Jana Szczepańskiego drzewne figury biografii, czyli o mediacji pomiędzy czasem natury a czasem kultury

Abstract

This article’s purpose is to present in what ways a well-known sociologist and humanist Jan Szczepański from Ustroń shapes his biography in private notebooks and essays, including it in some key fi gures or metaphors. The aim of his eff orts seems to situate his own life in view of the irreversible historical time as well as the cycle of vegetation – in other words, to confi rm a connection with culture so as not to lose an union with nature and its creative power. A main fi gure making for mediation between these both spheres in Szczepański’s works is the forest tree. It’s development means an actualization of inborn potency in line with Aristotle’s conception of entelechy. A notion of the tree is associated with the metaphors of roots and land, which refers both to nature and “this land”, namely to cultural region (in Szczepański’s case: his native Cieszyn Silesia). The authoress shows, how this article’s hero – especially in his Diaries – “inscribes” himself in nature’s duration and also intentionally “settles in” the culture in which he grew. In light of his attempts to reconcile historical and cyclical time in his existence as well as to fi nd the raison d’être for it, roots appear not to be a trivial symbol of attachment the place of one’s birth, but the imperative of eff ort of putting down roots in the word, and in that way – in the world of the sense which grants that sense to human’s passing away.