Vilnius in the Works of Romuald Mieczkowski

Abstract

The subject of the essay is Romuald Mieczkowski’s picture of Vilnius emerging from poems and short stories that reveal the value of key themes. They are topoi and at the same time they refer to biographical facts. The poet-chronicler exposes the “cordial” memory of trees, houses and stones. It is his way to emphasize “thinking with the heart”, attachment to the place and a loving attitude toward nature. He draws attention to the Vilnius mentality, inherited from the ancestors raised in the tradition of Vilnius, which was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the volume Objazdowe kino… Mieczkowski creates his Home-world, he talks about the progressive devastation of the family home and the mythical City, which appears due to his allusions. Vilnius appears here as if emerging from the chronicle of events and it is seen from the perspective of an ordinary inhabitant. Relations with Lithuanian neighbors are good, it is the authorities that treat Poles foully. The editor of the “Znad Wilii” magazine and the curator of Polish culture fights for their “homeland” by deed and word, while the poet perpetuates the myth of the city and mourns the “cemeteries” of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.