Teksty Drugie 2014, 2, s. 55-74
Special Issue
Autobiographical Sites. A Proposition
Within Geopoetics.
Małgorzata Czermińska
Przeł. Jan Szelągiewicz
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MA ŁG O R ZA T A C Z E R M I Ń S K A
AU TO BI O GR AP HI C AL SITES...
Małgorzata Czermińska
Autobiographical Sites.
A Proposition Within Geopoetics
I
h e re b y p ro p o se to e sta b lish a sep arate c a te g o ry o f
au tob io grap h ical sites for th e pu rp ose o f d iagn osin g
phenom ena situated at the intersection o f literature and
geography; phenom ena w h o se d escription requires the
sim u ltaneous ap p lication o f in stru m en ts from such d i­
verse fields as literary criticism , anthropology, cultural
studies, and h u m an istic geography. To put it m ore p re ­
cisely, it's about con nectin g the author's b iograp h y and
his output, in the b road sense o f that term , m ean in g the
com plete collection o f the author's preserved oeuvre, that
is w ork s trad itio n ally con sidered literature - including
essay s, private n otes, audio an d vid eo record in gs, and
w orks from other fields o f art i f practiced by the author.
I still b elieve th at th e h yp o th e sis p o sitin g a collective,
syn th e tic su b ject w ith in an author's co llected w o rk is
o n to lo g ic a lly le g itim a te , w h ile its a p p lic a tio n y ie ld s
trem endous in sight. The id ea o f estab lish in g a separate
category o f autobiographical site is b ased on such an a s ­
su m p tion con cern in g the author, w ith referen ce to his
b io g rap h y and ta k in g the g e o p o e tic s p e rsp e ctiv e into
consideration. Elem ents constituting an autobiographi­
cal site m ight be clustered in a single piece o f w ork, one
that is e ssen tially dedicated to the them e o f placem ent
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Małgorzata
Czermińska professor in the
Institute of Polish
Philology at the
University of
Gdańsk. Author of
the following books
Czas w powieściach
Parnickiego (1972),
Autobiografia
i powieść czyli pisarz
i jego postacie (1987),
Autobiograficzny
trójkąt - świadectwo,
wyznanie i wyzwanie
(2000), Co-author
of Pisarki polskie
od średniowiecza
do współczesności.
Przewodnik (2000).
55
56
n o n f i c t i o n ,
r e p o r t a g e
a n d
t e s t i m o n y
w ith in a specific place; th ey can also be scattered across a plethora o f texts,
su cc essiv e ly co m p lem en tin g or tran sfo rm in g the v is io n o f a site. D espite
th e lite ra ry m ultitude o f p o ssib le fo rm s, it alw ays refers to a te rrito ry d e ­
scrib e d to p o n y m ica lly th a t fe atu re s in th e w rite r's b iography. T he reader
can have unfettered access to that territory, unm arred by the visio n outlined
b y the w riter, b ecau se it exists in extraverbal space, as a g eographic object
eq uipped w ith its ow n appropriate cultural sym bolism .
O n b o th o f th e se le ve ls: output an d biography, w e co n stan tly e n co u n ­
te r m e th o d o lo g ical trap s an d clash w ith issu e s stem m in g from differen t
m eth od s o f in te rp retatio n - n o t to m en tio n the co n fro n tatio n o f b o th o f
the afo rem ention ed plan es. H ow ever, confronted w ith the im p o ssib ility o f
s o lvin g p ro blem s p lag u in g both levels, w e so m e tim e s h ave to face a third
in h op e o f fin d in g a pro per solu tion . T h at's h o w I u n d e rstan d th e in sigh t
availab le to sch o lars in v e stig a tin g the re la tio n sh ip s b e tw e e n an author's
output and h is biography, stem m in g from the sp atial (topographical) turn
th at has taken place in th e h u m an ities. V arious p o ssib ilitie s, either rooted
d ire c tly in h u m a n istic g e o g ra p h y (e.g. the w o rk s o f Y i- F u T u an 1) or a t ­
te m p ts to tra n sfo rm an d u tilize th em , w h e th e r acco rd in g to the sp irit o f
g e o p o e tic s, as p ro p o se d b y K e n n e th W h ite,2 or u s in g th e te rm g e o c r iti­
cism , as co in ed b y B ertran d W estp h al,3 en cou rage fu rth e r in ve stig atio n .
A t the sam e tim e, th ese n ew id eas should n ot sever th em selves from prior
tra d itio n s o f stu d yin g sp ace, starte d b ack w h e n stru ctu ralism still d o m i­
n a te d lite r a ry t h e o ry an d fu rth e r d e ve lo p e d w ith in th e fie ld o f cu ltu ral
sem iotics, p h en o m en o lo g y or m ythography research , related to ethn ology
and an th rop ology to w h ich the C aliforn ia school o f hu m an ist geograph y is
v e ry in debted. O ut o f the in vok ed con cepts, “g e o p o e tic s” se em s to b e the
m o st w id e ly accepted in recen t efforts o f Polish lite ra ry th e o rists, p a rtic u ­
la rly due to E lżb ie ta R yb ick a, w h o la b o re d re le n tle ss ly to in tro d u ce the
study o f space in the h u m an ities and related issu es to the P olish scholastic
1
2
Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective o f Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minne­
sota Press, 1977)
K. White Wstęp dogeopoetyki in: K. White, Poeta kosm ograf ed. and trans. K. Brakoniecki (Olsz­
tyn: Centrum Polsko-Francuskie Côtes d'Armor-Warmia i Mazury, 2010). The publication also
contains interviews, where White elaborates on the different aspects of his understanding of
geopoetics which, according to White himself, is not just an investigative method but rather
a specific philosophy of life, cultural practice, and literary program.
3
La géocritique. Mode d'emploi, ed. B. Westphal (Limoges: PULIM, 2000), as quoted in: E. Rybicka,
"Geopoetyka (o mieście, przestrzeni i miejscu we współczesnych teoriach i praktykach kul­
turowych)” in: Kulturowa teoria literatury. Główne pojęcia i problemy, ed. M.P. Markowski and
R. Nycz (Kraków: Universitas, 2006).
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MA ŁG O R ZA T A C Z E R M I Ń S K A
AU TO BI O GR AP HI C AL SITES..
la n d s c a p e .4 In m y o p in io n , th e n am e is b o th c o n v e n ie n t an d accu rate,
th erefore I agree w ith the p o sitio n th at su p p o rts its com m on usage.
For sch o lars e xam in in g w o rk th at's c le a rly m ark ed w ith the a u to b io ­
grap h ical attitude, w h ether in the case o f p e rso n al docum ent literature in
the strict sense o f the term or in reference to texts w h erein autobiographism
se rv es a con stitu tive p u rp o se, th e g e o p o e tic p e rsp e ctiv e is an e sp ec ia lly
valuable ally, since it h elps counter the ten d en cy to treat autobiographical
w ritin g as a pure construct, as som ething that's not fundam entally different
from fiction. T his rad ical claim , put fo rw ard b y a certain group o f scholars,
w as the re su lt o f the th eir attem pts to d istan ce th em selves from s im p lis ­
tic p sychologizin g and a naïve u n d erstan d in g o f rep resen tatio n in au tob i­
ograph ies. Paul de M an , for exam p le, fo cu sed on the rh etoric character o f
autob iographic w ritin g an d coined the term de-facement, d eftly tran slated
into Polish as od-twarzanie.5 In essence, his th eo ry aim s to dem onstrate that
w ritin g an autob iography is ro oted in the p ro cess o f d e p erso n alizatio n of
both auth or an d p ro tag o n ist, acco m p an ie d b y th e lo ss o f th e ir collective
face, b ecau se in d ivid u al cou ntenance d isso lves in the lin g u istic m atter of
hin ts and clues subject to the law s governing rhetoric. G iven th at the P ol­
ish tran slatio n o f de M an's eponym ou s term creates the illu sio n o f ten sion
b etw een the literal and figurative readings o f the expression , [noted b elow
in the footnotes -tra n s.] how ever, the scholar's reason in g does not suggest
the assu m p tion o f such a perspective. M oreover, literary criticism w ill find
no counterbalance to this ten d en cy in postm od ern m ethodological e x a m i­
n atio n s o f the te ach in g o f h istory, g ive n that, for exam p le, H ayden W hite
describes the w ork o f the scholar in this p articu lar p ro fession as som ething
akin to h isto rical w ritin g, arran gin g its outcom es according to the rules o f
lite ra ry g e n re s an d ae sth e tic cate g o rie s like tra g e d y an d com edy. M e a n ­
w hile, h u m an ist geography is conducive to the exploration o f extraliterary
references, e ssen tial in the study o f au tobiographical w ritin g, and refrains
from p ushin g the scholar b ack into naïve psychologism .
4
E. Rybicka, "From a Poetics of Space to a Poetics of Site: a Topographical Turn in Literary Re­
search,” Second Texts 4 (2008): 21-38. The first Polish book dealing with categories of humanist
geography that I can think of is Beata Tarnowska's Geografia poetycka w powojennej twórczości
Czesława Miłosza (Olsztyn: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej, 1996), published in
a very limited run.
5
P. de Man, "Autobiografia jako od-twarzanie,” trans. M.B. Fedewicz in: Dekonstrukcja w bada­
niach literackich, ed. R. Nycz (Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria, 2000) [od-twarzanie is wordplay
that combines the literal reading of the word odtwarzanie, that is reconstruction or recounting
o f events with the figurative reading of the hyphenate, which translates into removing the face
-trans.]
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58
n o n f i c t i o n ,
r e p o r t a g e
a n d
t e s t i m o n y
Individual M em ory S ite s
Distinguishing betw een space and site, first dem onstrated (or rather clarified)
by Y i-F u Tuan is absolutely crucial for the differentiation o f autobiographi­
cal site as a separate category. To put it m ore sim ply, geographic space is an
established fact, and as such is a tangible subject o f scientific inquiry. A site,
how ever, is a separate p ortion o f space; a p art w hose sin gu larity stem s not
only from its concrete characteristics, but prim arily from its assigned cultural
sym bolism , created, dissem inated, and tran sform ed by social traditions. We
should also rem em ber that this particular u n derstan din g o f the concept o f
site is sim ilar to the w ay o f thinking that has functioned in culture since tim e
im m em orial, w hether as the distinction b etw een sacrum and profanum and the
id ea o f the axis mundi or the ancient R om an b e lie f in the protective sp irit o f
a given place, called genius loci, w hich subsequent cultural traditions appropri­
ated as the sym bol of the literary m ythos o f a specific place. The Rom antic-era
em phasis on local color and traditions coupled w ith the subsequent revival of
regionalism infused these notions w ith n ew energy. The advent o f glob aliza­
tion, however, presented the aforem entioned ideas w ith new challenges, w ith
the concept o f glocalization em erging out o f the upheaval.
The autobiographical site as a concept serving to augm ent literary theory
fits the u n derstanding o f place as described b y Y i-F u Tuan in his exegesis of
hum an ist geography, it exists, how ever, on a w h olly separate level. 6 It retains
its n e ce ssary con nection to a geographical place, it is not, how ever, a piece
o f tan gib le, existin g space or even a se t o f cultural m e an in gs and n otion s
assign ed to it. It is d istin gu ish ed b y tw o b asic attribu tes: it h as in dividu al
character and is shaped prim arily b y literary m atter (in its broad un derstand­
ing, as m entioned in the opening passages o f this article). It is m y b e lie f that
autobiographical sites can be found also in other fields of art, especially p ain t­
ing, photography, and film ; therefore, although this proposed category could
be tran sposed into the realm o f art history and cultural studies, I w ill not be
developing this particular thread herein.
W hen claim in g th at its sin gular dim en sion , th at is the reference to the
individual, is the autobiographical site's inalienable attribute, w e should also
rem em b er th at certain geograp h ical p laces often have th eir ow n cultural
specificity, shaped over the course o f entire centuries, their ow n colorful local
m ythology. We can see this quite clearly in resplendent cities o f the A ntiquity
6
A further development of preliminary ideas presented at the "Narracje migracyjne w litera­
turze polskiej XX i XXI wieku” conference held at the University of Warsaw on May 5-6, 2011 in
a lecture Kategoria",miejsca autobiograficznego"w literaturze doby migracji, later included in
the post-conference publication edited by H. Gosk and in the Introduction to Czesława Miłosza
"Północna strona," ed. M. Czermińska and K. Szalewska (Gdańsk: Scholar, 2011), 6-17.
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MA ŁG O R ZA T A C Z E R M I Ń S K A
AU TO BI O GR AP HI C AL SITES...
like Babylon, Jerusalem , and Rome, as w ell as m etropolises o f the m odern era,
like Paris, w hose m ythology w as scrutinized b y Roger Caillois,7 or Petersburg,
exam ined b y V ladim ir Toporov.8 The phenom enon m ay also be related to s e ­
lect spaces o f nature. In the case o f sites already infused w ith specific cultural
sym bolism , the notion o f an autobiographical site o f a given author partially
stem s from existing traditions and partially charges and enriches the existing
im agery w ith original, individual tones, sim ilarly to w hat T.S. Eliot described
w hen characterizing the relationship b etw een tradition and individual talent.
The extent o f the originality o f that individual tone or its derivativeness w ith
resp ect to stereo typ es is a quantitative, rather th an qualitative issue. Even
the less artistically creative im age o f an autobiographical site b y definition
h as to con tain som e elem en ts th at are linked to the life o f th at p erso n and
that p erson alone.
There are also w riters w ho m an aged to create a literary m ythos around
a place th at h as never before exhib ited an y e xtrao rd in ary p e rso n ality and
could not dare m atch the charm o f ancient cities w hose traditions span entire
centuries. That's w hat Bruno Schulz accom plished for Drohobych. However,
w e should not forget that literary critics noticed that Schulz's w ork, notorious
for doing aw ay w ith proper topographic n am es, contains an autobiographi­
cal site only fairly recently. The w ork o f Jerzy Ficow ski and Jerzy Jarz^bski is
especially im portant in this regard. A lso, som e o f Schulz's drawings and illu s­
trations are im portant to his creation o f an autobiographical site w ith regard
to p re -w a r D rohobych. A n o th e r exam ple: the private m yth o lo gy o f San ok
and its surroundings created in the poetry o f Janusz Szuber, in the context of
alluding to personal experiences from his childhood and adolescence, as well
as the past histories o f his ow n fam ily, his neighbors, and other inhabitants
o f the city.
Invoking the category o f m em ory sites, established by Pierre N ora9 in re f­
erence to the shared past o f com m unities, allows us to define autobiographical
sites as their equivalent in the realm o f an individual's existential experience,
as so rt o f in d ivid u al sites o f m em ory. T h e y require no social sanction, and
are not rooted in collective consciousness or m entality. A lthough th ey often
em ploy collective representations and notions, w hich th ey later incorporate
7
R. Caillois, "Paryż, mit w spółczesny” in: R. Caillois, Odpowiedzialność i styl. Eseje, ed.
M. Żurowski, trans. K. Dolatowska (Warszawa: PIW, 1967).
8
V. Toporov, "Petersburg i tekst Petersburski literatury rosyjskiej. Wprowadzenie do tematu” in:
V. Toporov, Miasto i mit, ed. and trans. B. Żyłko (Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria, 2000).
9
P. Nora, "Czas pamięci,” trans. W. Dłuski, Res Publica Nowa 7 (2001); E. Rybicka, "Venue, Mem­
ory, Literature (in the Perspective of Geo-Poetics),” Teksty Drugie 1-2 (2008); A. Szpociński,
"Sites of Memory (lieux de mémoire)," Teksty Drugie 4 (2008).
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6o
n o n f i c t i o n
,
r e p o r t a g e
a n d
t e s t i m o n y
them selves into to p ossib ly becom e an elem ent present in a historical m em ­
ory site (e.g. in the case o f a p reem in en t artists linked w ith a given place),
th ey retain their autonom y due to a p articular fram e o f reference involving
the individual history o f a specific person and existing w ithin their individual
oeuvre. The pm ain difference betw een this n e w category and m em ory sites
as posited b y N ora is their existential status: autobiographical sites exist in
literature, th ey are notions com posed out o f descriptions, toponym s in clud­
ed in the text, allusions, and m etaphors. H ow ever, th ey also have objective,
tangible, topographically situated equivalents like the w riter's hom e turned
into a m usum , a m onum ent, a m em orial plaque, a tourist trail linking places
related to the w riter's biography and/or locations u sed in his w ork. The bond
betw een literary notions and their reflections in reality, the bond suggesting
associations w ith historical sites o f m em ory in the w ay N ora envisioned it, is
also shaped by w orks that reveal just h ow h ow deep the autobiographical site
is anchored in geographical space: guidebooks (Joyce's and Leopold Bloom's
Dublin, B iałoszew ski's W arsaw, Huelle's and Chwin's Gdańsk), city plans and
m aps that feature to u rist trails (like the M ick iew icz Trail in B elarus, w hich
covers places w here the poet lived as w e ll as locations that he allegedly used
as tem plates for the environm ents he later described in his w orks, particularly
Pan Tadeusz). A sim ilar function is served by q u ote-laden plaques posted on
objects to w hich the quotes refer (e.g. the “W riters in G dań sk” series had the
building o f the G dań sk-O liw a railw ay station adorned w ith a plaque featuring
the station's d escrip tion taken out o f one o f C hw in's w o rk s); or an n o u n c­
ing the locations o f fictional sites or enterprises, like the plaques in W arsaw
han gin g b y the entrance to W okulski's store (by the C astle Square) and his
apartm ent (at Krakow skie Przedm ieście).
The autob io graph ical site category should also be confronted w ith the
claim s o f M arc A ugé, the m an b ehind the definition o f a n e w phenom enon
in the spatial order, a phenom enon Augé dubbed the “non -place.” The French
an th ro p o lo gist con sid ered the an on ym ou s, d ein d ivid u alized n o n -p lace s
like the train station, airp o rt lou n ges or the su perm arket characteristic o f
the latest phase o f W estern culture he christened “hyperm od ernity” (or “su ­
p erm odernity”). T hey are “spaces w hich are not them selves anthropological
places and w hich, unlike Baudelairean m odernity, do not integrate the earlier
places: in stead these are listed, classified, p rom oted to the status o f «places
o f m em ory,» and assign ed to a circum scribed and specific position.”10 I b e ­
lieve that one fine exam ple o f literary creation o f n on -places can be found in
Olga Tokarczuk's Runners, in the form o f in ternational airports through w hich
10 M. Augé, Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology o f Supermodernity (New York: Verso,
1995), 78 .
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MA ŁG O R ZA T A C Z E R M I Ń S K A
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the narrators con stan tly roam s. The concept o f autobiographical site refers
to m odern literature, in w h ich th e y fUnction as an thropological b y nature,
they are, as Augé w rites, “relational, historical, and concerned w ith identity.”11
They are the opposite o f the non -place, the latter deprived o f individualism ,
like a hotel, decorated and furnished just like every other hotel adm inistered
by the in tern ation al chain brand. The literary autobiographical site is a s e ­
m antic, sym bo lic equivalent o f a genuin e geograph ic location and cultural
notions asso ciated w ith it. It does not exist in a geographical vacuum , does
not pertain to geom etric space, u n iversal and empty. It is alw ays linked w ith
topographic, tangible m atter, even if it is subject to literary transform ations,
typ ical o f not only m etaphors found in realistic genres, but also o f the rules
o f the oneiric and the fantastic.
Evidently, not all w riters carve out autobiographical sites in literature, just
as not all w riters m ine their ow n lives for m aterial w ith w hich to build their
fictional w orlds. D raw ing on personal experiences does not necessarily m ean
including one's strictly personal affairs, the latter com prising autobiographic
m atter. I don't consider the radical dichotom y: b etw een w riters dem onstrat­
in g a p ro cliv ity to w ard s adopting autobiographic attitu des and those w ho
consistently shun it, to be appropriate in this particular case. It's a spectrum ,
rather than a sim ple division, a spectrum covering the span betw een tw o ex­
trem es, on w hich each author can find his ow n place.
Topographic Im agination
A sid e from a p ro clivity tow ards adopting person al perspectives in w ritin g,
the author needs to exhibit a specific so rt o f im ag in ation in order to create
an autobiographical site. There are authors w ho, for the purpose o f this paper,
I w ould define as possessin g a topographic im agination, that is authors prone
to observing the external world, gifted w ith high sensitivity to sensual stimuli,
interested in the richness o f the tangible, w ith a feeling for the significance of
the m aterial detail. C oncerned w ith landscapes and objects, they pose ques­
tio n s about values and m ean in g th at m ay be h id den w ith in shapes, colors,
sounds, and scents, m ovem ents and light. They're curious about the visib le
world, they see its diversity, either beautiful and strange or daunting. Or they
probe it for traces o f the past. Such an im agination can be found in the w ork
o f w riters as different from one another as Iw aszkiew icz, M iłosz, K onw icki,
Białoszew ski, and Z agajew ski. Each and every one o f th em m anaged to cre­
ate a vivid reflection o f their ow n autobiographical sites. These authors offer
11
ibid., 77.
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62
n o n f i c t i o n
,
r e p o r t a g e
a n d
t e s t i m o n y
very interesting avenues o f inquiry to scholars convinced that em ploying the
concept o f geopoetics and its m ethods m ight lead to valuable insight.
If in h is poem Blacksmith Shop M iłosz repeats the w ord “stare” tw ice and
th en con cludes th at he w a s called “to g lo rify th in gs ju st b ecau se th ey are,”
then the opposite end o f the im agination spectrum m ay attract w riters who
could describe them selves as called to “turning ideas inside out” just because
id eas exist. A u thors like these are rather in sen sitive to the m aterial stim uli
o f the th ree-dim en sion al, tangible w orld; how ever, th ey are not necessarily
only in terested in explorin g th eir ow n in terior w orld . T h e y ten d to pursue
either abstract thought constructs or other people, the latter's psychological
lives and social relationships. They are rather indifferent tow ards the m ate ­
rial b ackdrop again st w h ich th eir characters m ove, speak, and act. W riters
like Parnicki, M rożek, Wat, and Gom brow icz, each o f w h om m anaged to live
all across Europe and on other continents, w ere in no position to com plain
about a lack o f external stim uli. They lived abroad for years, they could have
extolled the loss o f one's ow n place or b ecom e travellers, drinking in exotic
stimuli. However, none o f them considered topograhic concrete realities to be
w orthy o f focused, lon g -term attention.
B ro n isła w Ś w id e rsk i (b. 19 4 6) is a clear exam ple o f a w riter b orn after
WW 2 w ho turned his back on the sensual expressiveness o f geographic re al­
ity, although circum stances seem ed to push h im in that exact direction and
offered h im a plenty o f opportunity to contrast and com pare. A fter the 1968
political crisis in Poland, Św iderski em igrated to D enm ark. In his pronounc­
edly autobiographic novel Asystent śmierci (Death's Assistant) , the plot presents
the narrator and protagonist in tw o tim elin es and tw o separate places: b e ­
tw een his p o st-19 6 8 years in C openhagen and the m em ories o f a childhood
and adolescence spent in Warsaw. The narrative is filled w ith people and con­
versation the author had w ith them , w ritin g and reading, alternately the work
o f Kierkegaard and the three versions o f the resum e o f his mother, a w om an
obsessed w ith concealing her Jew ish extraction w hich, in her opinion, carried
a death sentence attached to it. D espite the ten sion b etw een the fortunes of
a Jew ish w riter in Poland and D enm ark, a te n sio n crucial for the novel and
anchored in autobiographical m otifs, the space o f both cities does not exist
as a topographic reality. W arsaw is represen ted b y the in terior o f an ap art­
m en t shared w ith a sick, eccentric father, w h e re as C op en h agen is reduced
to w aitin g room s and em ploym ent offices, as w e ll as the hospice w here the
n arrator w orked and an apartm ent, em p ty after h is w ife le ft him . The only
thing he w itn esses in the city are protests held by M uslim s in response to the
publication o f cartoons lam pooning the Prophet.
W riters in d ifferen t to w ard s the realitie s o f to p o grap h y can m ark their
autob io graphical sites in other w ays, n am e ly b y in trodu cing to p o n ym s or
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referring to specific historical events or institutions w hose location is know n
from extraliterary reality. Sw iderski's exam ple perfectly illustrates th is. He
unam biguously identifies the tw o cities appearing in his narratives through
frequent use o f toponym s - W arsaw and Copenhagen. He avoids introducing
pseudonym s, even though a sim ilar trail w as already blazed b y Żerom ski and
D ąbrow ska, the form er changing the nam e o f K ielce w hereas the latter em ­
ployed a pseudonym for Kalisz. W riters w ith reality-and-fact-sen sitive im agi­
nations also have one other w ay o f dealing w ith toponym s at their disposal:
they can omit them and then introduce a plethora o f suggestions that facilitate
the identification o f the topographic original of their literary creation; such an
approach w as em ployed b y Bruno Schulz in his treatm ent o f Drohobych and
b y M agdalena Tulli in her portrayal o f W arsaw in Dreams and Stones.
Secondly, Sw iderski invokes specific events from the h istories o f both cit­
ies. From sources other than his autobiographical narrative w e kn ow that the
events o f O ctober o f 1956, w hich later sealed the fate o f the narrator's father,
took place in W arsaw, w hile the student strikes o f M arch o f 19 68 , w hich led
to the narrator's decision to em igrate from the country, started at the U niver­
sity o f W arsaw. C openhagen indubitably is Kierkegaard's hom etow n, and the
institute dedicated to the study o f the philosopher's output w as the narrator's
place o f em ploym ent for quite som e tim e. Additionally, in 2005, a C openha­
gen-b ased new spaper gained international notoriety for publishing a cartoon
caricature o f the Prophet M oham m ed, w hich led to violent protests breaking
out across the M uslim world.
I do n o t con sider the distin ction b etw een the tw o typ es o f im agin ation
to be dichotom ous in nature, as tw o m u tu ally exclusive p o ssib ilities. I b e ­
lieve th at th ey constitute tw o ends o f a spectrum , on w h ich w riters situate
th em selves in places th e y con sider appropriate. That's w h y w rite rs devoid
o f topographic se n sib ility som etim es exhibit glim m ers o f that attribute. In
his book A Journal o f Return, Sław om ir M rożek included a series o f snapshots
depicting his M exican estate w hich he is just about to leave to return to K ra­
kow. In the p oem Willows in Alma-Ata, W at m an aged to create m em orable,
incredibly rich m etaphors o f hom eland and place o f exile w ith no m ore than
a few dozen w ords.
Therefore, the creation an autobiographical site requires from the author
a p ro clivity to adopt an autobiographical p erspective and a w ell-d evelop ed
topographic im agination.
Elem ents com prising an autobiographical site can be found both in texts
that could easily be considered an author's personal docum ents, if such m a ­
terials w ere ever created (including autobiographies, journals, m em oirs, p er­
sonal letters), as w ell as in an author's fictional output, poem s, essays, critical
texts, and com m entaries on one's ow n work, interview s, etc., obviously taking
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n o n f i c t i o n
,
r e p o r t a g e
a n d
t e s t i m o n y
into account the nature o f conventions utilized in these declarations. S im u l­
taneously, w e use publicly available biographical inform ation, not only textual
but visual as w ell. It m ight be photographs (including captions describing the
location and date the photo w as taken) that feature com pelling topographic
elem ents w hich, in turn, facilitate the identification o f a place, or distinctive
accessories. In other w ords, w e include w hatever helps us to situate biograph­
ical events and provides context facilitating the un derstanding o f elem ents
o f literary w orks, especially w orks featuring specific regional characteristics
and allusions to peculiar cultural phenom ena. The photographs o f Stan isław
Ignacy W itkiew icz are one exam ple, especially pictures from Zakopane and
the Tatra M ountains, as w ell as num erous portraits o f the w riter in these su r­
roundings; these pictures shed additional light on specific details o f scenery
portrayed in the author's n ovels an d em phasize the presen ce o f au to b io ­
graphical elem ents and devices typical for a rom an a clef in W itkiewicz's work.
W h en exam in in g an autob io graphical site, w e need to con tem plate the
plethora o f diverse situations th at com prise the w riter's existence: place o f
birth, where he grew up, w ent to school, attended college, his journeys and the
places he visited, as w ell as changes in place o f residence that are im portant
from the perspective o f traces that they m ight have left behind in the author's
oeuvre. The m ajority o f literary creations o f personal territory p ertains, p e r­
haps unsurprisingly, to places w here authors w ere born and spent their child­
hoods, w ith archetypal subtexts usu ally present and operative. There are, of
course, exception s: N ałk ow ska spen t her entire life in W arsaw but created
her autobiographical site in The House Upon the Meadows, w herein she referred
to her parent's sum m er cabin in G órki n ear W arsaw , w h ereas A d am Z a g a ­
jew sk i created the m o st illustrious portrayal o f Krakow, w here he spen t his
college years, alongside an im agin ary Lviv i G liw ice. The countries he visited
as a jo u rn alist clinched the creation o f A frica as R yszard K apuscinski's au ­
tobiograph ical side, alongside h is lo st h o m eto w n o f P in sk about w h ich he
did not m anage to w rite in the end, leaving behind only drafts and sketches.
Lon g-term in variability in the author's place o f residence m ay also serve as
an im portant clue to un derstanding the w ork, as it w as w ith the portrayal o f
W arsaw in the w ritin gs o f M iron B iałoszew ski and M ałgorzata Baranow ska.
A sid e from the author's ow n literary w ork, w e should also contem plate all
other textual or visual (e.g. a photograph or a painting) traces o f the author's
interest in other people's descriptions o f his site/region, o f the traditions and
m ythologies o f these places, and elaborations on their genius loci. The creation
o f an autobiographical site is not based solely on one's existential experience,
it is also related to the exploration o f and p articipatio n in the trad itio ns o f
a given place - even if the link to other people's testim onies is h idden or only
alluded to. O ften enough, how ever, texts authored b y one's predecessors are
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not only invoked or referred to, they are w eaved into one's ow n w ork, like, for
exam ple, h istoric docum ents from the G rand D uchy o f Lithuania appearing
in the footnotes o f C zesław M iłosz's p oem Where the Sun Rises and Where it Sets.
We also n eed to con sid er the evidence o f an author's in te re st in other
people's w ritten (and visual) portrayals o f their journeys to places the author
chose or w as cast into b y fate, only to be appropriated as his ow n, its im ages
incrusted w ith intertextual references. Focusing on Iw aszkiew icz's m ultiple
references to journeys through Italy p ervadin g the European literary canon
w ould be an exam ple o f such an approach, as w ould be the oral narratives of
K arol Szym an ow sk i w ho m anaged to inculcate his cousin w ith an undying
cu riosity o f all thin gs Sicilian . The sam e goes for Jerzy Stem pow ski, w hose
essays on Berne and its surroundings contain traces o f the author's extensive
know ledge o f the area derived from historical records. This sort o f m ediation
plays a significant role in the process o f fam iliarization o f foreign territories
and appropriatin g it for one's ow n autob io graphical site. The predecessor,
either b y in teracting w ith the author directly or w h ose w ork the author ex­
plores h im self, facilitates his introduction into this n e w territory, serves as
the w riter's protective sp irit w h o se role is to in itiate h im into com m uning
w ith the genius loci. This allow s to exam ine not only the in dividu al relatio n ­
ship b etw een the output o f an author prone to adopting an autobiographical
perspective w ho w e're interested in and other w riters w hose w ork captivated
and engaged him , but also the shaping o f com prehensive cultural sym bolism
o f a given topographic territory.
Types o f Autobiographical S ite s
Through observation of the types of autobiographical sites created as p art of
the creative p raxis o f Polish w riters active in the second h a lf o f the 20 th cen ­
tury, I discern ed a dichotom y b etw een stasis and m o b ility takin g shape in
the b ackground o f the m atter. The dichotom y p erfectly fits the h istoric and
so cial realitie s o f the tran sfo rm atio n s our culture u n d e rw e n t after WW2 ;
at its h eart, it in vokes the afo rem en tio n ed b a sic d istin ctio n s su p p lied by
cu ltural an th ropology. D istin g u ish in g b e tw e e n a p e rm a n en t and sh ifted
autob io graph ical sites is ab so lu tely fu n dam en tal. The p erm an en t place is
given in nature, inherited, in a sense, w h ereas the shifted one is linked w ith
com ing out into the w orld , m ovem ent, and the arrival at som e other point
w h ere the jo u rn e y com es to an end. It is a situ atio n e n co m p assin g w hat's
chosen, acquired or im posed, therefore com pletely differen t th an residing
in a p rim al place, a place w e p o ssess, in w h ich w e sim p ly are. We also need
to in voke one oth er d istin ctio n , one th a t is n o t o n ly critical b u t also a n ­
thropological in nature, n am ely the sp atial topoi o f the hom e and the road,
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n o n f i c t i o n ,
r e p o r t a g e
a n d
t e s t i m o n y
related to the d istin ctio n b e tw e e n op en an d clo se d sp ace. W e're fa m ilia r
w ith the m atter thanks to num erous in vestigations in the field o f sem iotics,
phenom enology, and m ythography, enqu iries w h ich despite adoptin g d if­
ferent m ethodologies all yield ed fascinating results and w h ich n ow serve as
sources for current research in the field o f cultural studies (although the tra ­
dition often goes un acknow ledged). On the other hand, social scien ces give
us an oth er b a sic d istin ction : b etw e e n so cie tie s th at are clo sed and static
(o rig in ally u su ally agrarian) an d th o se esp o u sin g o p en n ess and m o b ility
(o rig in a lly n om ad ic, p asto ral, or m ercan tile an d th u s ofte n s e a fa rin g ).12
T herefore, from the persp ective o f attitu des one can ad op t to w ard s space
w e see tw o fundam ental p o ssib ilities open up: w e either live statically or in
m otion. M ovem ent com es in three b asic form s: it's either vacatin g and r e ­
turning to (even repeated) one's place o f residence (traveling), transplanting
o n e se lf into another place (resettlem ent), or con stan t m ig ration (n om ad ­
ism ). Each o f th ese three form s can be found in literature. M otion is one of
hum an ity's w ays o f relatin g to space, w e have to take it into account w hen
recon stru ctin g literary au tobiographical sites.
G iven that one's location in space stem s directly from one's biographical
situation and given the w riter's particular w ay o f constructing narrative, w e
can id en tify m ultiple differen t typ e s o f autobiographical sites, n am ely o b ­
served, recollected, conceived, shifted, chosen, and touched upon.
Only the observed site is perm an en t in nature. It m ay be a slightly u n for­
tunate nam e, because observation seem s to be characteristic of topographic
im agin ation , b ut I w ill b e u sin g it due to lack o f a b etter w ay to em phasize
that it is about creating an au tob iographical site here and now, or, possibly,
here an d b ack th en , in an y event, cre atin g it w ith o u t in tro d u cin g sp atial
distan ce, w ith ou t d etachm ent. The subject is b a sica lly con stan tly present
in h is actu al area, o b servin g it day in and day out to later chann el the o b ­
servations into creating its literary reflection. He w rites about a place w hile
b ein g p resen t at that particu lar place, u su ally w ith a sen se o f b ein g firm ly
linked w ith it w hich, in turn, often stem s from the fact th at one w a s b orn
and raised there/13 A m odel exam ple o f this approach can be found in M iron
12 cf. Becker's and Barnes' classic study, H. Becker, H.E. Barnes, Social Thought from Lore to Sci­
ence: A History and Interpretation o f Man's Ideas About Life with His Fellows (New York: Dover
Publications, 1961).
13 A permanent place of residence, passed from generation to generation, a staple among East­
ern European noblemen, was analyzed from a perspective inspired by humanist geography by
Vasily Shchukin in the book Mit szlacheckiego gniazda. Studium geokulturologiczne o klasycznej
literaturze rosyjskiej [The Myth o f the Nest o f the Gentry: A Geoculturological Study o f Classical
Russian Literature], trans. B. Żyłko (Kraków: Universitas, 2006).
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B iałoszew ski's p ortrayal o f W arsaw or the w ay both H uelle and C hw in w rite
ab out G d ań sk. It is a clear o p p o site o f a m ig ra to ry situ atio n , it is a place
that's one's ow n, fully accepted. H ow ever, the a n x ie ty sp aw n ed b y the era
o f m igration and h istoric shockw aves eventu ally reached the territories of
perm an en t resid en ce. W arsaw , portrayed b y B iało sze w sk i w ith in credible
p recision and atten tio n al to detail, is a place forever m auled b y the e x p e ri­
ence o f th e U p risin g, the d ivisio n into a p re - an d p o st-U p risin g W arsaw
con stan tly p resen t in its appearan ce and character. In everyday trivialities,
am on g “d en u n ciatio n s o f [everyday] re a lity ” arran ged in “ru stle s, nodes,
an d strin g s,” or am o n g m e m o rie s o f ch ild h o o d g a m e s, o f a b o y p layin g
th eater in a sm all p re -w a r ap artm en t in Leszno, w e co n stan tly encounter
echoes o f that lim in al tim e o f the U prising, even i f they're only naïve urban
le ge n d s ab ou t w o m e n b u rie d alive u n d er m o u n ta in s o f ru bb le w h o s u r­
vived the U p risin g an d n ever le arn e d th at the w a r is over, ate m u sh ro om
sprou ting from the w alls, and pressed linens to pass the tim e. Heart Attack,
B iało szew sk i's au tob io grap h ical b o o k ab out the cardiac in cid en t he w en t
th rou gh in 19 74 and h is su b se q u en t stay in the h o sp ita l sh eds ad d ition al
light on his earlier book, A Memoir o f the Warsaw Uprising, revealing the Memoir
to be a d ep ictio n o f a c ity u n d e rg o in g a sim ilar catastro p h ic failu re o f its
m ost vital organs. The city did not m ove horizontally, alon g the surface of
the earth, but vertically, collapsin g in on itself, fallin g into ruin.
B y em ploying the fact o f being born and raised citizens o f Gdańsk as an au­
tobiographic, allusive backdrop in their novels and short stories, both Huelle
and C hw in are able to adopt and fully accept the p alim p sest-like text about
the com plex, m ultilayered history o f the city as their ow n; however, em pha­
sizing that they're only the first o f their fam ilies to be assign ed perm an en t
residence in the city is a very im portant com ponent o f the im age o f the places
they create from the perspective o f being here. Their prose features a recollec­
tive perspective espoused b y the previous generations, that is m igrants who
w ere forced to abandon their hom es in V ilnius, Lviv and razed neighborhoods
of Warsaw, and w ho cannot fully accept Gdańsk to be a place they could regard
as their own.
A ll o f the other typ e s o f au tob iographical sites w ere d irectly m arked by
m ig rato ry situ atio n s. T he rem em b ered site w as once p erm an en t, a given,
but w as lost, often as a result o f exp u lsion or escape. U su ally it w as a place
w h ere th ey w ere b o rn and raised, w here th ey spent th e ir adolescen ce and
settled into a p leasan t life, w h ich th ey eventu ally h ad to leave due to som e
u n foreseen cataclysm . This im age enlists, in m ore w ays than one, the M ickie w ic z ia n tro p e o f lo st id yll, k ep t alive b y S ie n k ie w icz in The Lighthouse
Keeper, an d th e n u p d ated in 19 4 2 b y a grou p o f e d ito rs w h o co llected the
m em o irs o f w a rtim e ém igrés in a vo lum e en titled Kraj lat dziecinnych (The
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n o n f i c t i o n ,
r e p o r t a g e
a n d
t e s t i m o n y
Land o f Childhood Years), the n am e an u n am bigu ou s referen ce to th e tra d i­
tion.™ This trope, very susceptible to stereotyping, found particu larly fertile
grou n d in p o p u lar re m in isce n t literatu re. O n th e other h an d , it's in c re d ­
ib ly re silie n t, as e vid e n ce d b y th e fact th a t it re c e n tly p ro voked a paro d y
re sp o n se in the fo rm o f a p o e m b y T om asz R óżycki called Twelve Stations;
even its ironic perspective, how ever, d oes not com pletely n u llify the a m u s­
in g m ixtu re o f n o stalgia and b aw d in ess. The recollected m od el o f au tob io­
graph ical site, represen ted quite exten sively in literature about the Eastern
Borderlands, has b een developing - albeit not n ecessarily in a stereotypical
w ay - since W orld W ar I, starting w ith W ankowicz's depiction o f the “puppy
years,” through Iw aszkiew icz's portrayal o f U kraine, V incenzo's descriptions
of H utsul lands, the depiction o f the V iln ius region authored b y M iłosz, K on ­
w ick i, and Ż akiew icz, H aupt and W ołoszyński's Podolia, and Stem pow ski's
p ortrayal o f the D n iester R iver valle y and V olhynia (to m en tion only a few
of the authors). The phenom enon is undoubtedly very im portant to the sub­
ject, b u t it's too w e ll-k n o w n and w e ll-stu d ie d to p a y an y m ore atten tio n
to the subject, therefore I w ill conclude the diagnosis at in dicating its e x ist­
ence. K apuściński, a w riter w hose topographic im agination w as directed to ­
w ard s con stan t m otio n rather th an stasis, also attem pted to create h is own
au tobiographical site. There m ight be som e sign ifican ce to the fact that the
book about Pinsk he so often p ro m ised to w rite never cam e about and the
autob io graph ical site m en tio n ed b y the author com p rises only d rafts and
outlines: the first piece in The Polish Bush, the opening o f Imperium, a m ovie
docum enting h is jo u rn e y w ith A n d ers B odegard, and a h o st o f statem ents
given here and there.
F am ily trad itio n s p lay a k e y role in the creation o f con ceived au to b io ­
graphic sites, that is created w ith reference to a geographic cam era w hich the
w riter did not get to know firsthand, and had no prior opportunity to explore.
Genealogy, im portant on its ow n for recollected sites, is absolutely fundam en­
tal w hen it com es to establishing conceived sites. This is especially pertinent
in the case o f second-gen eration im m igrants. For them , the past is available
n ot v ia th eir ow n m em ories b u t rather through an im ag in ary anchoring in
an in accessible space w hose im age is created as a result o f fam ilial influence
and cultural m ythos, sans con frontation w ith p erson al, extraverb al e x p e ri­
ences. The conceived site is established in a process, its m ethods resem bling
archeological research; the site belongs to the field o f gen ealogy rather than
autobiography in the strict sense, w hile the effort required to create it, in spite
o f m igratory realities, m akes it m ore prone to creating utopias in com parison
to the effort n ecessary to establish recollected sites. Podolia as portrayed in
14 Kraj lat dziecinnych, ed. M. Grydzewski, K. Pruszyński (London: M.I. Kolin, 1942)
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MA ŁG O R ZA T A C Z E R M I Ń S K A
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O dojew ski's w ork, in cluding a fe w o f his later short stories and episodes o f
Oksana, is a crucial exam ple o f this thesis (although w e know from the writer's
biography that his notion o f Podolia w as form ed prim arily during one short
journey he w as taken on w h en he w as still a little boy). A n o th er exam ple can
be found in A nn a Bolecka's The White Stone, a novel w ith a clear autobiographic
undercurrent, w hich, unfortunately, com bines knowledge o f genuine g en eal­
ogy, u n certain and full o f gaps, w ith conjecture and speculation.
Lviv from Z agajew ski's Two Cities and his poem To Go to Lvov also belongs
to that type of site, or at least it did before the author finally visited the city and
confronted his idea o f Lviv w ith the personal experience o f visitin g the city. It
did not, however, develop characteristics o f a recollected site in the process.
The im age o f the city w as significantly im proved after the author com posed
the essay Should We Visit Sacred Places? (later included in his volum e A Defense of
Ardor). It m ight have seem ed that the p ublication w ill put the w riter's interest
in that subject to an end. His latest book, how ever, entitled A Slight Exaggera­
tion, expands his reflections and w rites about im agin ary Lviv as a place that
parents rem inisce about, in so far as the father is one o f the m o st im portant
characters o f this personal narrative. Like his earlier publication, Another Beau­
ty, A Slight Exaggeration is not strictly about poetry, b u t rather about a poet.
M oreover, it's n o t about a p oet in general, but about a specific poet, n am ely
A d am Z agajew ski; his recent essays are perm eated w ith the autobiographic
elem ent, the latter, how ever, expressed through a fram ew ork o f intellectual,
spiritu al autobiography. In A Slight Exaggeration he even in vokes the patron
sain t o f such an approach to person al w ritin g: H enryk Elzenberg as author
o f a philosophical journal entitled The Problem with Existence.
A sh ifted site ap p ears w h en ever an ém igré finds a “secon d h o m e lan d ”
w here he settles dow n and w h ich he accepts to the extent th at he includes
it in h is w ork. O ften enough (but n ot alw ays), that process is accom panied
b y the creation o f a recollected site encom passin g places that w ere fam iliar
once. I b elieve th at to be the case o f Jerzy Stem p o w sk i as author o f Ziemia
berneńska [The Bernese Lands], a volum e o f essays on the landscapes surround­
in g the Sw iss capital, w h erein the author finds traces o f the region's culture
and h istory w hich he then interprets u sin g his extensive know ledge o f Euro pean literature, philosophy, and painting. H is Listy z ziemi berneńskiej [Letters
from the Bernese Lands] also fit that particular m ould, as do som e o f the pieces
from Essays fo r Cassandra, e.g. A t the Schaffhausen Waterfalls. Stem pow ski, w ith ­
out bringing up facts and events from his ow n life, portrays h im se lf rather as
som eone speaking w ith in the text, as som eone w ho partakes in the com m on
heritage o f Europe, in w hich he sees h im se lf as both a citizen o f Sw itzerland
(where he studied before the w ar) as w ell as a native o f the specific region of
U kraine w here his ancestors once dw elled and w here he spent his childhood
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n o n f i c t i o n ,
r e p o r t a g e
a n d
t e s t i m o n y
and adolescence. He portrays these lands as a recollected site in In the Dniester
Valley, Esej berdyczowski [ The Berdychov Essay], Bagaż z kalinówki [Luggagefrom
Kalynivka], and D om Straw ińskiego w U ściługu [Stravinsky’s Home in Ustyluh].
M aybe w e should also notice a shifted site in M iłosz's Visionsfiom San Fran­
cisco Bay, som e fragm ents o f The Year oh the Hunter, and references to C alifor­
nia landscapes scattered am ong his poem s. In Notes on Exile (Berkeley, 1975),
w hich w ere already quoted h erein in order to support the definition o f p e r­
sonal point o f reference in spatial orientation, crucial for the localization of
person settled into a specific place, M iłosz also describes the situation w hich
I took to calling transposition:
Although quite popular, literature of yearning is only one of m any ways
to cope with being severed from one's homeland. A new point that organ­
izes space in reference to itself cannot be eliminated, that is, you can't ab­
stract yourself out of physical presence in a particular place on Earth. That
is w h y w e're faced w ith a peculiar phenom enon: tw o centers and tw o
spaces around them, overlapping or - if w e're lucky - fusing.15
M ultiple passages in TheJournal Written at Night and a series o f short stories
taking place in and around N aples (starting w ith Pieta dell'Isola published in
1959, through The Bridge, Ruins, The M iracle, The Plague in Naples, and many,
m an y others, the la st o f th em b ein g Death Knellfo r the Bell-Ringer, p ublished
in 200 0 ) pain ted a picture o f the situ ation th at H erlin g-G ru d ziń sk i found
him self in. In one of the interview s he's given on living in the “city under a vo l­
cano,” the w riter explain ed th at he and h is w ife, Lidia C roce, picked N aples
as their n e w h om elan d (they also con sidered m oving to G erm any) as they
w an ted at least one o f th em to be “at h o m e ” in stead o f both o f th em b ein g
ém igrés. The author often w rote he hasn't felt accepted by native denizens of
N aples for decades and that he him self accepted the little office in their house
in D ragon ea as h is place on Earth on ly in h is tw ilig h t y e ars, long after his
w ork brought him success and critical acclaim and after visitin g his erstwhile
hom eland. For Grudziński, the N aples region and a handful o f other places in
Italy, their m agnificent scenery, history, traditions, folklore, and other peculi­
arities becam e an inexhaustible treasure trove o f ideas and topics. The term
“fortunate solution” m ight be slightly inappropriate (for a variety o f reasons)
15 Cz. Miłosz, Noty o wygnaniu in: Cz. Miłosz, Zaczynając od moich ulic (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo
Dolnośląskie, 1990), 49. A wider context for the sort of self-identification we find expressed in
Miłosz's version of the figure of he stranger, depicted as someone capable of quickly finding
his bearings in new places, can be found in R. Nycz, "Osoba w nowoczesnej literaturze: ślady
obecności” in: R. Nycz, Literatura jako trop rzeczywistości. Poetyksa epifanii w nowoczesnej lit­
eraturze polskiej (Krakow: Universitas, 2001), 73-77.
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MA ŁG O R ZA T A C Z E R M I Ń S K A
AU TO BI O GR AP HI C AL S I TE S.
in H erling-G rudzinski's visio n o f man's existence, however, as far as the craft
o f w ritin g is concerned, the fact that he found another, fertile hom eland for
his im agination seem s undeniably fortunate. We also know o f the recollected
site o f The Tower’s author thanks to W łodzim ierz Bolecki's in quisitive in ter­
pretation; the latter's Ciemna miłość (em ploying a M ickiew iczian phrase about
one's land o f childhood years) consolidated a series o f poignant and em phatic
referen ces to G rudzinski's h om etow n o f Su ch ed n iów scattered am ong the
pages o f The Journal Written at Night.™
In the w ork he h as w ritte n during h is stay in G u atem ala, A ndrzej B o b ­
kow ski established his ow n shifted site w ithin the tin y South A m erican coun­
try he h ad m oved to after h is deliberate and d ecisive w ith d raw al from the
European continent.
Shifted sites present in the w ork o f the generation that grew up in the in ­
terw ar period do not displace one's m em ories o f a perm anent place that once
w as given and th en w a s lost. T his, in turn, is counteracted b y the n ostalgic
perspective, typ ical for w riters o f the “second w ave ” o f p ostw ar em igration.
N ostalgia, how ever, does not really carry th at m uch w eigh t for the younger
gen eration o f ém igrés w ho fled the People's R epu blic o f Poland “choosing
freedom ” in the W est, for people w ho left the country after the w ave o f an ti­
S em itism that sw ep t Poland after the 19 6 8 political crisis, as w e ll as for the
p o st-So lid arity ém igrés. For these three form ations, the tran splantation into
other locations is linked w ith the feeling o f overw helm ing loss, and strongly
asso ciated w ith u n rest and anger tow ard s the rejected realities o f socialist
Poland, w hose veil o f lies and h ypocrisy only furthered the erosion o f its abil­
ity to serve as one's ow n place, a place underpinning one's identity.
C h o se n site s are d iffe re n t from sh ifted site s in th at y o u can o n ly v is it
the form er, y o u can n o t resid e in th em p erm an en tly. T h e y are ch osen due
to p articular values th ey espouse or endorse, how ever, for a varie ty reasons,
p eop le w h o ch oose th e m are u n ab le to re sid e in th em . T h e y do n o t have
to be a sso cia te d w ith th e m o st severe fo rm o f m ig ratio n , n a m e ly e x p u l­
sion , although as a re su lt o f h isto ric a l and so cial re a litie s o f 2 0 th cen tu ry
Poland th ey w ere found and chosen p rim arily in that specific context. They
m ay also fu n ction w ith in the con fin es o f the n o tio n o f journey. A chosen
place can be a m igrant's tem p orary asylum , w h ere one cannot stay p e rm a­
n en tly due to certain circu m stan ces, but w here one can, from tim e to tim e,
find a realm that is m ore b eau tifu l and superior to one's everyday life. This
adopted “h om elan d o f the so u l” is u su ally found b y travel aficionados w ho
in th eir accounts o f jou rn eyin g to different captivatin g corners o f the globe
16 W. Bolecki, Ciemna miłość. Szkice do portretu Gustawa Herlinga-Grudzińskiego (Krakow:
Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2005), 141-165.
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n o n f i c t i o n
,
r e p o r t a g e
a n d
t e s t i m o n y
alw ays save the g reatest p raise for th eir privileged sites, to w h ich th ey also
fre q u e n tly re tu rn an d w h ich th e y in co rp o rate in th e ir b io g ra p h ie s and
th eir w ork. Iw aszkiew icz m ade both Italy and S icily (and San dom ierz, but
to a le sse r extent) h is ch o sen site s, m ak in g th e m the su b ject o f h is t ra v ­
elogues and poetry, and u sin g them as locations for short stories and novels
(like his “Italian n o v e llas” and Fame and Glory). Iw aszkiew icz also in co rp o ­
rated th em in h is ow n biography, given that he jou rn eyed and w orked there
fairly often. M anuscripts he w orked on in Italy w eren 't usu ally th em atically
related to the cou n try itself, e.g. The Maids o f Wilko, dated: “Syracu se, A p ril
o f 19 3 2 ,” or Shadows (an account o f the 19 17 revolu tion in U kraine), dated:
“Rom a, M ay o f 19 6 3 .” Providin g a tim e and place o f a g iven w ork's creation
e stab lish e s a relatio n sh ip b etw e e n the order o f literatu re an d the factual
order o f the author's biography. B y w ritin g about Venice, Florence, and Sicily
in Poland during the occupation and about M azovia and U kraine before and
after the w ar in Rom e and Syracu se, Iw aszkiew icz b uilds a pecu liar plexus
that m erges his ow n, actu ally ob served o f recollected au tobiographical site
and the chosen one, h is “h om elan d o f the so u l” w h ich he v isits only as tim e
and circu m stan ces p e rm it h im to. He also stren gth en s the b on d b etw een
his ow n b iography and the free w orld o f literary im agination.
Z b ig n iew H erb ert treated G reece in a sim ilar w a y in h is poetry, essays,
and letters, b esto w in g upon it a very special p osition in h is M editerranean
“gard en ” visited by the “barb arian ” from the N orthern w ildern ess. Herbert's
interactions w ith Greece w ere in itially lim ited to books and the author's own
im agination, later, he com m uned w ith it in French and Italian m useum s, fi­
nally m eeting the G reat H ellas in person, in the D oric tem ples o f Paestum .
O nly later did the author journey to A thens, the Pelloponese, and the islands
o f the A egean Sea, the visits yield in g w ork w e k n ow from The Labyrinth on the
Sea and The King o f the Ants. The process o f creating Herbert's chosen site w as
com plem ented b y illustrations and sketches the p oet d rew throughout the
journey.
A s bizarre as lab elin g an entire co n tin en t “a site ” m a y seem , R yszard
K apuściński spent years gradually discovering A frica as h is chosen autobio­
graphic territory. A lt hough the journalist often em phasized that there is no
such th in g as a u n ified n otion o f A frica b ecau se the con tinent's v a st te rri­
to ry en co m p asses a h o st o f v e ry d ifferen t cou ntries, lan d scap es, and p e o ­
ples, K apuściński h im self bestow ed privileged status upon the continent and
frequently return ed there w h en ever h is jo u rn alistic obligations perm itted,
his fondness for the land eventually culm inating in the publication o f Ebony,
a summa o f his A frican experiences. He kn ew A frica incom parably better than
other corners o f the globe he w rote about in his books, like Shah o f Shahs, Impe­
rium, or The Soccer War. That claim w as seem ingly confirm ed by his last book,
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MA ŁG O R ZA T A C Z E R M I Ń S K A
AU TO BI O GR AP HI C AL S I TE S.
Travels with Herodotus, an autobiographic narrative about his professional call­
ing which, from the perspective o f defining sites, can be considered an account
o f K apuściński's road to A frica. H is photographs com plem ent the creation of
A frica as his chosen autobiographic site.
Finally, the touched place is also one that w as discovered in the course of
a journey, but only fleetingly, and in m ost cases never visited again. It so m e­
h o w d rew the w riter's attention, m akin g h im rem em b er the nam e and the
realities, forcing h im to w rite about it n o t only in a jou rn al entry, a letter or
a reportage, but in his later w ork; it is introduced into the author's w ork but
not p ro cessed and adopted as a chosen site, to w h ich an author frequently,
m eaningfully returns, to significant personal and literary effect. This approach
can be found in Z o fia N ałkow ska's treatm en t o f Sw itzerland. In her journal,
she w rote dow n num erous observations captured during her stay in a m oun­
tain health resort betw een February and A pril of 1925 and then tw o years later
pub lished her “in tern ation al n ovel” entitled Chaucas. The w riter's portrayal
the dram a o f confronting the first sym ptom s o f aging and the tensions a ris­
ing in the in ternational com m unity o f patients after W orld War I takes place
betw een w inter and spring in the A lps, and im parts independent value on the
author's observations o f nature as w ell as the lot o f the m ountain folk. A com ­
parison o f relevant episodes o f her Journals w ith the novel's reconstruction of
the local color o f the A lpine resort reveals that this particular cozy corner of
Sw itzerlan d le ft a v e ry pronoun ced im p rin t on the author's b io grap h y and
literary output. The episode also m ade a very significant m ark on the develop­
m ent o f her style. Individual patient characters in Chaucas allow s the author
to explore a w ide varie ty o f topics, including the A rm en ian genocide, com ­
m itted b y the Turks a decade earlier. N ałkow ska's portrayal o f these events
seem s a h arbin ger o f the style th at N ałk ow ska w ou ld develop after W orld
War II in Medallions.
In M iłosz biography and oeuvre, the rank o f a touched site w as bestow ed
on Ż uław y, explored only in passin g, despite the region's particular im p o r­
tance stem m in g from the fact th at the w riter's m other lived there after her
expulsion from the V iln ius region u n til her death in 19 4 5. The im age o f the
plains at the m outh of the V istula under a perm anently overcast sky reappears
in num erous poem s w ritten in A m erica, including Grób matki [Mother's Grave]
(1949), Ż u ław y (1950), and Z Nią [With Her] (1985). The latter is o f crucial im ­
portan ce to the autob io graphical site, as the death o f the poet's m oth er in
a village near G d ań sk is rem em bered on the day o f the poet's birthday. The
poem included a footnote w ritten in prose that explained the circum stances
o f M ilosz's m other's death (she contracted typhoid fever from an old G erm an
w om an she cared for w hile the latter w as sick) on w hich the poet also elab o­
rated during a soiree in G dansk in 1998.
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n o n f i c t i o n ,
r e p o r t a g e
a n d
t e s t i m o n y
M igrato ry situ ation s often result in a d ecision on the p art o f an author
creating his autobiographical site to em ploy m ore than just one m odel. A sin ­
gle m odel w ou ld h ave sufficed w ere the author lead in g a stable, static life,
although som e w riters, especially those belonging to the “second em igration”
generation, are ob sessed w ith creating the single, unique site that w as lost
and now can only be recollected. O ften enough, how ever, m otion and change
induce the author to try and utilize d ifferent p ortrayals o f his ow n place in
the world. A specific hierarchy often establishes itse lf w ithin a single author's
biography and oeuvre: one m odel is dom inant, w ith the subordinate rest e i­
ther com peting w ith the dom inant m odel for the top spot or com plem enting
it. There are really no rules to this particular situation, a w riter's individual
decisions is w h at sets the stage.
Translation:Jan Szelqgiewicz
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