Dać się porwać archiwum Recenzja książki Lucyny Marzec, Papiery po Iłłakowiczównie. Archiwum jako przedmiot badań, Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, Warszawa 2022
Enthralled by the archive. A review of Lucyna Marzec’s book, Papiery po Iłłakowiczównie. Archiwum jako przedmiot badań, Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, Warszawa 2022

Summary/Abstract: Upon reviewing the book by Lucyna Marzec Papiery po Iłłakowiczównie. Archiwumjako przedmiot badań, the author emphasizes its originality and an apt combinationof the practice and theory of archive research based on a specific case study (thearchive of Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna), which has raised a number of questions anddoubts as well as prompted many conciliatory solutions. These solution may provehelpful to future scholars attempting to grapple with both women and men writers’archives. Marzec meticulously reconstructs the biography of the author of Szeptem,as well as she gives account of her own adventures in dealing with the archiveand its contents over a long period of time. The researcher’s book is situated at theintersection of (auto)biographical and archival research, necessitating a theoreticalframework ample enough to accommodate both archival practices and possible scenariosof dealing with the poet’s secrets and self-corrections, as well as the autobiographicalpractices that Iłłakowiczówna deliberately employed in order to reinforcea particular image of herself.The author of the review comments not only on the way in which Marzec examinesthe ‘papers’ mentioned in the title, but also on the numerous comments concerningthe prerequisites for a successful biography. Marzec’s book may serve as a model for subsequent researchers and an interesting proposal of a biography launched from the depths of the archive, featuring all the hallmarks of literary practices enshrinedas the canon of the twentieth century.

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