Spór o Conrada 1945–1948

Abstract

The publication of Jan Kott’s article O laickim tragizmie [On the Secular Tragic] saw the birth in 1945 of the most vital literary polemics in the immediate post-war years. The creative work of Joseph Conrad became an ammunition round for a series of commentaries on the ethos of the Home Army as well as the heritage of Polish culture in the context of the reverberations of World War II and the imposition of communism at the time. Kott, engaged in the revolutionary transformation of society and its body politic, disavowed the intellectual unknown and considered history as the measure of human deeds. Conrad, expressing in his work the conviction of humankind’s unchanging nature, was for the former a writer at the behest of the ideals of heroism and faith, serving no purpose to society. In the name of traditional humanism a polemic with Kott was undertaken by renowned writers and journalists, among others Antoni Gołubiew, Jan Dobraczyński, Maria Dąbrowska, Hanna Malewska, Stefan Kisielewski, Józef Chałasiński and Gustaw Herling-Grudziński.