Socjologia Schulza – szkic zagadnienia
Schulzian Sociology – a Sketch of the Problem

Summary/Abstract: This article undertakes a reconstruction of Schulz’s literary œuvre as the sociology of the Umwelt, the world surrounding it. The author claims that the artistic work performed by Schulz is at the same time sociological, i.e. a departure from the egocentrically experienced world for the sake of a world of intersubjectivity, i.e. the Town generated by Schulz’s experience of Drohobycz. This is by no means a socio-graphic description of Drohobycz, but a theory of the Town proposed by the narrator. Starting with the child’s room it encompasses the whole family Home-Shop together with the structure of family and servant dependencies defined by gender and age; subsequently, it involves the entire Town and, finally, the World associated with the outer Universe – the source of war and revolution spreading to the Town. Earlier, the World introduced the Town to the industrial revolution, which shattered the traditional trade ethos up to the dominating in the Town. The Town’s social life possesses its institutions, e.g. the Barbershop, the Cinema, the ladies Café, and the men’s Restaurant, which are the object of Schulz’s sociological micro-studies. It also contains various social loops, such as a fire brigade or the upper stratum of the Jewish tradesmen, but also assorted varieties of the crowd: the throng engaged in trading, the crowd of passers-by, or the revolutionary multitude. Social life is not a steady state because together with its natural environment it is subjected to the constant oscillation of the seasons of the year and the time of day and night. Schulzian egocentric sociology lacks society and involves the world of life and social life, which oscillates and artistically dominates in different rhythms but in accordance with Schulz’s subjective reality.

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