. Its protagonists are Polish women artists who worked from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. The curator, Bożena Kasperowicz, presented nearly 600 works, primarily paintings, but also graphics and sculptures, by as many as 133 female artists. Alongside the works by widely known and highly regarded artists such as Olga Boznańska, Zofia Stryjeńska, Mela Muter, and Katarzyna Kobro, the exhibition showcased pieces by dozens of equally interesting creators who, unfortunately, have been unjustly forgotten or deliberately overlooked in academic studies. The extensive catalogue accompanying the exhibition, which contains seven essays, all written by women, is an important and necessary textual supplement, highlighting the difficult and winding path that talented women artists had to navigate to achieve independent artistic careers.
Keywords: National Museum in Lublin, women in art, women’s art, Polish women artists, history of feminist art, art from 1850-1950, painting, graphic art, sculpture, still life, landscape, portrait
HISTORY
Janusz Golec: Lublin as a Place for Exploring Jewish Identity / 161
The author analyzes selected texts by German, Austrian, and Polish intellectuals of Jewish origin who, during World War I or shortly after its conclusion, spent time in Lublin and engaged with its Jewish residents. At that time, Lublin was an important center of Jewish life, learning, and spirituality. Therefore, staying in the city prompted the writers discussed in the article to reflect on their perception of Jewish identity, influenced their thinking about the Jewish nation, and inspired them to envision the future – both their own and that of the entire Jewish community, particularly in Eastern Europe.
Keywords: Jewish identity, Jewish city in Lublin, World War I, the future of the Jewish nation, Zionism, Judaism, Jewish culture, Ernst Weiß, Robert Weltsch, Majer Bałaban, Karl Richard Henker, Alfred Döblin
PROFILES
Piotr Gutowski: Stefan Swieżawski: Scholar, Christian, Master / 171
The article presents a brief intellectual biography of Stefan Swieżawski (1907-2004), one of the most important professors of the Catholic University of Lublin, an outstanding historian of philosophy, reviewer of the habilitation of Karol Wojtyla, initiator of his employment at the Catholic University of Lublin and his friend, the only lay auditor of the Second Vatican Council from communist countries. Prof. Swieżawski was a well-known figure in Polish postwar public life, and called for the use of the Jagiellonian Poland model, tolerant of ethnic and religious diversity, in building the post-communist homeland. Swieżawski came from a middle-class landowning family, but entered the circles of the Polish aristocracy through his marriage to Countess Maria Stadnicka. He studied philosophy in Lviv with Kazimierz Twardowski and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, and considered the French Thomist Étienne Gilson, whom he met in Paris, to be his master. In 1946, after receiving his habilitation, he was hired at the Catholic University of Lublin, and here, over time, he created a well-known school of research on the history of European and Polish philosophy of the medieval period and the turn of the Middle Ages and modernity. Among Swieżawski’s students were many prominent intellectuals. The article concludes with a call for the Lublin local government to consider naming one of the city’s streets after Stefan Swieżawski.
Keywords: Stefan Swieżawski, Karol Wojtyła, Kazimierz Twardowski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Jerzy Kalinowski, Étienne Gilson, Adam Sapieha, Adam Schaff, „Tygodnik Powszechny”, Kraków, Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Second Vatican Council, philosophy, history of philosophy, Christianity, Thomism, politics in the People’s Republic of Poland
POSTCARDS FROM THE ISLAND
Grażyna Lutosławska: Nicer / 181
CANADIAN NOTEBOOK
Marek Kusiba: With Bichler in Paradise, or Guadeloupe Mon Amour / 185
FILM TASTINGS
Jacek Dąbala: Artful Juggling with Criminal Conventions / 190
NOTES
Tomasz Otocki: In the Courland World of the Komorowskis, in the Lithuanian World of the Radziwiłłs / 191
Teresa Dras: Andrzej Cwojdzinski, a Master Still Underestimated / 195
Waldemar Michalski: Józef Bilski’s Passions and Realizations / 197
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 / 200
