8 February 1939, Wednesday

Warsaw. Zofia Nałkowska comments in her Diaries on Kazimierz Wyka’s and Stefan Napierski’s “Dwugłos o Schulzu”, published in Ateneum.

In issue 1 of 1939, Ateneum contains two articles about Schulz’s work by Kazimierz Wyka* and Stefan Napierski* respectively, under the collective title “Dwugłos o Schulzu”. This is a scathing attack on Schulz’s fiction, although – as Włodzimierz Bolecki* writes – “having separated the descriptive observations contained in it from interpretative theses, it can be concluded that both critics exceptionally accurately characterised the most important features of Schulz’s poetics”1. Wyka and Napierski accused Schulz of anti-humanism and anti-realism, for a lack of hierarchy, a fascination with inhuman time, and with marginals. Napierski writes: “The specific world of imaginations of an epigone such as Schulz is characterized by arbitrariness and defectiveness; this delusion is backed by style stilts: instead of stories, he writes treatises of an artsy dreamer”2. 

Zofia Nałkowska* writes with indignation3 in her Diaries about the articles of Wyka and Napierski: “The unheard-of assault of Wyka and Napierski in Ateneum on Schulz as a cripple and defective, I believe to be a very bad symptom”4. Nałkowska places “Dwugłos o Schulzu” among other events that aggravate her sense of alienation: the harsh criticism of her adaptation of Mrs Bovary, and the disputes around the Academy of Independents Award5, offered by the editorial staff of Wiadomości Literackie*. (mr) (transl. mw)

See also 15 April 1934*. 

  • 1
    Włodzimierz Bolecki, “Dwugłos o Schulzu”, [in:] Słownik schulzowski, edited by Włodzimierz Bolecki, Jerzy Jarzębski, Stanisław Rosiek, Gdańsk 2006, p. 94.
  • 2
    Stefan Napierski, Kazimierz Wyka, “Dwugłos o Schulzu”, [in:] Kazimierz Wyka, Stara szuflada, Kraków 1967, p. 264.
  • 3
    Hanna Kirchner believes that although “Dwugłos o Schulzu” is indeed a case of very harsh criticism, Nałkowska misinterprets the phrases used by Napierski metaphorically: disability and defectiveness. See: footnote 2 to the entry of 8 February 1939, [in:] Zofia Nałkowska, Dzienniki IV: 1930-1939. Część 2 (1935–1939), opracowanie, wstęp i komentarz Hanna Kirchner, Warszawa 1988, p. 388.
  • 4
    Zofia Nałkowska, Dzienniki IV: 1930–1939. Część 2 (1935–1939), p. 386–387.
  • 5
    The Academy of Independents was a response to the appointment by the state authorities of the Polish Academy of Literature. In 1934, Wiadomości Literackie announced a contest: “Who would we choose to an Academy of Independents if such an Academy was to be established?”. The results were announced on 10 February 1935*, and since 1936 the Academy of Independents awarded the title of the book of the year. In 1939, Jerzy Andrzejewski Ład serca won. See: “Kogo wybralibyśmy do Akademii Niezależnych, gdyby taka Akademia powstała? Rozstrzygnięcie plebiscytu czytelników Wiadomości Literackich” [in:] Wiadomości Literackie (1924–1939). Wybór, wybór, wstęp i opracowanie Agata Zawiszewska, Warszawa 2015, p. 183–184 (originally published in: Wiadomości Literackie 1935, no. 6), and Agata Zawiszewska, Wstęp, [w:] ibidem, p. 44–45; Andrzej Zdzisław Makowiecki, „Wiadomości Literackie”, [w:] Słownik literatury polskiej XX wieku, zespół redakcyjny Alina Brodzka, Mirosława Puchalska, Małgorzata Semczuk, Anna Sobolewska, Ewa Szary-Matywiecka, Wrocław 1992, p. 1175.