„Praca zbiorowa”. O rękopisie „Pierwszej Szopki Reflektora”

Abstract

The article is a presentation of recently found manuscript of Pierwsza Szopka Reflektora (1927) by Jan Arnsztajn, Konrad Bielski and Wacław Gralewski. The text was treated as an example of multi-author work, which was emerging at that time within “industrial culture” (H. Segeberg). Analysis of individual pages allowed for distinguishing several stages of the work’s Genesis, during which the composition was undergoing transformations related to the dynamics of work by the authors trio (individual preparation of texts, cross-corrections, deciding on the composition and division into acts). The texts prepared by the writers do not, however, reveal the intimate space of writing, where a creator tests his or her limits, but rather provide the image of the specificity of contemporary activity within the field of popular culture. For this reason, instead of “laboratory” (P.-M. de Biasi), it seems more appropriate to use the term “workshop” in relations to the place of performing literary work for financial profits. At the outskirts of high culture, in the sphere where literature and entertainment industry overlapped, a character of skillful craftsman has appeared – an efficient supplier of texts, songs and scripts. In some variants – such as the case of Szopka Reflektora – it was a number of craftsmen who worked on a collective composition.