24 July 1932, Sunday

Żywiec. Bruno Schulz responds to Professor Stefan Szuman’s letter. 

Schulz meets Szuman* in July 1932* during a summer course for teachers of crafts in Żywiec*, during which Professor Szuman delivers a lecture on “Issues in Psychology”. Fascinated by Szuman, Schulz asks him to evaluate his unpublished book of fiction. Schulz’s work appeals to Szuman, who promises to recommend it to Kazimierz Czachowski. 

Unexpectedly for Schulz, Stefan Szuman sends him to read his unpublished collection of poems. Schulz’s letter dated 24 July 1932 mainly contains a commentary on Szuman’s poetry. 

At the beginning of the letter, Schulz describes his fascination with Szuman and summarizes an earlier letter that was not sent to him, in which he apologized for imposing himself and his work on the professor. He then commented on Szuman’s selected poems, declaring his own ignorance concerning literary matters (“I have no literary education, I do not know contemporary poetry and I cannot establish either the genealogy, or the place of this poetry”1). 

In the commentary to the poem Taniec ze samym sobą [Dancing with Oneself], Schulz recalls the childhood dream about self-castration: “I dream that I am in the forest; it’s night, dark, I cut off my penis with a knife, I make a pit in the ground and bury it. It’s a kind of an antecedent, a part of the dream without any emotional intonation. The proper dream is as follows: I remember that I realize the monstrosity, the horror of the sin committed. I do not want to believe that I really committed it, and I still contest with despair that what I have made is so irrevocable”2.

Schulz sees in Szuman’s poems a spiritual affinity to his own work. He compliments Szuman’s poetry, e.g comparing it with the work of his beloved Rainer Maria Rilke*: “Once again I thank the Lord for giving me this experience, which, alongside Rilke’s poetry, is one of the deepest that I have received from poetry”3. According to Jerzy Ficowski*4, Schulz’s enthusiastic assessments of Szuman’s mediocre poetry resulted not only from the gratitude for the favourable reception of the manuscript of The Cinnamon Shops, but also from the opportunistic intention to sustain affection of the prominent scholar5.

At the end of the letter Schulz thanks Szuman for his efforts connected to publishing his book. He also mentions his brother Izydor* promising to be able to finance the publication. Finally, he describes the planned graphic design of his future book. 

Schulz also mentions a book about mescaline visions, which he says interested him. What he meant was Szuman’s book Analiza formalna i psychologiczna widzeń meskalinowych [Formal and Psychological Analysis of Mescaline Visions]6. It is unclear whether it was sent to him or just recommended by the author.

The story of the letter in question is quite special. At the request of Jerzy Zawieyski, Szuman lent it to a writer whose name was erased in his memory (“This might have been Brandys. Or perhaps Tadeusz Breza??”7). The letter was found at Tadeusz Breza’s* when his papers from the time of his stay in Cracow were being organized. Breza handed the letter to Ficowski, asking him not to say a word about keeping this precious letter among his documents8.  (mr) (transl. mw)

 

See also: before 22 October 1933*, 24 November 1933*, 13 May 1935*, 1986*. 

 

  • 1
    Bruno Schulz’s letter to Stefan Szuman of 24 July 1932, [in:] Bruno Schulz, Dzieła zebrane, Volume 5: Księga listów, zebrał i przygotował do druku Ficowski, uzupełnił Stanisław Danecki, Gdańsk 2016, p. 36.
  • 2
    Ibid., p. 36–37.
  • 3
    Ibid., p. 38.
  • 4
    Jerzy Ficowski, “Przyczynek do autoportretu mitologa”, [in:] idem, Regiony wielkiej herezji i okolice. Bruno Schulz i jego mitologia, Sejny 2002, p. 205.
  • 5
    In the letter to Tadeusz Breza* of 13 May 1935, Schulz mentions a man from elite circles who “really unnecessarily desired poet’s laurels and started writing poems” (Księga listów, p. 55). This self-proclaimed poet asked Schulz to consult his literary friends about his poems. Fearing he would lose the friendliness of this man, Schulz asks Breza to write something “non-bindingly positive” (ibidem) about these poems. Are we talking about Stefan Szuman’s work here? The circumstances seem to suggest that this may be, indeed, a reference to the professor of the Jagiellonian University. However, the date of correspondence with Breza puts this into question. Drzwi uchylone [A Door Ajar], the said volume of Szuman’s poems, was published under the pseudonym Łukasz Flis in 1933 by Ferdinand Hoesick’s bookshop in Warsaw. The letter to Breza comes from 1935, when the book had already been in the hands of readers for two years.
  • 6
    Stefan Szuman, Analiza formalna i psychologiczna widzeń meskalinowych, Poznań 1930.
  • 7
    Letter by Stefan Szuman to Jerzy Ficowski of 25 January 1968. Manuscript available in the Ossolineum collection.
  • 8
    Letter by Tadeusz Breza to Jerzy Ficowski of 15 December 1968. Manuscript available in the Ossolineum collection.