Inny aktywizm w "Historii i czynie" Tadeusza Gajcego, czyli powrót Norwida na marginesach „Sztuki i Narodu”

Abstract

This paper focuses on the symbolic role attributed to Cyprian Norwid (1821–1883) in the young poets’ and critics’ circle gathered around the right-wing conspiracy journal Art and Nation (1942–1944) in occupied Warsaw. They used a paraphrase of Norwid’s words, “The artist is the organizer of national imagination”, in order to emphasize their aim of an autonomous and at the same time nationally committed art. However, in many statements by Andrzej Trzebiński (1922–1943) and Wacław Bojarski (1921–1943), the term “nation” appears to be more of a performative gesture than a reference to a consistent, historically evolving reality, as conceived of by Norwid. It was only in the 1944 essay “History and Deed”, never to be printed in the underground, that the circle’s foremost poet Tadeusz Gajcy (1922–1944) critically revisited anti-traditional activism and championed a genuinely “Norwidian”, contemplation-based understanding of creativity.