Z powodu Polski, z powodu Ameryki... : wspólny epizod z biografii twórczych Józefa Czapskiego i Jana Lechonia

Abstract

The article describes a common episode in the biography of the poet Jan Lechoń and the essayist and painter Józef Czapski. Representing the same generation, the artists did not take a liking to each other. Before World War II, their contacts were sporadic at best. In 1950, they met again in New York, which was Lechoń’s emigration residence. Czapski visited North America to raise money for the functioning of “Kultura” magazine in Paris. For this purpose, he was meeting with the Polish diaspora and giving lectures, in which he testified about the Katyń massacre. He included notes on the observed specificity of American culture in the quoted essays. For Lechoń, meetings with Czapski constituted a big mental and emotional problem, the evidence of which can be found in the poet’s Diary, kept regularly (at his doctor’s recommendation). After many years, reading that same diary helped