"Gdzie ziemia się kończy, a morze zaczyna" : szkice polsko-portugalskie

Abstract

This volume presents a collection of essays which deal with Polish-Portuguese literary connections. It aims at bringing back selected Polish texts, representing various literary genres and types of writing, whose authors refer to elements drawn from the Portuguese history, culture, art, and literature or focus on the geography, topography and architecture of this land, situated at the very edge of Europe. The works discussed in this volume include writings of such authors as: Aleksander Przezdziecki, Adolf Pawiński, Zygmunt Bytkowski, Maria Danilewicz- Zielińska, Franciszek Ziejka, Renata Gorczyńska, Zbigniew Kadłubek, Marcin Kydryński and Magdalena Starzycka. The aim is to identify how Polish writers of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries perceived Portugal and to establish the reasons why they referred to it. The Polish perspective dominates throughout the volume, since it is the Polish perception of Portugal that is the object of reflection here. There is one exception to this rule, though. A separate chapter is devoted to the reaction of the Portuguese to the January Uprising. Confident that their unrestrained and intense response merits a mention, the authors include its short presentation in this collection of Polish-Portuguese essays. The increased interest in the land situated at the far end of Europe, demonstrated by nineteenth century Polish writers, is thus placed in a broader context, which shows that this was by no means a one-way involvement.