Mieczysław Jastrun’s letters to Karol Wiktor Zawodziński in the archives of the National Library in Warsaw

Abstract

The article is a discussion of seventeen letters written by the poet Mieczysław Jastrun to the “Skamander critic” Karol Wiktor Zawodziński. The letters are kept in the archives of the National Library in Warsaw. The volume of the correspondence is divided into two parts: the first one is those written by Jastrun during the interwar period, and the second one comes from after the war, sent up to the year 1948. The Jastrun manuscripts are multi-thematic, yet the leading role is played by reflections on the general issues of poetry and the current phenomena of the literary life – both during the interwar period and the post-war time when the poet was the editor of the Łódź-based Marxist periodical “Kuźnica” (that is why part of the correspondence was written on the periodical company postcards or letterhead); they provide supplementary information on both writers including their viewpoint on art and the world; they also encourage further research into literary criticism, at least that related to the polemics referred to in the article.