Geneza „Żagarów” a polska literatura pograniczna
The Genesis of “Żagary” and Polish Borderlands Literature

Summary/Abstract: This sketch is an account of the circumstances and context of the creation of the literary magazine “Idące Wilno,” or “Żagary”,in 1931. The author focuses on the artistic and ideological motives stimulating a group of young writers and publicists,students and fresh graduates of the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius; he tries to capture the aura of the city, the country andthe epoch, shaping their views and aesthetic choices, but also – their political stance and ideology. He traces the meandersof local cultural and social processes and political turns which led the magazine, starting under the aegis of the conservative-national “Słowo” (edited by Stanisław Cat-Mackiewicz), to find itself under a changed title (“Piony”) under the aegis ofthe liberal “Kurier Wileński,” and then, very briefly, to experience independence. The sketch attempts to capture the peculiarparadox of “Żagary” and the literary grouping associated with the magazine, immersed in provinciality, they boldly tackleduniversal issues without cutting themselves off from their Vilnius roots and tried to develop European ambitions. AbandoningEastern European idyll and genericism, they sought to confront the great crisis of civilisation, the aftermath of whichturned out to be the Second World War. One of the factors shaping their aspirations was an attempt to replace – accordingto them – archaic ‘kresowość’ with a new geopoetical and geopolitical concept, of ‘pograniczność’.

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