Wokół Przepióreczki. Dyskusje i polemiki

Abstract

The author of the article has recalled Stefan Żeromski’s comedy, its premiere at Juliusz Osterwa and Mieczysław Limanowski’s Reduta and, above all, the discussion which began in the Warsaw press in 1925 and has been continued to this day. The author has identified and discussed some basic threads: the genology of the work, and its theatricality and ideology. Almost all critics of the interwar period got involved in the beginnings of the discussion, regardless of their experience and political orientation. Readers and theatre critics (incidentally, the play Uciekła mi przepióreczka came in literary and theatrical circulation almost at the same time) perceived a call for a new patriotism in the work, which Przełęcki was supposed to spread in the liberated Homeland. The formal shape of the work, too, contributed to calling it a masterpiece, while the quick death of the author transformed the comedy almost in a literary testament.