Część śmierci: bierny frankizm i czarna gnoza w Piotrusiu Leo Lipskiego
A Part of Death: Passive Frankism and Black Gnosis in Leo Lipski’s Piotruś

Summary/Abstract: Ingeborg Bachmann’s draft for a review of the micro-novel Piotruś by Leo Lipski allows Lipszyc to portray the world represented in the Polish-Jewish emigre writer’s work as a space of Babel-like chaos that revolves around the anal sphere inhabited by the protagonist’s deformed body. The messianic motifs woven into the text – subtitled ‘(apokryf )’ or apocryph) – cannot be read uncritically. Lipszyc juxtaposes the theology of Piotruś with Jakub Frank’s ideas, suggesting that the protagonist Piotruś embodies a paradoxical ‘passive Frankism’ who walks the path of ‘black horror’. This path offers no redemption but brings us in touch with ‘a part of death’ – a point in our soul where we remain entirely opaque to ourselves. Even though the protagonist himself is headed for destruction, as a literary figure he is a sign of the singularity of suffering.

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