Leśmian’s Dreaded Dryads and their Slavic contexts (literary and otherwise

Amongst other female characters within the literary works of Bolesław Leśmian, we can fi nd the dziwożony (dreaded dryads) – demons from Slavic mythology inhabiting wetlands or forests, which are considered malicious and dangerous, because they kidnap newborn children and replace them with their own offspring. These characters were presented as wild women with long hair and breasts so saggy that they would use them as washing paddles. Analyzing literary texts from the 19th and early 20th centuries written by Polish authors (Seweryn Goszczyński, Michał Bałucki, Miron [Aleksander Michaux], Maria Konopnicka, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Wiktor Gomulicki), Czech (Karel Jaromír Erben) and Russian writers (Konstantin Balmont), I would like to show how the representations of these female demons have changed over time and how Bolesław Leśmian stylized them in the poem Dziwożona and in the prose fragment Podlasiak, from the volume Klechdy Polskie.

Bolesław Leśmian’s poetry in Bulgarian anthologies of translations in the years 1921–1984

The article offers an overview of the anthologised translations of Bolesław Leśmian’s poetry published in Bulgaria in the years 1921–1984. It also describes the work of Polish philology in Bulgaria at the beginning of the 20th century. It further addresses the problem the formal differences between the Polish and the Bulgarian language, so as to identify specifi c diffi culties encountered by the Bulgarian translators of Leśmian as well as their characteristic translation strategies

Bolesław Leśmian in Italy: Milo De Angelis and his heavenly journey

The artistic creativity of Bolesław Leśmian – remarkably colourful, musical, and philosophically versatile – has endeared him to readers worldwide over the course of a century. In spite of many socio-political barriers, Leśmian’s poetry become a point of reference, as was the case in Italy in the 1970s. At this time a fi rst encounter with the works of the Polish artist became a crucial moment for a young poet – Milo De Angelis. After a stay in Warsaw, De Angelis founded a literary magazine called “Niebo”, number 11 of which was entirely dedicated to Leśmian, whose visions profoundly infl uenced the poetics of the Italian author, even in later years.

A New York Leśmian: The Translation Strategy of Marian Polak-Chlabicz

The aim of this article is to identify and outline the strategy applied by Marian Polak-Chlabicz in translating the poetry of Bolesław Leśmian into English. The examination begins with the preliminary norm as refl ected in text selection, and the initial norm, which proves to be oriented toward recreating the strangeness of the author’s poetics. Examination of particular elements of the poetics includes the translator’s attitude to Leśmian’s neologisms and other creative language deviations, issues of syntax and of poetic form, and ideational contents of the poems. Also discussed are editorial problems and issues connected with paratexts.

The Question of Universals: Bolesław Leśmian in Europe and the World

The question of universals helps address ways in which the unique aspects of Bolesław Leśmian’s literary creation refl ect crucial concerns of Polish literature and culture. The local and the singular become international and universal. This article demonstrates that Leśmian’s idiomatic, seemingly untranslatable literary works enable translators and foreign readers to experience what appears to be a higher order of universality

The experience of sensuality in translation: on the Spanish versions of Leśmian’s poetry

The article aims to present the problems which might be encountered by the translators attempting to translate the poetry of Bolesław Leśmian, which is characterized by a unique mastery of language and a specifi c poetic strategy full of sensual emotions, nature and the magic of the surrounding reality. The contrastive study of the source texts and their translations into Spanish is intended to verify whether the translation choices made by the translators reveal their awareness of the specifi c formal and stylistic structure of the selected poems. The purpose is also to determine to what extent the translators enabled the Spanish-language reader to experience the sensuality depicted in the source texts.

Apis mellifera (Rilke, Leśmian, Valéry, Miłosz)

This essay concerns Paul Valéry’s sonnet The Bee, a fragment of Rainer Maria Rilke’s letter to Witold Hulewicz, Boleslaw Lesmian’s poem The Bees, and a fragment of Czeslaw Milosz’s poem Orpheus and Eurydice. Investigating the semantics and symbolism of the bee, a trope common to each text, allows for a reading of a broader ontological project: the relationship between being and non-being. This essay centres on denying the division between being and non-being, proposing the concept of a greater whole instead.

In a strange other world. Urszula Kochanowska by Bolesław Leśmian translated into English

The article focuses on English translations of Bolesław Leśmian’s Urszula Kochanowska, especially those by Marian Polak-Chlabicz and Krzysztof Bartnicki. The author of the article aims to achieve a critical comparison between different translation strategies ventured to conquer the diffi culties associated with translating this verse, which is strongly connected with Polish culture and literature. The close-reading of the translations is accompanied by a short outline of Leśmian’s existence in English language along with an attempt to answer the question of whether translating his poetic language is at all possible or is Leśmian’s work an evident proof (as many critics say) of the phenomenon known as untranslatability.

The Ideas of Russian Slavophiles and Occidentalists as Reflected in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Discourse on Freedom

When developing ideological concepts and creating literary characters, Dostoyevsky drew from, among others, the ideas of the then most important trends in the Russian thought: Slavophilic and Occidental, as refl ected, among other examples, in his discourse on freedom. The condemnation of certain aspects of Western European civilization, present in the writer’s work – often articulated by the Slavophiles – expresses his aversion to negative freedom and excessive individualism, which undercut the roots of the social organism. Dostoyevsky’s affi nity with the Slavophiles is also refl ected in his positive attitude towards the Russian people and fascination with the unspoiled Christianity and community which they preserved. The formation of Dostoyevsky’s views was also infl uenced by the Occidentalists. The need to maintain the personality ideal, as the Occidentalists understood it, was extremely important to him. The writer glorifi ed the values that cemented the Orthodox community, without negating the knowledge and experience gained in the course of the 200-year Europeanization of the upper classes of the Russian society. He considered Occidentalism to be a phenomenon “leaning towards” specifi c social realities from which it drew its strength. The writer envisaged a harmonious coexistence of freedom and love, their unity. In his opinion, this unity could not be an expression of excess, egoism, pride, moral and moral promiscuity, exaggerated individualism and rationalism. He equated genuine freedom with commitment to God and to the well-being of the humankind.

Metacreativism & postmodernism

The article attempts to characterize the views of Russian theorists on the leading development tendencies in the artistic creation of the 20th and 21st centuries. Particular attention was paid to a kind of crisis, the sources of which lie in the lack of possibility to continue the existing forms of artistic creativity. Therefore, there is a need to develop such forms of this creativity that would correspond to the present day. The superior role of the recipient of the work in relation to its creator was emphasized. In order to name this phenomenon, the author suggests the term ‘ metacreativism’. Other phenomena described in the text include, for example, intertextuality or collage. In Western literary studies such a creative manner is called postmodernism.