Ostatnia Aleksandria. Lwów Zbigniewa Herberta
The Last Alexandria. Zbigniew Herbert’s Lwów

Summary/Abstract: The article presents the genealogy of Zbigniew Herbert, one of the most outstanding poets of 20th century. It describes how many of Herbert’s life and artistic attitudes was influenced by the place of poet’s birth – the city of Lvov, for centuries part of Polish Respublic, today – one of the Ukraine’s metropolises, still a subject of nostalgia of Polish emigrants. For Herbert Lvov is not only the city of childhood and youth, but first of all a place of meeting, a crossroad of many cultures: Polish,Ukrainian, Jewish or Armenian. According to Herbert himself, this multicultural place shaped his own vision of Europe. On the other hand, in Polish national mythology Lvov is described as a frontier city, which lies close to the border between the Western civilization and Asia, even as an outpost of Europe. This dialectic of“the crossroad” and “the wall” seems to be the source of Herbert’s definition of Europe,the continent, which is always multicultural, but at the same time obviously different from the culture, or civilization represented by Russia.

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