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SHORT NOTES

Mirosław Wójcik (ed.), Wielkie rzeczy zrozumienie. Korespondencja Jerzego, Witolda i Wandy Hulewiczów z Emilem Zegadłowiczem, 1918-1938 [Deep Understanding of Things: The Correspondence of Jerzy, Witold and Wanda Hulewicz with Emil Zegadłowicz, 1918-1938], Warszawa 2008, PIW, 308 pp., ills., index of persons, annex

This valuable source publication presents the Hulewicz family’s correspondence with Emil Zegadłowicz, a novelist (Zmory |Nightmares), 1935), poet and playwright. The first part contains letters written by Jerzy Hulewicz, an expressionist artist and writer from a landowning family. Jerzy Hulewicz founded and co-operated with the periodical Zdrój and the Ostoja publishing house which published Zegadlowicz’s works. His family estate at Kościanki near Września was a centre of artistic life. This fragment of correspondence, from the years 1918-32, provides information on the expressionists’ artistic activity and the work of the Skamander group, active during the twenty inter-war years, a group which included such poets as Julian Tuwim, Jan Lechoń, Kazimierz Wierzyński, Antoni Słonimski and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. The second part of the book contains letters written by Jerzy’s brother, Witold Hulewicz, a translator and head of the Wilno radio station. The letters refer to the years 1921-35. The letters of Jerzy’s wife, Wanda, from the years 1923-33, concern mainly private affairs.

These materials have never been published before. They were kept in Emil Zegadlowicz’s family archives at Gorzeń Górny near Wadowice. At the beginning of the 1960s some of them were deposited in the Main Library of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. The others are kept at the Museum in Bielsko-Biała sińce 1989. The volume has been edited with great care. (OL)

Aleksander Wat, Publicystyka [Articles on Public Affairs], ed. Piotr Pietrych, Warszawa 2008, Czytelnik, 873 pp., index of persons, ‘Pisma zebrane’ (‘Collected Works’), 5

Volume 5 of Aleksander Wat’s works contains mainly texts dealing with public affairs and a fcw of his literary studies, all arranged in chronological order. The texts are divided into those written between 1920 and 1926, texts which appeared in the monthly Miesięcznik Literacki (1929-31), wartime texts written when the author lived in Lviv (Lwów) and Kazakhstan, texts published in Poland (1947-58) and those which appeared abroad (1963-7). The last part of the book contains unpublished articles and texts written between 1956 and 1967. Piotr Pietrych has edited the volume with great care and supplied it with notes which make it easier to understand Wat’s most important works and his biography. The book is of great historical value as a testimony to the epoch. (OL)