Spotkanie we Lwowie (do którego nie doszło). Bruno Schulz i Henryk Vogler

Abstract

The paper presents unknown details concerning Bruno Schulz, found in the memoirs of the Cracow critic, writer, and poet Henryk Vogler (1911–2005). Vogler wrote quite a long article, “Two Romantic Worlds. On Bruno Schulz and Witold Gombrowicz” [Dwa światy romantyczne. O Brunonie Schulzu i Witoldzie Gombrowiczu], published in 1938 in Skamander. Both writers thanked him in letters, which initiated their correspondence that continued till the outbreak of World War II. Schulz exchanged with his younger colleague opinions about literature, evaluated his attempts to write fiction, and described his dreams. They resumed writing letters to each other in 1940 during Vogler’s stay in Lviv – he actually invited Schulz to pay him a visit. Their meeting, however, never took place: already on his way, Schulz returned home. That situation may be considered in the contexts of similar events from Schulz’s life and an interpretation of his fiction and art proposed by Jerzy Jarzębski, who saw in both a “record of … an encounter realized in many different ways.” This encounter almost never brings about a harmonious connection, but instead leads to “pain, shame, comedy, and irony.” On his correspondence with Schulz, lost during the war, as well as on Schulz’s influence on his own work and the meeting in Lviv that did not take place, Vogler wrote in his Self-Portrait from Memory [Autoportret z pamięci] – three volumes published in 1979–1981. In his autobiography Vogler also mentioned the first postwar publication of Schulz’s fiction in 1957 by Wydawnictwo Literackie, of which he was editor-in-chief. Still, his account does not explain the details of a conflict between Artur Sandauer and Jerzy Ficowski, which began on that occasion and continued for many years. The closing part of the paper focuses on the traces of Schulz in Vogler’s novel, The Man Who Was Dreaming [Człowiek, który śnił], written before the war but published with some revisions in 1960.