The Neva Ever New: Depictions of the Soviet Union in the Work of Stanisław Wygodzki

Stanisław Wygodzki, once a writer who often made the front page, is today rarely mentioned by scholars of literature, and then only in relation to the Holocaust. There are two reasons for this. First, after he left Poland in 1968 his works were put on the list of prohibited publications, and it was forbidden even to mention his name in critical studies.¹ This contributed to the erasure of Wygodzki from collective memory. Secondly, Wygodzki was a communist writer with a communist background dating from before 1939, a friend of Władysław Broniewski, Leon Kruczkowski, Ryszard Stande, and many others.² Today, because of the low esteem in which literature created from the late 1940s to the late 1950s is held,³ and because its epistemic value is encapsulated solely in the poetics of socialist realism, a writer like Wygodzki is simply considered uninteresting, and part of his literary output does not inspire researchers to give it deep consideration.⁴ Nonetheless—or perhaps somewhat in spite of such convictions—it is worth revisiting forgotten works, and through them describing a world created by literary imagination.

Origins

It is not my intention to set out Wygodzki's biography, as this can be found in many sources.⁵ However, in order to cast more light on the matters which will be discussed here, I shall mention the most important facts concerning his life.

Jehoszua (Yehoshua) Wygodzki—this was the writer's real name—was born in 1907 into a moderately rich Jewish family as the oldest of four sons of Izaak Wygodzki, one of the most important Zionist activists in Będzin. Neither Szyja⁶ nor his brothers Lejb, Józef, and Mosze adopted their father's views, and despite Yiddish being their first language, all four spoke Polish and wrote in it. What is more, under the influence of the thriving Young Communist League of Poland (Komunistyczny Związek Młodzieży Polskiej) in Zagłębie Dąbrowskie, first Szyja and later Lejb and Józef, fascinated with the idea of social equality, devoted themselves to political activities, for which they paid dearly. Szyja Wygodzki was arrested for the first time in 1925, and until 1927 was imprisoned in Będzin and Piotrków Trybunalski. It is certain that he was active in the league between 1923 and 1930,⁷ and afterwards he was a member of the Zagłębie Dąbrowskie District Committee. He made his debut as a writer in Wiadomości Literackie with the article 'Zadania poezji w Polsce dzisiejszej: O zmianę frontu' ('The Tasks of Poetry in the Poland of Today: For a Change of Front'), signed not as Jehoszua, but already as Stanisław Wygodzki.⁸ According to the writer himself, the change of name was decided on by Władysław Broniewski.⁹ Until 1939 Wygodzki wrote poems and articles of a socio-political nature, commented critically on current affairs, and created reportage based on his experiences in the Piotrków prison. He was connected with left-inclining magazines,¹⁰ although he attempted, with little success, to have his work published in the strictly literary journals.¹¹

In 1947 Wygodzki decided to return to Poland from Germany. After the liberation of the camp in Dachau he stayed in Gauting, where he was treated for pneumothorax and other complaints. During that time he met Tadeusz Borowski, and they became close friends and undertook literary activities together until Borowski's suicide. In his letters Leon Kruczkowski promised Wygodzki that if he decided to return to Poland he would be taken care of and would be guaranteed the possibility of artistic development. Wygodzki knew of the complex situation in Poland, and influenced by news of the Kielce pogrom he wrote the dramatic poem 'Wiersz do Polski' ('Poem Addressed to Poland').¹² Nonetheless, he decided to return, as he wrote in a letter to Jan Koprowski: 'I'm coming back, because Poland is my homeland and that is the end...