September 28, 1934, Friday

Drohobych. Bruno Schulz rewrites A July Night (originally promised to Kamena) and sends it together with the letter to the editors of the Lviv journal Sygnały.

The addressee of the letter is Tadeusz Hollender*, who, together with Karol Kuryluk, created the editorial office of Sygnały1. Schulz refers to a recent meeting with Kuryluk, who encouraged him to cooperate. Sending A July Night* is the fulfilment of the promise, delayed due to illness and recuperation, which, however, are not mentioned in the letter. He mentions the necessity to leave Drohobych unexpectedly as the reason for the delay.

Schulz originally intended this short story for Kamena*. On June 5, 1934, he wrote to Zenon Waśniewski on this matter: “I chose a piece from the older things; not actually a piece”, as he writes, “but a thing to some extent closed, entitled July Nights”2. But he did not send the work that was “in a rough draft” because he did not find the energy to “correct and rewrite it”3. Now, however, under pressure of the promise made to Kuryluk and the urgent deadline, Schulz manages to overcome the inability. In a letter to the editors of Sygnały, he informs: “I have rewritten one short story in a hurry, maybe you will still have time to print it”4. The editors published July Nights (titled A July Night) in the next issue, which appeared on Monday, October 8 with a week delay due to, as it was explained, the “unexpected departure of the editor”5. 

 

Schulz presented the circumstances differently in a letter to Waśniewski of October 6: “In those days, Mr. Kuryluk, editor of the Lviv Sygnały, visited me and asked for some piece. I gave him an older thing, written back [in] 1928, that I found in my papers. They were very happy about it and reportedly have already printed it”6. Apparently, Schulz wanted to conceal the fact that the promised Kamena piece had been handed over to another editorial office. That is why he twisted the meeting date with Kuryluk (“in those days”, i.e. at the turn of September and October), the way of handing over the manuscript (“I gave him” – not “sent”) and hid the title of the story (“some piece”). Schulz might have been afraid that Waśniewski would notice the story promised to him in Sygnały.

See also: March 19, 1936, May 12, 1936, September 4, 1938, September 24, 1938*, November 4, 1938. (sr) (transl. mw)

  • 1
    Hollender, the editor-in-chief, was just finishing his work in Sygnały, which Schulz could not yet know. “In September of that year, Hollender left the editorial office, but continued to work with the team. The duties of the editor-in-chief were then taken over by Kuryluk, being at the same time the publisher, administrator, proofreader and distributor” – Ewa Danowska, “Sygnały 1933–1939 – lwowskie czasopismo o ogólnopolskim zasięgu”, Rocznik Bibliologiczno-Prasoznniczego Ch. IX, 2017, 20, pp. 195–205.
  • 2
    Letter from Bruno Schulz to Zenon Waśniewski dated June 5, 1934, [in:] Bruno Schulz, Dzieła zebrane, volume 5: Księga listów, zebrał i przygotował do druku Jerzy Ficowski, uzupełnił Stanisław Danecki, Gdańsk 2016, p. 69. The original title eventually changed from July Nights to A July Night.
  • 3
    Ibid.
  • 4
    Letter from Bruno Schulz to the editorial office of Sygnały, September 28, 1934, [in:] Bruno Schulz, op. cit., p. 94.
  • 5
    From the editorial office of Sygnały 1934, no. 12, p. 12.
  • 6
    Letter from Bruno Schulz to Zenon Waśniewski dated October 6, 1934, [in:] Bruno Schulz, op. cit., p. 76.