1899-3028 National History and Nostalgia in Joseph Conrad’s Notes on Life and Letters Wojciechowska Sylwia Janina author Uniwersytet Ignatianum w Krakowie Correspondence to: Sylwia Janina Wojciechowska 21 12 2023 Vol. 15 (2020) 2020 75 89 Copyright © 2023 2023 <p>The article investigates the interface between the national history of Poland and nostalgia as featured in Joseph Conrad’s collection <em>Notes on Life and Letters</em>. It is suggested that Conrad’s perception of history stands at odds with contemporary postmodern criticism. Initially Conrad’s stance on Poland’s national history is investigated in his political essays, “Autocracy and War” (1905), “A Note on the Polish Problem” (1916), and “The Crime of Partition” (1919), which, in my view, feature the ”definitive history” as discussed by Jenkins and Evans. Further, the lines of intersection between history, nostalgia, and politics are delineated. It is claimed that in Conrad’s works history is still assigned the classical role of a teacher, i.e., the Ciceronian <em>historia magistra vitae</em>, which, as I argue, corresponds with his view on literature as part of the historical record. Next, two autobiographical essays in the collection “Poland Revisited” (1915) and “First News” (1918) are examined in order to claim a heightened mode of nostalgia, on the one hand, with a simultaneous withdrawal of the attention from state affairs, which involves a re-positioning of the focus to Conrad’s personal experiences, on the other hand. Boym’s concepts of <em>restorative </em>and <em>reflective </em>nostalgia are juxtaposed and their deployment in the collection explored. I suggest that nostalgia underpins the internal integrity and interrelatedness of the essays included in Part II: “Life” of <em>Notes on Life and Letters </em>as regards their thematic scope and generic affiliation, the genre preconditioning the extent and intensity of the modal application of nostalgia. Finally, I contend that the mode of nostalgia largely explains the factual inconsistencies in Conrad’s autobiographical essays.</p> 1 Adamowicz-Pośpiech, Agnieszka. “Joseph Conrad’s ‘A Personal Record’: An Anti-Confessional Autobiography?” In Repetition and Recycling in Literary and Cultural Dialogues. Edited by Wojciech Kalaga, Marzena Kubisz and Jacek Mydla. Częstochowa: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Lingwistycznej, 2008. 2 Alpers, Paul. What Is Pastoral?. Chicago–London: The University of Chicago Press, 1999. 3 Baudrillard, Jean. The Illusion of the End. 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