Między legendą a demontażem mitu. Iwaszkiewicz wobec diarystyki Żeromskiego
Between a legend and a myth deconstruction. Iwaszkiewicz and Żeromski’s diary-writing

Summary/Abstract: The article presents an analysis of Stefan Żeromski’s diary-writing practices by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, while showcasing it as a space of personal experience as well as literary reflection and myth-creating reconstruction. Iwaszkiewicz depicts Żeromski from diverse viewpoints – as a master; a moral authority; a simple human being present in conversation, gesture and anecdote; and a figure of “the last Romantic of the modern times”; as well as a creator, whose biography and oeuvre align into a narrative of the spiritual heritage of Polish culture. Żeromski’s journals are read as autonomous work of art as well as laboratory of his artistic consciousness. In such reading, the admiration and critical curiosity, need for understanding the artist and desire for de-mythologization come together. Iwaszkiewicz, simultaneously using tools of a critic, witness and myth-creator, shapes Żeromski into a historical person and an archetypical individual, making his dairy-writing practices into the fundament of the Polish modernity and the everlasting inspiration for the next generations of readers and writers.

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