Demoniczna teoria kultury. „JKB-Demon” Karola Irzykowskiego i „Leon Chwistek – Demon Intelektu” Stanisława Ignacego Witkiewicza
Demonic Theory of Culture: Karol Irzykowski’s “JKB-Demon” and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz’s “Leon Chwistek – Demon Intelektu”

Summary/Abstract: Karol Irzykowski’s “JKB-Demon” [JKB-Demon] and “Leon Chwistek – Demon Intelektu” [Leon Chwistek – Demon of the Intellect] by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, two pamphlets referring in their titles to demonism, belong to crucial polemical publications of the interwar period and within that group of publications constitute ambitious cognitive endeavours. This study compares the strife Irzykowski and Witkiewicz had to cope with to take in the overwhelming selfcreations of Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski and Leon Chwistek. The inscrutable personalities of the latter two reflected in their works turned out to be an intellectual challenge worthy of the epithets used in both titles. Exploring their own abhorrence and fascination alongside their opponents’ achievements, both critics realised that a general familiarity with human nature was helpless when faced with the puzzle of ‘demonism.’ The author assumes that the phenomenon of antinomian, ‘Protean’ personalities remained beyond the grasp of minds shaped by the rational discipline of the late nineteenth century. Although literature has already studied this disturbing personality type (Dostoevsky’s Stavrogin, Conrad’s Kurtz), the authors of the pamphlets turned out to be unprepared to confront it in real life.

• Details
• Contents