Volume 22 Issue 4

2025

Publication date: 05.2026

Description

The publication of this issue was financed by the Jagiellonian University in Kraków – Faculty of Polish Studies.

Cover design: Paweł Sepielak

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Editorial team

Editor-in-Chief Dr hab., prof. UJ Łukasz Tischner

Secretary Dr hab. Dorota Siwor

Issue Editor Dr Jan Zięba

Issue content

Vincenz – rewitalizacja

Vincenz – rewitalizacja. Uwagi wstępne

Jan Zięba

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 591-594

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.037.23322

PDF

Siewca słów

Ludwik Frey

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 595-607

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.038.23323

In the present article, an attempt was made to elucidate the reasons for the many travels of Stanisław Vincenz. Did he undertake them on his own accord or due to various objective reasons? The author of the present article – a botanist – tries to tie the fate of the traveller Vicenz to the fates of the traveller plants; and to find a common denominator for those two notions. Thus, the author discusses the propagation processes of plants as well as their range expansion undertaken in order to secure a safe habitat; then he compares those with the events from Vincenz’s life – creator, sower of words – who also searched for a chance to propagate his oeuvre that was saturated with the nature themes; as well as for a safe place to live and work in peace.

PDF

Lasy Vincenzowe

Włodzimierz Próchnicki

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 608-628

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.039.23324

This article presents an eco‑critical interpretation of Stanisław Vincenz’s prose through the framework of the new humanities, focusing on the figure of the forest – the “fifth element” – as a central motif that organizes both the material and cultural dimensions of his writing. The forest embodies the intersection and tension between the natural world and the human sphere. It can be viewed not only aesthetically but – when joined with a sense of ethical responsibility – as a space that foregrounds humanity’s moral obligations toward nature. Vincenz’s vision of the natural world can be seen as a striking anticipation of today’s global environmental crisis, caused by human activity. The analysis centers around selected passages from Na wysokiej połoninie (On the High Uplands; especially the volume Zwada [The Fray]) and notes from Outopos. Key areas of inquiry include the notion of “world‑writing,” the animistic representation of forests, material culture – particularly traditional wooden architecture – and cultural references to art and literature (notably Ruisdael and Stifter), which mediate the relationship between humans and the natural world. From this perspective, Zwada appears as a self‑contained apocalyptic commentary – an ecological morality tale – in which a pioneering attempt to develop butyn, a method intended to save the population from famine, destabilizes the ecosystem and triggers catastrophe. At the same time, Vincenz’s prose exposes the ambivalence of technological and economic progress: a historical and social necessity that comes into conflict with the ethical and material costs of environmental degradation. The tragic fate of the woodcutters should be understood not as punishment or nature’s revenge, but as the existential cost of deliberate human agency. Vincenz valorizes the forest as a once‑enduring space of life, memory, and communal belonging. The Hutsul region emerges as a lost Atlantis, while the idea of “world‑writing” organizes a cognitive relationship with nature – animistic and aetiological realms of plants, trees, and forests become textual signs in the “book of nature,” pointing beyond the visible. References to art and literature (Ruisdael, Stifter) sketch out the poetics that foreshadows the collective experience of the anthropocene at the turn of the twentieth and twenty first centuries.

PDF

Obecność myśli Platona i Alfreda Northa Whiteheada w Outopos Stanisława Vincenza

Krzysztof Duda

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 629-642

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.040.23325

The aim of this article is to reconstruct the influence of Plato’s and Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophies on Stanisław Vincenz’s thought, as found in his notes and writings entitled Outopos. Notes from 1938–1944. They constitute a key to reconstructing his philosophical stance. Moreover, they are highly groundbreaking in their approach to viewing and understanding reality. Vincenz can be considered a pioneer in propagating Whitehead’s philosophical thought, which became popular in Poland only in the second half of the 20th century.

PDF

Na wysokiej połoninie Stanisława Vincenza a Nauka nowa Giambattisty Vico – wypisy z lektury i spostrzeżenia na marginesie

Olga Płaszczewska

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 643-655

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.041.23326

Employing a “lecture notes” strategy, the present comparative sketch points towards certain similarities between the historiosophy of Giambattista Vico and the cycle of On the High Uplands by Stanisław Vincenz. The article contains the discussion of crucial – from the perspective of ideological kinship – fragments from Vico’s New Science and from the tetralogy of Vincenz, while being anchored in the writer’s essay writing practices.

PDF

„Pasterze bycia” w tetralogii Vincenza

Iwona Matuszkiewicz

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 656-668

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.042.23327

The article presents some aspects of Stanisław Vincenz tetralogy On the High Uplands in the philosophical context. The main reference is the Letter on Humanism by Martin Heidegger that introduces a new definition of thinking understood as an act of engagement. As an interpretation tool the Letter gives an opportunity to present leading problems of existentialism that might be applied to philosophical sense of Vincenz tetralogy. A folk hero Kudil, a teacher Konik, and a blacksmith Sawicki are the three characters representing homo agens category that were chosen by the author of the article as an exemplification of “pure existence” based on simplicity, non‑profit service, sacrifice and love. A category of homeland interpreted beyond the national context is also an important part of the article.

PDF

„Wielki dyrygent orkiestry” – Gandhi Vincenza

Jakub Żmidziński

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 669-687

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.043.23328

The article presents an attempt of a broader look at Stanisław Vincenz’s attitude towards the person of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The author analyses the first trace of interest in the Indian leader – a 1927 article from “Droga”, which was a direct result of Romain Rolland’s book Mahatma Gandhi having been published, followed by an extensive essay published in the Parisian “Culture” after Mahatma’s death. The author dedicates most of the time however, towards tracking the traces of the idea of “non‑violence” in Vincenz’s tetralogy On the High Uplands. On the basis of the showcased examples, it is possible to conclude that the author based the creation of not only a few literary characters and their fates on Ghandi’s ideals and story, but also established thereon the fundamental ethical message of the cycle. In the notions of mercy and resistance against violence, Vincenz achieved a blend of ideas from different religions and culture, combining Christian, Hasidic, Buddhist and Hindu traditions; as well as the views of H.D. Thoreau. A song played on a shepherd flute called fłojera becomes a symbol of a nonviolent rule over people, a fight without aggression and hatred, while being the most complete symbol of freedom in Vincenz’s book. The article is concluded by the reflections on the memoire‑like Dialogi z Sowietami (Dialogues with Soviets), in which Vincenz describes his relations with the representatives of the Soviet government during the Second World War, when he had an opportunity to practice the ideas borrowed from Mahatma.

PDF

Kultura pańsko‑ziemiańska w huculskiej tetralogii Vincenza

Mirosława Ołdakowska-Kuflowa

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 688-705

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.044.23329

Vincenz’s cycle On the High Uplands was at first interpreted as a work built upon artistically digested folklore material. The motifs pertaining to the noble and landed gentry culture that appear in it have not been yet analysed, meanwhile they fulfil an important role – especially in two volumes: Listy z nieba (Letters from Heaven) and Barwinkowy wianek (Periwinkle Wreath). A worldview from the perspective of landed gentry can be found in them, being represented by various characters, which is also explicitly taken into account by the narrator. In the setting as well as in the structure – for example, genealogical one – of the literary work considered were the stereotypical features of the noble world, depicted were its advantages and disadvantages. The deep reflection thereon, what in its nature is nobility, appears in the statements of characters, especially in the discussion of the inheritor of Krzyworównia with the Armenian Jakobènc. Vincenz by no means ignores the traditionally understood nobility, but through transgressing its narrowly understood limits he points out the necessity of discerning noble characteristics amongst the representatives of different social classes as well as shaping the sense of honour based on honesty and sense of responsibility for oneself and others. The first instance, to whom one is responsible, is in the first line one’s own conscience, and throughout it – the realm of spiritual values.

PDF

Mneme i noos kultury ludowej: Stanisław Vincenz i Lucian Blaga

Andrzej Zawadzki

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 706-730

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.045.23330

The goal of the present article is to attempt a comparison between the concepts of folk culture in works of Stanisław Vincenz and Romanian philosopher Lucian Blaga. The juxtaposition essentially pertains to two areas. The first of them are the similarities of the theoretical concepts, especially visible in the approaches towards the deep structures of the folk culture, or pre‑modern culture (that was put in a strong contrast against the modern culture by the two thinkers), its spatiotemporal aspects as well as its culture‑creating functions. The second area of comparison is the similarity in personal formation between the Pole and the Romanian, which includes the cultural circle they originate from; the historical context, in which their concepts appeared; as well as intellectual influences they were subjected to together with their idealogical fundaments.

PDF

Listy Vincenzów do Iwaszkiewicza

Ludmiła Siryk

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 731-745

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.046.23331

The subject of this article is the communication between two known Polish writers Stanisław Vincenz (1888–1971) and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (1894–1980) in the Interwar and post‑World War II periods. The objects of research are letters and postcards from the Vincenzs to Iwaszkiewicz which are stored in the “Iwaszkiewicz’s Correspondence Department” of the Stawisko archive. Correspondence concerns publishing matters and various topics (literary, familial, personal and social). It is revealed, that both writers met in Warsaw at the turn of 1919–1920 and stayed in friendly contact on both literary and social plane until Vincenz’s death (1971). Their history of communication is supplemented by Vincenz’s wives (first one Lena and the second one Irena) correspondence to Iwaszkiewicz. Separate from their Warsaw communications, during the Interwar period, the writers had also gone on hiking trips together and met up for a families’ get‑together at Vincenz’s estate in Sloboda Rungurskaya (Polish: Słoboda Rungurska) in the Hutsul region. Their direct contact was interrupted by the World War II and the post‑war political situation. After the war, both writers lived in different parts of politically divided Europe. Vincenz moved to the West, settling in France, and as an emigrant writer was banned by censorship of the Polish People’s Republic (Polish: Polska Republika Ludowa – PRL). Iwaszkiewicz however, did not emigrate and was cooperating with the Communist Party, which allowed him to occupy a leading position in the literary field and perform the honorary functions of the socio‑political character. They later renewed their contact in 1957, thanks to the conditions of the so‑called “Khrushchev thaw” after Stalin’s death. It lasted in a correspondence form, mainly through the mediation from their trustees. Two of Vincenz’s letters and a postcard, stored in the aforementioned archive, cover a four month period. They consist of information on a personal matter that is relevant to the case of his literary work being published in a magazine “Creativity” [Polish: “Twórczość”], where Iwaszkiewicz was the main editor. After Vincenz’s death, the correspondence with Iwaszkiewicz was carried on by Irena Vincenz, who touched upon the question of her husband’s oeuvre being adapted in the Polish literary culture of that time, despite unfavourable conditions present in the cultural system of Polish People’s Republic. The Vincenz’s correspondence reflects friendly relations between both the writers as well as their respective family members.

PDF

„Vincenz wymawiał często to nazwisko: Thoreau”. Wokół „przyziemnej” kuracji Czesława Miłosza (Walden – Na wysokiej połoninie – Mittelbergheim)

Jan Zięba

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 746-767

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.047.23332

The starting point for the present article is the description of relations between Stanisław Vincenz and Czesław Miłosz shaped during their meetings in France in 1952. Writing about the therapeutic influence of the older writer on his interlocutors, Miłosz later reminisced that “Vincenz oftentimes mentioned the name: Thoreau”. This information has been considered a sufficient reason to look closer at the relation between these three writers. Miłosz’s essays dedicated to Vincenz and a poem Mittelbergheim were especially useful in describing it. The essay Rocznice Gandhiego (Ghandi’s Anniversaries) and the fragments from On the High Uplands are of essential character within the Vincenz’s oeuvre. An important topic presented in the article is also the potential influence, which the reception of the well‑known Walden by Henry David Thoreau had on Vincenz’s opus magnum.

PDF

Vincenz – varia

Pamięć i zapomnienie ‒ osobista refleksja nad wielokulturowym dziedzictwem Karpat Wschodnich. W oparciu o pisarstwo Stanisława Vincenza i Aharona Appelfelda

Dorota Burda-Fischer

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 768-785

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.048.23333

The present article analyses the selective memory in the oeuvre of two writers connected to the region of the Eastern Carpathian Mountains: Stanisław Vincenz and Aharon Appelfeld. Both authors – depicting ethnic diversity of the region – consciously make a selection of memories, staying silent on the conflicts and violence. That silence – being a consequence of war trauma and Holocaust – constitutes an intentional literary tool used for expressing their vision of the lost world. The comparative analysis reveals that despite the different perspectives – Vincenz as an adult observer of multicultural coexistence, and Appelfeld as a child survivor of the Holocaust – the writers employ similar literary strategies for depicting the lost multicultural Carpathian Mountains region. The present article constitutes edited, extended and amended version of the text that was originally published in 2019 in English in the academic journal Studia Judaica. In comparison to the original version, the text was supplemented through new arguments as well as an updated and amended bibliography.

PDF

Stanisław Vincenz i „mała dłoń”

Józef Olejniczak

Konteksty Kultury, Volume 22 Issue 4, 2025, pp. 786-801

https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.25.049.23334

PDF

Files to download

Title and imprint pages PDF Table of contents PDF About the Authors PDF

Funding information

The publication of this issue was financed by the Jagiellonian University in Kraków – Faculty of Polish Studies.