Ukraina w twórczości Włodzimierza Odojewskiego i Włodzimierza Paźniewskiego

Abstract

The picture of Ukraine in the contemporary Polish literature belongs to the group of those themes which “seduce” both scholars and readers. The character of that issue, its interdisciplinarity as well as its relations to the sphere of broadly understood “border” and “peripheral” phenomena are intriguing. The challenge turn out to be the numerous tensions and contrasts which make the image of Ukraine dynamic, ambiguous and evading strict categorisations. The premise underlying this work is to present Ukraine as a cultural phenomenon being constituted by history, tradition and literature. Ukraine has been identified here not so much with some strict historical and geographical territory encircled by that name, but with a “storage place” (a collection) of literary works, themes, motives and conventions associated with that name. Consequently, the recognition of Ukraine as a specific and complex “text” results with the preference for examining the relations between the analysed images and other texts, literary tradition, different ways of writing about Slowacki’s homeland, the images and stereotypes preserved in the culture of that place. Two images which seem to be characteristic and significant have been chosen among numerous pictures of Ukraine in the contemporary literature. The image of “that land” was analysed in the writings of Włodzimierz Odojewski (mainly in the texts of the Podole cycle: Wyspa ocalenia [The Island of Salvation], Zmierzch świata [The Twilight of World], Zasypie wszystko, zawieje... [It Will All Be Covered up, Drifted...], but also in other stories by that writer and in his latest novel entitled Oksana} as well as the picture of the “strange country” in the writings of Włodzimierz Paźniewski (mainly in the novel Krótkie dni [Short Days], but also in some chosen essays of the writer from Katowice). The decision of limiting the research to those two, so much different writers’ propositions has been dictated by many respects. The selection offered in the work allowed for juxtaposing the images created by writers belonging to different generations, characterized by diverse historical experiences (the tragic history of the old Kresy [Polish-Ukrainian borderland] at the time of the Second World War for Odojewski constitutes the painful memories of his childhood, Paźniewski does not know the country presented in his writings from autopsy, he already belongs to the writers who were called “younger authors” by Czeslaw Milosz). The chosen literary images have been created by writers of different experiences, and, respectively, their characters are also different: Odojewski creates his vision in the form of the ever growing monumental “epic of the borderland”, while Paźniewski does it in the form of short stories and anecdotes forming a colourful mosaic. A contrasting juxtaposition of that sort has allowed for the elimination of “automatic” analogies, but it simultaneously has also allowed for presentation, through differences and similarities of characteristic features and tendencies in the image of Ukraine in contemporary literature. The presented place is the “chosen land” for both writers. They both also share the outright, obsessive desire for perceiving and explaining that phenomenon in the consciousness of the Poles. The chosen images of Ukraine have been analysed in the work from the perspective of their connections with the literary tradition. Thanks to that some tensions between two territories of the literary tradition, i.e. Romanticism and the Galician tradition, have been revealed. They have had the decisive influence on the image of Ukraine which is perceived either as a territory of tragic historical and existential experiences, or as a place of diversity, the meeting poin of nations, cultures, religions and languages. In the chosen literary images different reasons decided about the choice of the way of writing about Ukraine, the aim of those practices has also been different in each case. The connections with literary tradition revealed the characteristic features of the phenomenon of Ukraine, and have shown the depth of that country which functions mainly in the spheres of individual and collective memory. Therefore, while examining the image of Slowacki’s homeland, the attention has also been paid to different “forms of memory” which construct it, i.e. personal memories, creative memory, lack of memories, nostalgia. The elements of the country as space presented in literary works, the “speaking” place organised by the word have also been examined in the work. The analyses presented in the work have shown Ukraine as a phenomenon of culture, a place which is not only a mirror of the past, the present and the future, but also a place which constitutes a synthesis of national as well as existential experiences.