Literary heritage of Małopolska and its European context

Tytuł opatrzony przypisem: Jest to tekst wygłoszony w czasie międzynarodowej sesji naukowej zorganizowanej przez Biuro Festiwalowe Urzędu m. Krakowa w dniach 26-27 października 2012 roku: Kreatywne miasta i regiony. Wyzwania dla współpracy miast literatury UNESCO

The author made an attempt to depict the heritage of Małopolska in a historical context. He reminded that the historical region of Małopolska existed from the beginning of the Polish statehood until the very end of the 18th century, covering three former big voivodeships and including, apart from Krakow which has always been its capital, a big territory with Lublin, Radom, Częstochowa, Zawiercie and Kielce. In Poland revived in 1918, this historical region was severely limited and today it covers the Małopolska voivodeship together with Tarnów, Zakopane as well as Oświęcim. Taking a historical context into consideration, the author reminds that Polish chroniclers, with Jan Długosz at the head, were active in Małopolska. The most prominent author of the Polish Renaissance like Mikołaj Rej and Jan Kochanowski lived and worked in this region. Not only Piotr Kochanowski, a brilliant translator of works by the famous poets like Torquato Tasso or Ludovico Ariosto, but also the writers of Polish Sarmatism: Wacław Potocki or Jan Chryzostom Pasek were inhabitants of Małopolska. During the national captivity (between 1795 and 1918) the notable poets: Kazimierz Brodziński, Edmund Wasilewski and, above all, the genius artist Stanisław Wyspiański, came from Małopolska. The literary groups of Formists, Futurists and avant-garde writers established in Małopolska during the interwar period stayed permanently in the history of Polish and European literature. Małopolska is also connected with the names of great innovators in the fields of literature and culture: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz and Tadeusz Kantor. After the Second World War, a group of historical novelists (Antoni Gołubiew, Hanna Malewska) emerged in Małopolska, with Stanisław Lem, a worldfamous science fiction novelist, writing there for several dozen years. The fame of Małopolska as a region unusually fertile in literary terms was strengthened by Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska, the laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature.