"Siatka innej geografii" : o cieszyńskim okresie twórczości Juliana Przybosia

Abstract

Julian Przyboś, the leading poet of the interwar avanguard, was accociated in the years 1927—1939 with the Silesian region; he lived then in Cieszyn and worked there as a grammar-school teacher. In the author’s opinion, the choice of this region for his work was not unintentional, it was a deliberate choice. The literary theory and practice of the Cracow avanguard movement, to which Przyboś made a contribution, formed the vision of the new social and cultural reality. In the interwar Poland the vision could be maintained and realized, first of all, in Upper Silesia. It was confirmed by works of avanguard writers. The author made an effort to find out, whether Przyboś after having moved to the Silesian region, had remained faithful to the attitude assumed in the early phase of his activity, when he had produced two volumes of poems Screws, With both hands. In fact, the attitude had been retained, but only in his programmic enunciations. His poems, however, referred to these matters in different manner (intruducing „suburban” topics, or treating the vision of industrial Silesia, as if it were of an inferior ąuality). Sometimes he renouced it, transforming by his art the image of his surroundings. Such views correspond in Przyboś’ lyrics with his beliefs. One can find a correlation between the poet’s life and the situation of the lyric character; some elements of the poet’s life made a canvas for his lyrics. And so, in the poems written in the Cieszyn period, the traits of reality can be traced in the character’s status as well as in the poetic space. Generally, the relationship of the real reality and the created one is not manifest, at times only some topographical signs appear. As a rule, poetic images created by Przyboś, founded on a landscape, were generalized and synthetic in their naturę. They arose from the actual reality but were detached from it. This statement can be referred also to numerous poems, which transformed in artistic manner the landscape of Beskidy mountains. The poems were neither poetic „postcards” nor a tourisfs impression but expressed dynamically the landscape transformation. Every poetic image took its origin from a real situation or personal experience, so that, in accordance with the poet’s intention, the word corresponded closely to emotion.