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JERZY GIEDROYC AND WRITING FOR 'KULTURA'
Krakow, 18 January - 20 February 2007
languages: Polski  / English  / French 
 

Visitors to this exhibition will come across a lesson about the literary achievements of perhaps the best-known Polish émigré institution: Jerzy Giedroyc's Literary Institute.

The exhibition "JERZY GIEDROYC AND the 'KULTURA cubby hole'" was opened on March 23, 2006, in the National Library in Warsaw, as a part of the Year of Jerzy Giedroyc.

Visitors to the National Library's exhibition rooms will come across a lesson about the literary achievements of perhaps the best-known Polish émigré institution. Jerzy Giedroyc wrote the following about "Kultura" as a "cubby hole" for writers:
"When I decided to start publishing 'Kultura' after the war, Gombrowicz sprang to my mind and I contacted him... We began working together and this paid off with the wonderful 'Transatlantic' and then with his 'Diaries.' Collaborations of this kind were far from easy. In the initial period after he 'chose freedom,' Czeslaw Milosz questioned the entire idea of writing in Polish as an émigré, because he saw it as writing 'for the drawer' [putting manuscripts into a 'cubby hole']. 'Kultura,' however, proved not the worst of 'cubby holes,' because it was from there that Milosz himself, as well as Gombrowicz, Jerzy Stempowski, Andrzej Bobkowski, Herling-Grudzinski and so many others emerged into the world. I don't think anyone has any idea of how much effort that took, how much - I have no qualms in saying - devotion it required. As I see it, an editor's task does not lie solely in recognizing someone's talent, it primarily comes down to guardianship. This task was made more difficult by the fact that 'Kultura' was an émigré publication, a poor one, and one that simultaneously felt an obsessive imperative to safeguard its independence and thus avoid becoming reliant on any and all patrons."
In the exhibition, Czeslaw Milosz is cast as the literary guide to the Institute's history. In his essay "The Start of a Legend," he wrote the following:
"I would like what I am about to say about Jerzy Giedroyc to prove useful to the younger generations. For the young have great difficulty imagining the era in which he lived. Giedroyc lived a long life and he was a man of several eras."
By the late 1950s, the offices of 'Kultura' were already drawing numerous visitors from Poland. They included Agnieszka Osiecka, Marek Hlasko, Jaroslaw Abramow-Newerly and other members of the STS theatre, Roman Polanski and Wacek Kisielewski.

The display at the National Library includes a replica of a Parisian café, for Jerzy Giedroyc, Jozef Czapski, Konstanty Jelenski and Zygmunt Hertz met in cafes with many of the arrivals from "Nadwislnia" [Vistuland] - as Zygmunt Hertz referred to the visitors from Poland.

The " 'Kultura' Library" published a total of five hundred thirty-three volumes, including Witold Gombrowicz's "DIARIES", Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski's "INNY SWIAT / ANOTHER WORLD", Czeslaw Milosz's "ZNIEWOLONY UMYSL / THE CAPTIVE MIND", Andrzej Bobkowski's "SZKICE PIORKIEM / DRAWING-PEN SKETCHES", Marek Hlasko's "CMENTARZE / CEMETERIES" and "PIEKNI DWUDZIESTOLETNI / BEAUTIFUL TWENTY-YEAR-OLDS", Boris Pasternak's "DOCTOR ZHIVAGO" and Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO" and "CANCER WARD". The displayed publications, all from the collection of the National Library, are interspersed with photographs from the archive of the Literary Institute in Paris, as well as images by Bohdan Paczowski, Ignacy Szczepanski and Piotr Wojcik (Agencja Gazeta).

The exhibition was prepared by the Society for the Protection of the Archive of the Literary Institute in Paris [Towarzystwo Opieki nad Archiwum Instytutu Literackiego w Paryzu], the National Library in Warsaw and The Milosz Institute.

The exhibition will be on view in several cities: Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, Lublin, Szczecin, Poznan and Lodz.

  • 26 September - 20 October 2006 - The Warsaw University Library
    Special Collections Exhibit Room (Dobra Street No 56/66, room 316)
    opening of the exhibition as a part of the International Academic Conference "JERZY GIEDROYC: CULTURE - POLITICS - THE 20TH CENTURY"


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