IWASZKIEWICZ A TOŁSTOJ
IWASZKIEWICZ AND TOLSTOY

Summary/Abstract: When considering the problem: Iwaszkiewicz and Tolstoy the article adduces to the direct remarks of the author of The fame and the glory on the Russian writer, and to Iwaszkiewicz’s works in which the influence of Tolstoy may be found. These are The Birch Wood, The Błędomierz Passions, The fame and the glory. The first group of materials made it possible to intepret the subject in this aspect: Iwaszkiewicz — the reader of Tolstoy. The literary work as well as the philosophy of the author of “War and peace” is investigated by Iwaszkiewicz by means of categories from the field of psychology since the works of Tolstoy are interesting to Iwaszkiewicz first of all as a means of extraliterary cognition and understanding, the “private” personality of the Russian writer, his dialectics of the soul. Therefore in the consciousness of the author of The fame and the glory Tolstoy lives not so much as a sort of literary tradition, but a model of some definite human attitutde. This finds proof and evidence also in Iwaszkiewicz’s writings. In The Błędomierz passions the author uses a myth of Russian writer created by Tolstoy’s private life in order to conduct a criticism of the modernistic type of artist, which is represented by the main hero of the book. In turn, the emphasized in The fame and the glory problem of Tolstoyan tradition of the novelistic genre — epos in the present article has only been signalled since its full explanation requires its investigation in the light of the other traditions functioning in the work.

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