Пољска у путописним репортажама Станислава Кракова
Poland in the Travel Writings of Stanislav Krakov

Summary/Abstract: Using the poetics of the avant-garde travelogue as the starting point, we analyse the most significant features of Stanislav Krakov’s travel reports from Poland. Being a journalist by trade, on the one hand, and being conscious of his Polish roots on the other, lead Krakov to Poland, from where he sent the majority of his European travel reportage (a total of sixteen reports). It can be said that, alongside the Mediterranean Basin, Poland takes up the privileged central space in Krakov’s journalistic travel writing. These articles intersect various discourses – namely, the travel narrative of modelling foreign space is realized through the intersection of past and present, visible and invisible, present and concealed, and through the thematic exploration of cultural, historical, economic, political, and social aspects. In Krakov’s Polish travel reportage, we find not only the journalistic striving to highlight the current Polish reality and social climate, but the author’s stance on the significance and status of the newly independent Polish state is clearly manifested as well. Furthermore, the travel narrative expands dispersively towards more comprehensive reflections on European everyday life, as well as the recent and not so recent history. Emphasized is the fact that Krakov does not write from a neutral vantage point as a foreigner, but rather from a standpoint of someone who feels a clear and undisguised closeness to the Polish state and people, not only as a journalist coming from a friendly country but also as someone who partly belongs to it by origin. Describing what is seen, the travel writer’s intention to listen to the echoes of time in the present is clear; that is, to mediate in the travel text the simultaneity of the past and present, which provides that characteristic experience of excitement and enjoyment felt whilst travelling. By modelling a typical image of the Polish mentality, the travel writer will mostly direct the pendulum of his inclinations towards strong national feelings and heroism. It is particularly noted that when these travel reports are considered as a whole, there is an unmistakably negative attitude towards Russians and all things Russian. Polish patriotism is largely determined by pronounced Russophobia and the need to erase all signs of the “Russian past” from the visible part of the Polish present. In addition to the description of what he saw on the journey, historicism and the essayization of travel writing are developed through acquainting readers with various pieces of knowledge regarding history and culture, as well as activating memories of the recently concluded Great War and awareness of the fragility of civilization’s progress. The travel narrative expands towards presenting those forms of foreignness in which processes of modernization and progress of the Polish society are manifested.

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