O miejscu polskiej prozy historycznej w kulturze literackiej lat 1939–1945

Abstract

During the World War II Polish books were published (either in translations or in Polish, thanks to the efforts of emigration community and institutions in exile) almost exclusively outside the occupied country, mostly in the countries of the anti-fascist coalition, in neutral states, but also, to some extent, in the countries of the Axis. The organization that distinguished itself with energetic and well-planned activity was the Palestinian publishing centre, functioning in years 1944–1945. A unique case of synthetic presentation of a wartime programme was Jan Lechoń’s lecture, given in Paris, entitled “The Polish historical novel” (1940). Bibliographies contain a total of 96 (without summaries and fragmentary editions) publications of Polish historical prose, among them 48 in Polish; almost all of them are re-editions of classical and popular texts written between the second half of the 19th century and the end of the World War I, especially works by Henryk Sienkiewicz and Zofia Kossak-Szczucka. Apart from a year-lasting discussion inspired by the new (1943) English translation of H. Sienkiewicz’s Krzyżacy (The Teutonic Knights), those publications did not rise much interest among Polish emigrant literary critics, who also completely ignored the appearance of the only new, outstanding historical novel published during the War – Srebrne orły (Silver Eagles, 1944–1945) by Teodor Parnicki.