Paweł Majcherczyk: poems / 7
Bogusław Bakuła: Man in a Closed Reality and the Trap of “Blind Language.” On the Dramaturgy of Václav Havel (1936–2011) / 10
The article examines the dramatic works of Václav Havel. In its opening sections, the author presents Havel as both a dissident and a politician, while also discussing the reception of his literary oeuvre in Poland. He then situates the Czech playwright’s work within the tradition of the Theatre of the Absurd, a movement that gained particular prominence in Central Europe during the second half of the twentieth century. Following an overview of the chronological development of Havel’s dramatic writing, the article identifies the principal motifs and themes recurring throughout his plays. Particular attention is devoted to three interrelated aspects: 1) the enclosed or semi-enclosed worlds inhabited by Havel’s characters, dominated by aggressive structures that exercise authoritarian control over individuals; 2) the portrayal of the Czech intelligentsia functioning within these oppressive systems and the broader socio-political reality of the communist regime; and 3) language itself, presented as a specialized instrument of power that imprisons individuals within sterile, exhausted formulas and clichés. Havel’s plays emerge as literary laboratories in which contemporary society is subjected to linguistic, psychological, and social experimentation. Yet his aim is not to condemn his characters but to expose the mechanisms through which power operates in an authoritarian reality controlled by the communist state.
Keywords: Václav Havel, Czechoslovakia, Czech literary samizdat, Czech Theatre of the Absurd, reception of Havel’s plays in Poland, Central European drama, communism, authoritarian power, anti-communist opposition, politics, Charter 77, the Czech intelligentsia during the period of “Normalization”, degeneration of public language
Marcin Szyndrowski: poems / 29
Piotr Szewc: The Crossing / 34
This story takes the form of a dialogue, or, more precisely, two intertwined monologues between two women. The one who listens never interrupts the one who speaks. They know one another well, or rather, they once did, having come from neighbouring villages. They used to meet in the parish church, at the local shop, at the bus stop, or on the bus. Now they meet again after many years, in a different reality, a different, and perhaps better, world. They were fond of each other and shared mutual respect, and what they now discuss concerns their earthly past, when they were young, worked, raised children, and enjoyed the fruits of their labour. In heaven, what they miss most is precisely that ordinary everyday life, with all its simple joys and daily worries that once gave meaning to their existence. Set against the backdrop of the Polish countryside, probably in the 1970s, and, judging from the author’s broader oeuvre, in the vicinity of Zamość, the story portrays two women who have accepted their new, otherworldly existence, yet continue to feel the absence of what they left behind. Nothing can replace the life they once lived on earth.
Julia Szołtysek: Pioneers of Self-Determination. How Western Women Travellers Discovered the Orient – and Themselves / 41
Over the past several years, numerous scholarly and popular publications have explored the limited presence of women in historical artistic and intellectual circles, as well as in politics and science. Virginia Woolf famously offered what appeared to be a deceptively simple solution to this problem in her 1929 essay A Room of One’s Own, arguing that a woman must have money and a room of her own in order to write fiction. Drawing on the methodologies of post-capitalist feminism (Silvia Federici, Cinzia Arruzza), postcolonial studies (Mary Louise Pratt), travel writing studies (Charles Forsdick), and contemporary art theory (Linda Nochlin, Griselda Pollock, Lauren Elkin), the author examines the lives of three Western women travellers and writers who challenged the social conventions and gender norms of their respective eras. The biographies of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Gertrude Bell, and Annemarie Schwarzenbach illustrate the struggle for a broadly understood “room of one’s own” and for the right to shape one’s life independently despite economic, political, and social constraints.
Keywords: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Gertrude Bell, Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Ella Maillart, Virginia Woolf, emancipation, post-capitalist feminism, queer studies, travel, women travellers, travel writing, the Orient, the Middle East, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan
Marek Danielkiewicz: poems / 55
Witold Graboś: The Light Bulb, or Ascension / 57
The protagonist, an elderly widow living alone, inhabits a small apartment in a housing block, surrounded by the familiar objects with which she has shared her life for years. Since her husband’s death, she has been struggling with an increasing number of household breakdowns. Every malfunction reminds her of her late husband, who had always been able to fix whatever went wrong. Gradually, however, she begins to feel that the objects around her have ceased to serve her, as though they had withdrawn their loyalty. They seem to conspire behind her back, becoming spiteful, even hostile. She tries to restore the former harmony between herself and the world of things, but all her efforts prove futile. Unaware of it, she herself may be the one facing the greatest danger.
Jan Henryk Cichosz: poems / 61
Wojciech Ligęza: Myths and Fairy Tales of the Land of the Fathers. On the Poetry of Józef Baran / 64
The author examines the forms, themes, and underlying ideas of Józef Baran’s early poetry, while also reconstructing the defining features of the poet’s imagination and the distinctive qualities of his artistic language. Baran’s attachment to his birthplace and to rural culture is expressed through military metaphors, the theatricalization of everyday life, references to cultural texts, and religious imagery. The poet creates a private mythology of the family home, alongside deeply affectionate portraits of those closest to him, endowing them with multiple roles rooted in literary and cultural tradition. He perceives himself through the antithetical coexistence of acceptance and rebellion toward his provincial origins. Autobiographical themes of universal significance intertwine with intertextual play. Drawing on the conventions of fairy tales, biblical narratives, Greek mythology, masterpieces of painting, and quotations from Romantic as well as contemporary poetry, Baran constructs a richly layered poetic universe. His vision of the world ultimately assumes a cosmic dimension. One may speak here of a distinctive solar cult, of a childhood paradise situated at the centre of the universe – lost yet repeatedly regained – and of a human life governed by the laws of a transcendent order that surpasses earthly existence.
Keywords: Józef Baran, poetry, rural culture, myth, God, fairy tale, the Bible, intertextuality, self-fashioning, ritual
Romuald Mieczkowski: poems / 82
Jadwiga Nowak: Listen to Your Thoughts / 86
These excerpts from a work of prose combine poetic sensibility with an aspiration toward precision in portraying contemporary Polish reality. The author reflects on the rapid transformations of the modern world and their impact on social sensitivity and individual freedom. The text continues the novel Posłuchaj swoich myśli (Listen to Your Thoughts), first published in 2009, returning after many years to the same places and characters.
Andrzej Włodarczyk: poems / 92
Paweł Panas: On Journeys, Dreams, and Presence. Reading Gustaw Herling-Grudziński and Joanna Clark / 95
Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s Podróż do Burmy (Journey to Burma) occupies the borderland between several literary genres. Combining elements of reportage and diary writing, it also contains passages recalling the finest examples of first-person prose that consciously oscillates between intimate subjectivity and epic distance. The author of the essay focuses on those aspects of the narrative that most powerfully express the experiences of the narrator-protagonist. Of particular importance are sensory perceptions, which become catalysts for epiphanic insights into the multidimensional nature of reality. These reflections are further developed through readings of Herling-Grudziński’s later stories dealing with memory and the coexistence of the material and spiritual dimensions of existence, especially Sny w pięknym Morodi (Dreams in Beautiful Morodi) and Zima w zaświatach (Winter in the Afterlife). The essay concludes with remarks on Róża wiatrów (Compass Rose) by Joanna Clark. Like Herling-Grudziński’s writing, though without its metaphysical dimension, Clark’s work likewise questions the assumption that sensory perception alone can provide a rational foundation for human existence.
Keywords: Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Joanna Clark, metaphysics, epistemology, memory, the spiritual and material dimensions of reality, reportage, diary
REVIEWS
Not only analytically …
Józef Franciszek Fert: “Paying Tribute to Our Worthy Contemporaries…”. Norwid Through the Eyes of His Great-Grandchildren [Stefan Sawicki „Norwid – od strony prawnuków” (Norwid: Through the Eyes of His Great-Grandchildren)]; Bogusław Bakuła: A Suppressed Rebirth. Belarusian Literature of 1985–2020 in Siarhei Kavalioŭ’s Book [Сяргей Кавалёў „Беларуская літаратура перыяду трансфармацыі. Абрысы замглёнага краявіду” (Belarusian Literature of the Period of Transformation. Sketches of a Misty Landscape)]; Jadwiga Miszalska: Through the “Dark Wood” of the Text. On the Divine Comedy in Józef Ignacy Kraszewski’s Translation [Andrea Fernando De Carlo „Dantes maxime mirandus in minimis. Kraszewski e Dante”]; Andrzej Majewski: Tradition, the Senses, and the Heart [Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi „Rzym od kuchni. Śladami historii najsłynniejszych dań Wiecznego Miasta” (Rome through Its Cuisine. Tracing the History of the Eternal City’s Most Famous Dishes)]; Tomasz Kłusek: Writing in Exile [Paweł Panas „Piętno obcości. Szkice o literaturze emigracyjnej” (The Mark of Otherness. Essays on Émigré Literature)]; Magdalena Jankowska: A Portrait in the Dimensions of 15 × 50 [Jacek Wakar „W rękach mieliśmy pioruny. Piętnaście rozmów z Januszem Opryńskim” (We Held Thunderbolts in Our Hands. Fifteen Conversations with Janusz Opryński)]; Jacek Zalewski: Grzegorz Jankowicz’s “Re-Creation,” or Taking a Racing Car for a Stroll [Grzegorz Jankowicz „Od-tworzenie. Eseje o potencjalności” (Re-Creation. Essays on Potentiality)] / 102
Reviews of recently published scholarly, essayistic, and documentary books, considered against the background of the most significant phenomena in contemporary culture.
ART
Marcin Lachowski: Sławomir Marzec – Toward the Essence of the Image / 134
The article offers a comprehensive overview of Sławomir Marzec’s artistic career, spanning from his earliest works of the late 1980s to his most recent projects. Although his practice encompasses diverse media, including performance, installation, and computer-generated prints, it remains fundamentally rooted in abstract painting. Marzec frequently positions the image at the threshold of its own material existence, either by embedding it within the exhibition space or by materializing it through the painstaking accumulation of subtly differentiated layers of colour across the painting’s surface. This diversity of artistic strategies simultaneously draws upon the traditions of painterly craftsmanship and challenges established conventions, relocating painting into the sphere of conceptual inquiry. Painting thus becomes a means of investigating a reality saturated with images, fluid media, and an increasingly unstable ethical order. Unlike the modernist conception of painting as a reflection of the hidden principles governing reality, Marzec’s work adopts a more sceptical perspective. Yet he never abandons the search for archetypal structures, continually striving to grasp a meaningful whole that simultaneously fragments into details and dispersed elements. Within Marzec’s artistic vision, abstraction, understood as a means of describing a metaphysical order, becomes an instrument for approaching meaning situated on a horizon that constantly recedes from view.
Keywords: Sławomir Marzec, abstract painting, autonomy of the image, visuality, materiality of the image, intermediality, processuality, transcendence, metaphysics of the image, critique of visual culture, painterly language
DUETS
Jadwiga Graboś and Waldemar Michalski on Birutė Jonuškaitė’s Attendance List / 142
A pairing of two critical responses devoted to a recently published book. The juxtaposition of different perspectives and individual evaluations highlights the multidimensional character of the publication while opening a broader discussion of its significance and artistic value.
AT THE VERNISSAGE
Lechosław Lameński: The Munich School. The Gierymski Brothers, Stryjeńska, Wierusz-Kowalski, Chełmoński, and Others) / 151
The exhibition Monachijczycy. Gierymscy, Stryjeńska, Wierusz-Kowalski, Chełmoński i inni (The Munich School. The Gierymski Brothers, Stryjeńska, Wierusz-Kowalski, Chełmoński, and Others), held at the National Museum in Lublin from 21 November 2025 to 8 April 2026, offered a fascinating and important insight into the distinctive character and originality of nineteenth-century Polish painting, particularly that of the years 1860–1880. It was Munich rather than Paris (which became the principal destination for Polish artists only during the interwar period) that was home to the first large Polish artistic colony, bringing together several hundred painters. Its leading representatives exerted a decisive influence on the development and quality of Polish painting of the period, earning recognition not only throughout Europe but also in the United States. The exhibition presented more than two hundred carefully selected works by sixty-seven artists. A special place was given to paintings from the Polish Museum in Rapperswil, many of which had never before been exhibited in Poland. The exhibition was accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue featuring several insightful essays devoted to the achievements of the “Polish Munich School.”
Keywords: Polish Munich School, Munich, nineteenth-century Polish painting, Munich School, National Museum in Lublin, Aleksander Gierymski, Maksymilian Gierymski, Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski, Józef Chełmoński, Józef Brandt, Władysław Czachórski, Adam Chmielowski (Brother Albert), Polish Museum in Rapperswil
RECOLLECTIONS
Ewa Dunaj: „Misia” / 161
This memoir is devoted to Professor Maria Janion (1926–2020), the eminent philosopher, literary scholar, and literary critic. Written by one of her former students and master’s supervisees, it recalls the author’s earliest encounters with her mentor before tracing the evolution of their relationship over the years. The resulting portrait of Janion is richly nuanced. On the one hand, she appears as an inspiring scholar of formidable erudition, an outstanding researcher and teacher who commanded profound respect – indeed, almost reverence – among her students. On the other, the later years of their acquaintance reveal a more personal side: warm, approachable, witty, and increasingly willing to shorten the distance between herself and those around her. The author also welcomes the decision of the Gdańsk City Council, taken at the end of 2025, to name one of the city’s streets after Maria Janion.
Keywords: Maria Janion, Gdańsk, University of Gdańsk, Polish Studies, memoirs
INTERSECTIONS
Ewa Kołodziejczyk: In Dialogue with Yourself. On One – or Perhaps Two – Poems by Czesław Miłosz / 165
The essay offers an extended interpretation of Czesław Miłosz’s poem Dar (Gift), placing it within the tradition of twentieth-century pastoral poetry and relating it to the poet’s earlier work, especially Piosenka o końcu świata (A Song on the End of the World). The author uncovers the cultural and intertextual layers embedded in this lyrical miniature while simultaneously confronting the poem with lived experience. Recalling her own visit to Miłosz’s home in Berkeley, she re-examines specific details of the landscape evoked in the poem, bringing together literary interpretation and personal memory. By tracing the affinities in poetic vision that unite A Song on the End of the World (1945) and Gift (1971), despite the decades separating their composition, the essay reveals both the evolution of Miłosz’s outlook on himself and the world and the remarkable coherence of his poetic imagination and philosophical concerns.
Keywords: Czesław Miłosz, Berkeley, San Francisco Bay, pastoral poetry, symbolism, philosophy, nature
CONTEXTS
Bartosz Kaliszuk: Testimonies of Sensitivity / 171
On 27 May 2026, the Crown Tribunal in Lublin hosted a jubilee meeting with Marek Kusiba celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of his literary debut, Tratwa (The Raft). The poet and reporter, who studied in Lublin before emigrating to Canada in 1984, reflected on the beginnings of his literary career, his struggles with censorship, and the creation of his recently published collection Rajskie (Rajskie), a poetic cycle devoted to the dramatic fate of his mother and grandparents. Honoured with both the Medal of the Union of Lublin and the Medal of the Akcent Eastern Foundation for Culture, Kusiba accepted these distinctions with his characteristic self-irony. The evening concluded with musical performances by Mikołaj Kusiba and Michał Kaczor, accompanied by reflections on the close relationship between two seemingly distant literary forms: poetry and reportage.
CANADIAN NOTEBOOK
Marek Kusiba: Miracles in Rajskie / 175
POSTCARDS FROM THE ISLAND
Grażyna Lutosławska: Crooked Houses / 177
CINEMATIC TASTINGS
Jacek Dąbała: A Series for the Whole World / 180
NOTES
Jan Władysław Woś: Following the Trail of a Question That Cannot Be Dismissed / 181
Olga Białek-Szwed: The Kajtoch Trio. On Jadwiga Mizińska’s Conversation with Wojciech Kajtoch / 183
Waldemar Michalski: “The Land Closest to the Heart” / 186
Information on prominent writers and cultural phenomena, together with reviews of the most noteworthy initiatives, events, and publications of the past several months.
Notes about the authors / 190
