Chrześcijański świat Józefa Wittlina

Abstract

Józef Wittlin (1896‒1976) is a less well-known writer in Poland because of his exile since 1939. Christian themes in his output are the least discussed. They appeared as early as in the 1920s when Wittlin began writing essays referring to St. Francis and Assisi. After the war, remarks about Assisi appear in the writer’s notes, especially in his correspondence with Roman Brandstaetter. He was also writing an essay about St. Margaret of Cortona at the time. Since the beginning of the 1920s, over a period of almost fifty years Wittlin was keeping diaries. They contain texts mostly written for personal use. In Wittlin’s diaries, thoughts related to belief in God, to Christianity and the Church are predominant. There are quotations from spiritual guides, comments on other people’s statements, his own divagations about struggles with mysteries of faith, thoughts on faith remaining to be developed and, last but not least, interpretations of his own life events, referring to the Bible. One can observe the writer’s spiritual evolution over several decades: his progression towards deeper and more motivated religious beliefs. The effect of the writer’s long worldview explorations was his baptism in 1953 in New York. Wittlin’s output today requires a completely new reinterpretation and one of its requirements is the discovery of the Christian dimension of his writing.