“This is a strange country” – along the Sicilian paths of Polish travelers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries

Abstract

Since the romantic jurney novelist devoted to Italy, having an tremendous interest from literary historians and cultural scholars side, already have untold studies number, therefore this text concerns Polish travel prose from the later period: the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the next. The monographic approach to the topic would significantly exceed the size of the article, so I limited the analysis to three selected texts: Sicily. Sketches from a Journey (1896) by Michał Lityński, Letters from Sicily by Stanisław Bełza (1900), Zofia Sokołowska On the Ends of Italy (1901). An image of an island full of contrasts emerges from them – delightful with the sun of the south, exotic vegetation, attracting connoisseurs of art, lovers of ancient ruins, but whose times of glory are irrevocably gone.