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Krystyna
Bartol,
Read, Read Homer...
Giovanni
Cerri, Odysseus - A Hero Who Tells His Own Story
This
text by an outstanding Italian classical philologist, an expert on
Greek archaic literature, a translator of the Iliad, and a
scholar whose scientific investigations combine purely literary
studies with investigations concerning the philosophical reflections
of Greek thinkers, is an extremely interesting proposal of a "centrifugal"
approach to the text of the Odyssey. Cerri seeks a definition
of the personal identity of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's poem, at
the same time posing a question about the reasons for the vitality
of the assorted images of this figure in the literary oeuvre of all
epochs. While demonstrating the characterological multi-aspect
nature of Odysseus, Cerri strives at capturing an element merging
particular aspects of his personality, and ascribes fundamental
relevance to an analysis of the hero's autobiographical discourse.
In doing so, he proves that secondary narration, i. e. the tale
about himself, presented by Odysseus at the court of the king of the
Phaeacians, is - in anthropological dimension - a paradigmatic
evocation of human cognition. Furthermore, he demonstrates that the
introspective statement made by the main hero remains closely
connected with the emergence of his self-awareness of this process,
which seems to seal the personal identity of every person. Thus,
albeit the autobiographical, retrospective discourse represents an
already moulded personality, it allows it to come into being in an
objective world, in this sense, Homer's narration, focused within
the lens of the awareness (or rather, self-awareness) of the main
hero, reveals - as if in the spirit of Berkeley's esse est
percipi - the prominence of the word in shaping our images of
the world.
Aleksandra
Melbechowska-Luty,
Cywilzacja—Trans-Atlantyk. The
Ocean,
Ships and Havens of
Norwid and Gombrowicz
In
1958, Maria Dąbrowska wrote about a certain spiritual kinship
between Cyprian Norwid and Witold Gombrowicz, two Polish writers a
century apart. Both shared a similar stance, features, passions,
thoughts, outstanding intellects, originality, innovativeness,
uncommon personalities and a special bond; both disclosed a ruthless
assessment of contemporary life, a critical attitude towards their
surrounding and introduced into the intellectual life of the epoch
his own vision of the world. Norwid was a precursor of new notions,
reflections, concepts and theories of art (subsequently continued by
the modernists), while Gombrowicz became the co-author of "self-aware"
literature, thus preceding "negative experience" art. The
biographies of the two men. also contain experiences as emigres and
sea voyagers, since both had crossed the
Atlantic
. These expeditions could be regarded as a sheer coincidence or
metaphysical phenomena, a mysterious impulse which set into motion
in their "creative work oceanic motifs limiting the range of
the universum". For centuries, collective consciousness
has turned the ship into an archetype, a mythical and magical "figure"
ascribed to die concept of the route and voyage of life, a symbol of
the soul, hope, stability, and the "closed" universe.
Norwid travelled to North America on the sailing ship "Margaret
Evans" (1852/1853) and returned to Europe on the steamship
"Pacific"(1854). He described both vessels in a masterly
way in his novel Cywilizacja, in which he lauded the
traditional sailing ship and expressed a certain aloofness towards
the modern, speedy steamship, which ultimately sunk in 1856,
probably after a collision with an iceberg. The poignant experience
of this event inclined Norwid to write the maritime Legenda, expressing
his opinion about the mirages of civilisation, the might of
technology and the illusive chase after matter, empiria and all
things technical. Gombrowicz sailed to Argentine in August 1939 on
M/s "Chrobry", and once in Buenos Aires he wrote Trans-Atlantyk,
a novel maintained in the spirit of a farcical tragedy, a
controversial message addressed to the Poles, and an assessment of
the Polish past and mentality confronted with the national wartime
cataclysm and the problems of contemporaneity. M/s
"Chrobry", adapted for the purposes of a troop carrier,
sunk near Norway in 1940. After 24 years spent in Argentina,
Gombrowicz (always fascinated with the sea) described in his Dziennik
1963 (Diary 1963) how during a return trip to Europe he noticed
the mist-enshrouded phantom of "Chrobry", which appeared
on the Atlantic as a harbinger of fate, an apparition of lost youth,
a "perished brother, lost for ever".
Lech Sokół,
Edgar, Duke of Nevermore and Bungo. Bronisław Malinowski as a
Character in the Oeuvre of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz
The article discusses the close friendship
between Bronisław Malinowski (researcher, world-famous
anthropologist) and Stanislaw I. Witkiewicz (writer, painter, artist),
and in particular its "literary" version, contained
predominantly in Witkiewicz's youthful novel 622 upadki Bunga,
czyli Demoniczna kobieta (622 Falls of Bungo, or the Demonic
Female), written in 1910-1911 (supplemented in 1919), but never
published during the author's lifetime; in it, Malinowski is
portrayed as Edgar Duke of
Nevermore, and Witkiewicz - as Bungo. The author not only
depicts the different attitudes of the two men towards science, art
and life, but also notes that already in this early "literary
version" one may encounter premises for the subsequent (in
1914) breaking of a very close friendship (the official reason being
their disparate attitudes towards the war). This "literary"
version is referred to the actual relationship, although its models
and motifs can be found also in literature from the Young Poland
period.
Two Eagles. An
Interview Held by Katarzyna Suchcicka with Agneta Pleijel
A
conversation held with Agneta Pleijel, author of the book Lord
Nevermore, telling the story of the complicated friendship
between Stanislaw I. Witkiewicz (one of the most prominent figures
in Polish art up to the second world war) and Bronisław Malinowski
(world-famous anthropologist). The publication, which is not a
documentary work, intends also, if not primarily, to follow the
confrontation between the world of science and art, depicted against
the backdrop of the course of the friendship. The interview,
conducted by the Polish translator of the book, tries to bring forth
the Polish perspective and the author's attitude towards Poland. We
also publish some excerpts from the aforementioned book by Agneta
Pleijel.
Anna
Malanowska, The Theatricalisation of the Funeral of S. I.
Witkiewicz
An attempt at interpreting and, at the same
time, understanding the purported funeral of S. I. Witkiewicz, held
in 1988. The text is composed of three mutually supplementary parts,
of which the first shows the path traversed by Witkiewicz (already
posthumously) from an artist relegated to the margin and an outsider
to a national martyr (the alteration of his status is well
illustrated by shifts within his legend). Part two analyses the
funeral as a spectacle (Raszewski) and a show (Goffman), drawing
forth and characterising the assorted (at times contradictory)
interests, attitudes and expectations of the participants, whose
entanglement and context (the twilight of the People's Republic of
Poland) were decisive for its specificity and uniqueness. Finally,
the third part contains hypotheses and a summary.
Tomasz
Grygiel, A Victory of Art over Time? From the
Current Premises of Schopenhauerian Thought
An essential feature of contemporaneity is
a constant race with time, its cult, and fetishization, which
destroy the intimacy of the life of an individual and the natural
course of his activity, and even devastate the sphere of culture.
There emerges the question whether an antidote to this state
of things may be sought in art and its experiencing. We discover an
affirmative answer in those conceptions of human thought in which
the subject experiencing art succumbs, thanks to its specific
properties, to exclusion from surrounding reality, even if only
momentarily. At that particular time, A. Schopenhauer claimed, such
a person is no longer governed by the earthly laws of physics
interpreted in terms of time and space and belonging to the daily
world, known as the world of the "will", since in the act
of contemplating art man coexists not with the presented objects but
with the images of their ideas (in the Platonian sense), which exist
in a different dimension. The presence (experiencing) of two
different worlds: real and art, together with the latter's timeless
presence, was mentioned by K. Jaspers, while S. Ossowski, who
creatively adapted elements of Schopenhauerian thought, launched the
correctness of the thesis of "living for a moment",
convenient in the reception of art.
The accomplishments of contemporary art,
including the quantum theory and relativistic cosmology, which
negate "the arrow of time" and even permit the possibility
of designating its direction in certain regions of the universe,
appear to go hand in hand with the philosophical intuition of
Schopenhauer, in which time can be located also outside the
traditional laws of earthly causality. We would like to believe that
liberation from these laws, even if only shortlived, is assisted
by experienced contact with art.
Teresa Grzybkowska, The Lady from
Elche
This
text is a fragment of Podróże Tajemne (Secret Journeys), a
currently written account of a journey to Spain, Asia Minor and
Sicily. The titular Lady of Elche is a likeness of a female, carved
in stone, discovered at the end of the nineteenth century in Spain
and almost immediately taken to Paris, from which it was returned to
the Archaeological Museum in Madrid in 1941. This unusual work of
art became the topic of reflections about Iberian art - the sculpture,
which tells the story of bygone days, depicts a female deity in
ceremonial costume, whose magnificent jewellery and
majestically beautiful and haughty face predict the pathos and
archaism of hieratic ceremony at the Toledo and Madrid courts
of
modern Spanish monarchs. The Lady of Elche conceals
the secret of eternal youth, an attribute of a goddess whose image
will always remain anonymous, comprising the very essence of royal
femininity suffused with divine tranquillity.
Barbara Czarniawska,
A
need for symmetrical ethnology in management studies
Modernization was never a process limited
to "non-modern" countries, but a process that continues
and involves everybody in the contemporary world, although in
different forms and with varying results. Therefore, the postulate
of "symmetrical anthropology", or "symmetrical
ethnology" formulated by Bruno Latour but practiced already by
such great anthropologists as Marshall Sahlins, is of great
importance, especially in the field of management, which was
traditionally excluded from the anthropological scrutiny. While the
wave of "organizational culture" studies made the first
encroachment in this tradition, it is now time to collapse such
dichotomies as "technical-ideological", or "symbolic-practical"
and pay more attention to the rituals of modernity, and to the role
of fashion and mimesis in the global economy. This article discusses
the challenges and the promises of such an approach to modern
culture.
Jerzy S. Wasilewski, The
Travelling Ethnologist. Confucius
in Front of a Camera, the Female Shaman with a Microphone
A successive
fragment in a series describing the experiences of a known
ethnologist on a voyage to the Culture of the
Far East
. This time, Wasilewski shares observations from his stay in Korea
and meetings with Korean shamans, which initially appeared
disappointing and only later led to an understanding of local
specificity. "Slowly, I became aware of the fact that I should
be deciphering the values lying at the basis of Korean shamanism in
a different way, more as a complex of artistic productions, expanded
in a manner not encountered anywhere else in the world. A veritable
contest of the fine arts, where the success of the female shaman
is measured in such disciplines as dance, song, recitation of myths,
legends and fables, the art of fortune-telling, conversations and
banter with the audience, and, finally, the costume, make-up and
even the art of making paper flowers".
Tomasz Szerszeń
, "In the Shade of the Skyscraper" -an Attempt at an Anthropological
View of New
Architecture in Warsaw
The
article is devoted to an anthropological study of contemporary
architecture in Warsaw: especially of the skyscrapers - how
they exist in the collective imagination. Author emphasizes the
relation between (culturally understood) category of height and the
image of the city. He shows how the change in our acquaintance with
height is reflected in poetry, art and Utopian ideas. Author
presents the reception of the sudden appearance of skyscrapers in
Polish cityscape in the early 90': they were conceived as something
entirely new, odd and mysterious. Thanks to popular press they have
become part of a common myth. They acquired features of
paradoxical and ambiguous life of
a symbol. Author describes particular features of
skyscraper in its cultural contexts. It can be interpreted as a
"pseudo-temple": the "temple of money".
Peter Martyn, A British
Troy
in The Heartland? (On The Flourishing,
Dissolution and Ultimate Oblivion of An Urban
Civilisation)
The author, a Coventrian by birth,
has sought to place in an appropriate historic context the vestigial
urbane features of what for a long time, before the nearby,
modern-age and constantly transmuting urban accretion of Birmingham
usurped its position, was the urbs
prima of the Midlands. Based largely on two English-language
articles published in Warsaw, the text is intended for Polish
readers to bring into focus the unique identity and culture
generated by the inhabitants of a city whose true apogee is seen to
have been reached in another, much earlier age. In spite of
the violent course of events under Henry VIII and his progeny, there
is ample if fragmentary evidence to suggest that, during the
prolonged struggle for political power waged throughout much of the
British Isles and France ruled by the Plantagenets, Coventry had
been taking shape as an urban republic in embryonic form.
Rapid decline in the 16th century and a marked abstention from the
main trends in so-called national affairs right down to the 20th
century relegated to the remote past the unquestionable significance
of a British analogy for the Greek polis or German Freistadt.
Worshipped by its inhabitants as a Gothic equivalent of the
Celestial City, Coventry's independence was secured by the burgess
at the expense of feudal overlordship and ecclesiastical authority.
This enclave of municipal liberty was to itself fall victim to
encroachments by the Crown (Dissolution of the Monasteries; Charles
II’s order that the city walls be spited), culminating in direct
state interference and control (collapse of the outworkers' movement
following the 1860 Anglo-French Free Trade Act).
There is absolutely nothing new in the
maxim that history tends to be told by its victors. An hypothesis
based on the concept of post-mediaeval urban dissolution must reject
the standard interpretation that urban growth forms part of a
decisive continuum in the history of 'Western', and ultimately
global, civilisation. Conventional endeavours to perceive
developments in the city of the past in terms of constant progress
fail to adequately account for the highly complex and on the
whole vaguely defined mechanisms of so-called historic process.
Fated in the 20th century to become an urban laboratory in which a
new social order based on technological advance was supposed to be
forged, today's city bears the stigmata of having had its
architectural profile and very urban layout transformed beyond
recognition in the course of several generations. The gaping shell
of St. Michael's cathedral church with its magnificent steepled bell
tower offers the most prominent testimony, in soaring stone, to the
glory that must once have been Coventry. Never designed to serve as
a bishop's cathedral, but rather for the citizens as their own
expression of pious gratitude and above all civic pride, apart from
their chapels, it featured upper chambers where many of the more
important crafts would meet and conduct their affairs. Alongside the
meagre architectural monuments preserved to this day, the varied and
changing contents of the so-called mystery plays provide vital
insight into both the city's cultural and social life. The civic
drama performed by the crafts in the streets reflect a growing trend
towards secularising the original morality and miracle plays enacted
by the monastic orders. Religiousness and spirituality remained a
vital part of these pageants, but equally important ingredients were
comedy, satire and an increasingly pronounced reference co pagan
mythology. Apart from an ongoing socio-economic crisis, the gradual
demise of Coventry's 'Dramatic Mysteries’ reflects the
cultural and political distress that befell the city during
England's own royal enterprise of reformation. This was ensued by a
brief but bloody spell of counter-reformation before the Elizabethan
'Renaissance' ensconced itself in the court capital. While the rise
of Puritanism sounded the death knell to local creative genius
throughout the country, threatening even London's ebullient theatre
life, attempts were taken, through the avoidance of Biblical
references, to salvage something of the 'Coventry Entertainments'.
Based on Joseph Flavius's The Jewish War, the play metaphorically
titled The Destruction of Jerusalem is interpreted by the author as
a parable of the Midlands city's own demise. It seems quite likely
that, as opposed to the outlawed pageants, the 1584 performance was
staged in just one place, on the site of Coventry's own temple,
which had been demolished within living memory in the late 1540s:
the first cathedral and Benedictine Priory. The annual procession of
Lady Godiva, first introduced in the 17th century as a much needed
substitute for the discontinued 'Mysteries', seems to draw its roots
from a matriarchical divinity. Born out of the worship of natural
forces and spectacles in times predating the introduction of
Christianity, such rites, as well as being instrumental in the
city's creation, could easily have influenced its rich mediaeval
pageantry. Lastly, but certainly not least, events and sentiments as
portrayed in the tragedies, comedies and histories of Shakespearean
drama appear not only to be connected with but to actually draw
their origins from Coventry. It seems as good as certain that the
ethos of the city's dramatic Mysteries, the overwhelming majority of
which were never transcribed and thus never handed down to posterity,
find their expression in the Shakespearean heritage.
Ewa
Klekot, Holy
Pictures, Licheń and the Judgment of Taste
From 1997 to 1999 the author conducted,
together with students of ethnology at Warsaw University, research
concerning contemporary religious art. The area of the
investigations was selected in such a manner so as to facilitate an
examination of the perception of an object of contemporary sacral
art, assessed positively by the researchers from the viewpoint of
its aesthetics - the church of Holy Providence in Wesoła, with an
interior designed by Jerzy Nowosielski - and an object which gave
rise to certain aesthetic protest - the sanctuary in Licheń. The
investigations were concerned also with taking a closer look at
contemporary religious art through the eyes of its users. Hence the
visits in
Częstochowa
and Kalwaria Zebrzydowska as well as a study of the devotional art
market. It rapidly became apparent that pride of place was given to
the value of contemporary religious art and the possibility of
applying the judgment of taste, which, based to a great measure on
sensual experience, is the worst justified by means of discourse or
the least susceptible to relativisation. The present-day judgment of
taste, founded on the evaluation of aesthetic qualities and the
conviction about their autonomy, comprises an instrument with which
we are equipped by our own cultural tradition - we simply "react
with the judgment of taste" to the material effects of man's
artistic (including musical) activity. The aesthetic judgment
contains an
extremely strong bond with the experiences of the body, as
evidenced by its very name: the judgment of taste. Sensual
experience, even if we were to be aware of its fallibility, still
remains one of the most personal and intimate ways of establishing
contacts with the world; hence transcending the judgment of taste is
tantamount to transgressing the cultural limitations of own
experiences. The interpretation proposed by above mentioned group of
researchers was based to a considerable degree on works by Pierre
Bourdieu and his theory about the socially classifying role of the
judgment of taste.
Grzegorz
Sokół
,
The
Madonna of
Częstochowa
as the Polish National Symbol
An abbreviated version of a work written as
part of ethnology' courses at Warsaw University, and based on
research conducted in the Częstochowa sanctuary and Licheń in
1998. The author inquired about the national and religious message
of the symbol, i. e. the likeness of the Madonna of Częstochowa,
the shaping of its significance, and the relation between its
religious universality and national or outright personal
particularism. The pilgrims usually assess the direct combination of
official national symbols with the Black Madonna negatively,
claiming that the holy image thus becomes partially desacralised and
- especially if one poses this question openly - calls for a
slightly different interpretation. At the same rime, the very
presentation of the Częstochowa painting possesses a specifically
Polish character, which is the reason why it can function
independently as a national symbol. The "concealed"
contents, i. e. those which are not only visually manifested in the
depiction, but which nonetheless constitute an extremely essential
component of its message, possess a number of assorted sources. The
reconstruction of the symbol within an interview takes place upon
the basis of its historically shaped significance and its current,
pragmatic context. The author also attempted to perform a
semantic-historical analysis of the sources of the contents of the
titular image by dividing the examined issue according to its four
aspects: cult, miracle, iconography and politics. He also delved
into the composite relation between religious universality and the
national specificity of the Częstochowa Madonna. This opposition
seems to be fundamental and at times is frequently recognised and
turned into an intellectual problem. Apparently, it possesses an
intellectual nature, a derivative of our process of contrasting the
two categories, to which it is difficult not to succumb once one
conducts their verbalisation. By referring to the model devised by
Victor Turner, the author declares that the more important line of
division runs not so much between Polishness and universality as
between the personal, outright intimate attitude to the Madonna of
Częstochowa and the official stand.
Agnieszka
Kula, The Licheń
Golgotha
as an Example of the Rivalry
of the Tradition and Popularity of the Way of the Cross Service
Pertinent
research focused attention on the combination within the Licheń
Golgotha of the tradition of mediaeval Sacri Monti and the Way of
the Cross service. The author was also interested in the image of
Golgotha remembered by the visitors. Departure from the symbolic in
favour of a recreation of reality leads to a profound involvement of
the participants of the religious ceremony. The principles of
composition, resembling those applied by the architects who created
Sacri Monti, i. e. realism and the isolation of the site with the
assistance of verdant vegetation, are not only to the liking of the
faithful but also facilitate their engagement.
Antonina Bereza, The Functioning
of a Contemporary Devotional Picture
How are devotionalia used? What is their
purpose? The answers to these, at first glance, banal questions pose
quite a difficult task. Devotionalia, and in particular devotional
pictures, belong simultaneously to various worlds - the world of art,
religion, sometimes specific magic, as well as the world of objects
of daily use, of souvenirs and small gifts. The author tried to
demonstrate the assorted functions which can be fulfilled be
devotionalia and, at the same time, the multiple reflections on this
topic.
Magdalena Jagiełło, From
Holiness to the Mundane -
or on the Profanity of the Devotional Image during the Decline of
the Audiovisual Epoch
This text is one of the results of
investigations carried out in Częstochowa as part of a laboratory
dealing with devotional kitsch. The author embarked upon an attempt
at describing the present-day condition of the holy image. The
emergence of such extreme forms of devotional objects as the ones
she encountered in the course of her studies, and the impossibility
of perceiving in them any incorrectness and profanation are,
according to the author, the outcome of the encroaching new
audiovisual epoch which has produced in us novel instruments of
perception, rendering us helpless in the face of a new reality that
combines fiction and that what is real, and obliterates the boundary
between the world of the sacrum and the profanum.
Izabella Dzienisiewicz, The Image
of Licheń in the Media and in the Eyes of the Pilgrims
A description
of the Marian Sanctuary in Licheń as well as the way in which it is
perceived by pilgrims and the media. Conducted research demonstrated
that the former consider the Sanctuary to be a wondrous and
magnificent place, where everyone experiences stirring emotions and
which pilgrims leave spiritually uplifted. The diametrically
different image of Licheń formed by the media employs such
expressions as kitsch, tawdriness, and "architectural
debauchery", and draws attention to the exorbitant costs of the
undertaking. The author presents her own perception of Licheń, and
as a "non-transparent ethnographer" concludes that we are
dealing with a postmodern sanctuary.
Jacek Olędzki,
Mexico.
Contemporary Miracle Consciousness
Jacek Olędzki, The
Marian Sanctuary in Bardo
Ślqskie
For
almost fifty years Jacek Olędzki has been examining miracles, and
has published, also in our periodical, texts about miracle
sensitivity and vota. This time, he considers Mexican vota,
so-called retablos. As in the past, Marian and Jesus
sanctuaries in Mexico are dominated by rather naive, touching
paintings executed on tin, always bearing an adoration inscription
explaining the events which lay at the basis of the given votum (thus,
we may speak about a process of rendering public something which
frequently remains extremely private). As a rule, each retablo includes
a likeness of the venerated figure to whom a request or thanks are
addressed. The author describes and analyses assorted examples of retablos,
basing his text predominantly on material contained in the
excellently published and admirable Miracles on the Border:
Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States by Jorge
Durand and Douglas S. Massey. In his analysis of emigration, the
author notes that it was primarily a plebeian phenomenon, and
compares it to earlier tides of Polish emigrants. In the next text,
Olędzki writes about one of the most celebrated cult centers in
Poland (next Jasna Góra [Częstochowa] and Skępe) and reviews
select votive paintings featured therein. The essence of miracle
experiences has not changed, and the same type of trust recurs for
almost 300 years, albeit probably less universally. It is reality
which has succumbed to transformations - the appearance of
alcoholism in Poland and banditry in the U.S.A. (evidenced by the vota
of Mexican emigrants).
Karolina Siemion, Miraculous
and Ordinary Water
A study
pursued as part of the experimental laboratory group "Film and
photography - methods of ethnographic
documentation", conducted by P Szacki, K. Braun and A. Różycki.
The material (mainly conversations with the elderly) was gathered in
1999 in
the regions of Krasnobród, Rzeszów and Krosno as well as in
Gietrzwald, and was supplemented by about 200 photographs. The work
is composed of two parts: the first pertains to "ordinary water",
and the second - to "miraculous water". The miraculous
spring appears suddenly - it gushes thanks to the intervention of a
saint and is often associated with a revelation of the Virgin Mary -
the subsequent patrons of the fount. This is the source of the
water's health-giving properties, which remain constant unless
someone sullies the spring. The medicinal and magic effects of the
water increase during specific periods, e. g. at Easter. Up to this
day, the custom of drawing water from a spring at midnight or
immediately before dawn is cultivated in many parts of Poland. The
fact that no one had yet drawn water on that particular day endows
it with special qualities.
Małgorzata
Baranowska, The Postcard
The author has been collecting postcards
for years, and has broached this topic in assorted publications (i.
a. "Konteksty" 3-4/1992 and "Visual Anthropology",
vol. 7, no. 3, 1995). The presented text indicates predominantly
problems associated with the classification of
postcards. The collection is as if a "natural",
cultural state of the postcards, which, in turn, immediately produce
the form of a collection, the prime reason being that from its very
onset the postcard is "the offspring of the notion of a series".
The development of printing, industry, copying, and the modern
possibilities of reproduction became combined with imagination, a
longing to travel, the cult of all that is exotic, and intimate
reminiscences. The postcard is a being which can be classified in an
almost endless number of ways. As a rule, we deal with
classifications imposed by particular collectors, but it is worth
noting the presence of "producer's collections" (the
author draws attention to several extremely interesting series
devoted to Napoleon). Collecting postcards differs from other types
of collections, for instance, stamps, i. e. due to the fact that a
stamp collection represents a certain value from its very beginning.
The author also emphasises that postcards played a certain part in
the promotion of the cinema (i. e. mass-scale duplicated portraits
of film stars and scenes).
Jan
Gondowicz, The
Passions of Pastor Dogdson
Lewis
Carroll, alias Charles Lutdwige Dodgson, is universally celebrated
as the author of tantalising stories about Alice. The author of the
presented text reveals the almost unknown face of Rev. Dodgson: a
passion for photography. A certain piquant tinge to this years-long
pastime is added by the fact that the favourite models were
prepubescent girls. It must be added, however, that the sessions
were always chaperoned by a governess (this was Victorian England, after
all!).
Andrzej Pieńkos, "My
Buildings Are Paper, Like My Writings". Residences of
English Eighteenth-century Men of Letters
The amateur-architect originated in England,
where during the first half of the eighteenth century there appeared
realisations of the "literary house", i. e. architecture
shaped as an artistic concept of the writer. The house, the palace
and the castle were no longer the image of the world, a reflection
and a symbol of cosmic order; they became the reflection of a
private order. The house as the seat of private dreams became
increasingly frequently the auteur work of the owner, a feat
achieved just as often by ignoring norms binding at the time. The
author analyses the residences of Alexander Pope in Twickenham, Lord
Burlington in Chiswick, William Shenstone in The Leasowes gardens,
Horace Walpole in Strawberry Hill, and William Beckford in Fonthill
Abbey. All these objects constitute realisations of conceptions
devised by the writers, and to a lesser or greater degree discarded
the architectural norms of the period. This tendency towards
architecture not conceived in an architectural mode is particularly
vividly distinctive in Fonthill Abbey and Strawberry Hill: despite
the participation of architects, the buildings remained the
sublimation of literature. Neither the Pope residence nor any other
examples can be included into the history proper of the artists'
studios. Nonetheless, they remain outstanding instances of the
"artist's home", and thus a place associated with his
oeuvre by means of assorted bonds, creating his milieu - the complex
of inspiration and the context of reception.
Zbigniew Osiński, Osterwa's
Loneliness, What Is New in Research about the Reduta Theatre?
Texts
by Juliusz Osterwa, which the author has gathered in his book Reduta
i teatr. Artykuły - Wywiady - Wspomnienia 1914-1947 (Reduta and
the Theatre. Articles - Interviews -Reminiscences 1914-1947, Wroclaw
1991), were never intended as a textbook addressed to actors and
directors. Nor do they contain technical remarks or records of
actors' training. The presented publication is primarily
a register of the traces of Osterwa's creative path, left behind by
him in the course of 33 years. The actor, director, co-founder of
the Reduta Theatre and its head, constitutes a prominent chapter in
the history of the theatre and for some still remains a vital
inspiration. Ultimately, every authentic Polish theatre company is
compelled to confront the Reduta experiences and declare its stand
towards them: as either pro or con. There is simply
not other way to act. This is the reason why the author considered
it important to salvage as much as possible of Osterwa's statements, either written or made in
assorted interviews. After all, we can never tell what, and when
will prove valuable. Certain strongly embedded stereotypes of
approaching both Osterwa and the Reduta Theatre include the oft
repeated, even up to this very day, opinion that the most
interesting and important was the First Warsaw Reduta from
1939-1925. Why cannot the same be said about the Wilno Reduta
(1925-1929/1931), the Warsaw Reduta Institute (1931-1939) or
projects of the "Dal" and "Geneza" theatrical
fraternities dating from the occupation? Another such stereotype is
the conviction that the Reduta staged exclusively a Polish
repertoire, while Osiński's book shows that one of the constant
features of the company headed by Osterwa and Mieczysław Limanowski
was its readiness and openness to accept changes, and the fact that
it found itself in a perennial statu nascendi, as evidenced
by three successive Reduta Statutes.
Reduta
i teatr makes the reader aware of Osterwa's distinctness in the
history of the Polish theatre and theatrical culture. Actually, he
remained inimitably unique despite the fact that it is possible to
indicate various analogies and especially inspirations in the closer
and more distant past. Almost all the questions posed in Reduta i
teatr appear to be still very much topical, even if their
wording might seem slightly anachronic. The most significant ones
are: 1. what is the nature of the creative theatrical company? 2.
what does "the ethos of a company" denote? 3. what is the
role played by the head/leader of the company? 4. what is the
essence of cooperation between the director and the actor? 5. what
about the nature of actor's work devoted to his role? 6. what is the
present-day meaning of "social engagement" in art, in
other words, the theatre conceived and practiced as a service? The
title of this article intentionally refers to Vsevolod Meyerhold's
article from 1921: Odinochiestvo Stanislavskogo (The
Loneliness of Stanislavski), at the time not translated into Polish.
Such a reference conceals a profound conviction that against the
backdrop of the Polish theatre and artistic culture of the period
the endeavours pursued by Osterwa and the Reduta Theatre were an
isolated, although by no means futile, effort
Michał Tuczewski, How
Belorussian Flower Tackled America
An essay on the social reflections of
Melchior Wańkowicz, reconstructed primarily upon the basis of a
series of reportages from America: W ślady Kolumba (Tracing
the Steps of Columbus), composed of: Atlantyk-Pacyfik (1966),
Królik i oceany (Rabbit and Oceans, 1968), and W pępku
Ameryki (In the Navel of America, 1969). Naturally, Wańkowicz's
world outlook is far from uniform and does not yield a deductive
system. Its fundamental elements include a description of (a)
technocracy, whose best developed form is to be found in the United
States; (b) the conflict between technocracy and organic culture,
"civilisation" and "culture"; (c) the ways and
means of transforming organic culture into its technocratic
counterpart; (d) the positive and negative aspects of technocracy
and organic culture; (e) the conflict between values venerated in
technocracy; (f) the obstacles encountered by technocracy (both
inscribed in its development and external barriers); (g) the
strategy used by organic culture for the sake of its protection; (h)
strategies applied by technocracy in a battle waged against its
deficit of values. Wańkowicz sought refuge against soulless technocracy
in Poland, but contemporary generations are bereft of such as haven.
Anna
Spiss, On
the Usefulness of "Rubbish"
The article considers the original
outfitting of a flat and staircase in an old town house in the
Kazimierz district of Cracow. The author and executor is one of the
residents, Stefan L., a house painter and stove fitter by profession.
The interiors, and especially the staircase, were embellished by
resorting to various gadgets, gaily coloured packaging and food and
industrial containers, old calendars, reproductions of pictures,
etc. The ensuing composition yielded particular sequences on given
themes, e.g. politics, sports, or monuments. Together with his wife,
the author arranged next to the house a garden (to be seen today)
intended for children, and maintained hi a similar style. After the
death of Stefan L., the interior decoration was not liquidated. True,
his artistic proposals have not been emulated, but they continue to
enjoy the approval of the occupants of the house as well as
passersby and tourists. |
