The main and most important subject of the article is Rafał Malczewski, who in the interwar period belonged to the elite of the Warsaw intelligentsia. He was successful as a painter, writer, and journalist, collaborating with the most prestigious magazines of the time. The article focuses on Malczewski’s literary output in exile following World War II, after he had settled in Montreal in 1942. Relying primarily on Rafał Malczewski’s correspondence with the poet Jan Lechoń and with the editor in chief of the London publication Wiadomości, the article shows the important role in Malczewski’s life of literary work, which saved him from existential apathy and depression. He collaborated with Wiadomości, one of the most important Polish literary magazines published in exile after World War II. The correspondence between Malczewski’s partner of many years, Zofia Mikucka-Malczewska, and Mieczysław Grydzewski, describes the events surrounding the creation of the special issue of Wiadomości devoted to the writer.
Between 1939 and 1941, the Soviet authorities deported hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens from Poland’s eastern province occupied by the Soviet Union at the beginning of the World War II. A large part of the deportees did not survive the “Siberian odyssey.” These tragic facts became an important element of the Polish collective memory and the national historical narrative. Yet historians disagree on how many people were deported and how many died in “the inhuman land.” Was this a class war derived from the Marxist ideology of the Soviet leaders or an ethnic cleansing related to their imperialistic strategies? The following article presents and analyzes historical and contemporary estimates, which vary between about 400,000 and over 1.5 million deportees and prisoners. The article also describes the deportations in the context of the prewar Soviet policies toward the Polish minority in the USSR and claims that
In the article, the author brings back the forgotten poet of the interwar period Elizabeth Szemplińska. The starting point of the discussion is the political and social situation that occurred in Poland in the thirties. The economic crisis, from which the whole of Europe was struggling from, favored radicalization among the Polish intelligence. Szemplińska openly admitted to her communist sympathies. The article remembers young poets from the Quadriga group, one of whom was also Nina Rydzewska. The group suggested the slogan „poetry socialized” showing the misery and suffering of the lowest social class. The author focused on the analysis of several lines from Szemplińska’s poems, in which the poet shows a woman of the proletariat crippled by hard work.
This article discusses the artistic output of the eminent Polish cartoonist Zdzisław Czermański from the interwar period (1918–39). The text has been divided into five parts. The discussion of Czermański’s cartoons and portrayals showing the figure of Józef Piłsudski has enabled the author to present the most important artistic achievements of this Polish artist. The author has also recollected other subjects of the artist’s works created for the American press (Czermański moved to New York in April 1941).
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