Myśląc o sprawach świata jak księżniczka Zuppa
Thinking about the Affairs of the World Like Princess Zuppa

Stefan Themerson’s Wartime Diaries

Author(s): Honorata Sroka
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Polish Literature, Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989), Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Stefan Themerson; avant-garde; diaries; life-writing; lists; artistic notes
Summary/Abstract: In the article I conduct the analysis of Stefan Themerson’s wartime diaries. Notes from 1940–1942 are exemplified in seven volumes of manuscripts, currently held in the Themerson Archive in the National Library of Poland in Warsaw. I point out that the intimate practice of the avant-garde artist was an incidential activity. I assume there were not any further or previous traces of this kind of autobiographical writing. Combining the methods of life-writing studies and genetic criticism, I put forward a thesis that the diaries of Themerson are an interesting record of the formation process of Themerson anti-political statement.

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