„And These Are Probably All the Gossips”. Jan Błoński’s Letters To Kazimierz Wierzyński

Abstract

The text contains source material, that is Jan Błoński's letters to Kazimierz Wierzyński written in the period between 1961 and 1964, when Błoński lectured at the University of Sorbonne. In the article six letters are presented from the package consisting of twenty-eight units kept in the Polish Library of the Polish Social and Cultural Association in London. Source materials were provided with commentaries and an introduction showing the circumstances of the start of the correspondence.

The presented letters first of all discuss current events in the literary-cultural life of Poland that Kazimierz Wierzyński, who lived in emigration after the Second World War, was very much interested in. The main issue that was addressed in Błoński's letters was the effect that the ruling party had on Poles' social and cultural life as well as a description of the way the police state worked in Polish People's Republic. The freedom with which Błoński writes, his scathing humor and a characteristic chatty tone make his letters to Wierzyński an exceptional voice documenting the social-political realities of the Polish People's Republic of the first half of the 1960s.