Close to the Target… A Poppy Seed Every Year
Few Comments on Metaphysics in Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s Tower and Educational Needs
Abstract: The paper considers Hannah Arendt’s ideas presented in The Human Condition (2010). It discusses three possible understandings of ‘vita active’ determined by different contexts: as ‘a job’, ‘a creation’ and ‘an action’. The discussed example of construction of these meanings in metaphysical story Tower (1958) by Gustaw Herling-Grudziński. Presented considerations have lead the Author to its interpretation with reference to one’s educational needs.

Cristina Campo and the reception of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński in Italy

Among other records, the Archive of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński in Naples holds Cristina Campo’s unpublished letters to him. The letters bear witness to a literary relation between the two writers and intellectuals which began when Pale d’altare, a volume of short stories by HerlingGrudziński, was translated into Italian and published in Italy in 1960. Cristina Campo, a poet, essayist, translator and prominent figure in 20th-century Italian literature, was enthusiastic about HerlingGrudziński’s volume. She comprehensively discussed it in an insightful review entitled ‘La torre e l’isola,’ published in Il Punto in 1961. Her review marked Herling-Grudziński’s debut in Italy and became a highly influential factor in the Italian reception of his literary works. The author himself regarded it as one of the most important critical texts addressing his writings. The aim of my paper is to highlight the relevance of Cristina Campo to the Italian reception of Herling-Grudziński’s works and to illumine the relations between the Polish writer and his Italian critic through the unpublished letters preserved in the Herling-Grudziński Archive. The paper also refers to other reviews of Pale d’altare, which were offered by Elèmire Zolla, Roberto Calasso, Margherita Guidacci and Leone Traverso, associated with the same literary circle, and shows the impact of Campo’s enthusiasm on some of these appraisals.

Emigration constatations by Jerzy Giedroyc and Gustaw Herling-Grudziński in 1983. French and Italian perspectives

From the beginning of the 1830s, mass emigration from Poland, not occurring on such a scale before, was noted, mainly for political reasons (especially after the defeats of the November and January uprisings). The emigration trend continued throughout practically the entire 20th century. It entered the history of Poles, especially the war and post-war period. The coming to power of the communists generated many problems. For political reasons, many dissidents sought freedom outside enslaved Poland. Many of them voluntarily and also under the compulsion of the then “people’s” government. There were two main centers of the political and cultural life of the Polish diaspora – in London and Paris. The Literary Institute, with its founder Jerzy Giedroyc and collaborator Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, played a significant role in the post-war period. Both, despite having different experiences and visions of a free and independent Poland, unanimously saw emigration as a specific form of struggle against the communist regime in Poland. They saw help and weapons in this struggle in the spoken and written word, through which they influenced both the Polish diaspora in many countries and their compatriots in Poland, which was subjugated by communists. They noticed the entire complexity of the problems faced by Polish emigrants, especially those arriving abroad at the beginning of the 1980s. Their accurate diagnoses and advice were not always accepted by the Polish diaspora. The interviews with them in a retrospective form reflect the atmosphere and spirit of the difficult and complex reality of that time.