1In the history of the 20th-century Polish literature one can notice an interesting phenomenon, being a derivative of both personal histories of many of its representatives, suspended between the recollection of the home-country and their emigration life, as well as literary ways of dealing with this, culturally-conditioned, split. Considering the situation of an outcast or an alien in terms of cultural experience can prove difficult and hazardous, and yet challenging and valuable as a source of inspiration. The problem of an artist being confronted with a foreign culture is one of the key existential and aesthetic challenges Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, who had decided to leave Poland for political reasons, had to face. The aim of this book is to describe the phenomenon of the writer’s inculturation from the historical and literary perspective. The Italian part of Herling’s biography and his oeuvre will serve as an exemplification of this general problem from the theoretical perspective.

2Grudziński, who is regarded as one of the greatest Polish writers and essayists, known primarily as the author of A World Apart: The Journal of a Gulag Survivor (1951) (Polish: Inny Świat: zapiski sowieckie), made his debut with a collection of essays The Living and the Dead (Żywi i umarli) published in Rome (1945). In later years, the writer also visited London and Paris many times, and in 1955 – having married Lidia Croce, Benedetto Croce’s daughter – he settled down in Naples for good. Italian culture has left a significant mark on Herling’s work, whose attitude to Italy is well defined by opposing terms of alienation and assimilation. It seems that at first Grudziński’s position in Italy was of an observer keeping his distance, which to some extent resulted from the lack of establishment in the Italian language (the writer repeatedly emphasized his attachment to the Polish language), as well as his different sensitivity shaped by different cultural and socio-political background. In this case, being different is not understood only in an epistemological sense (as a cognitive task), but becomes significant in its existential dimension, in which Grudziński seeks a parallel between his own experience and the life of Joseph Conrad, James Joyce and Jusepe de Ribery. Over time, Herling’s perspective changed and foreignness became replaced by assimilation – certainly not complete, yet giving him the feeling of participation in at first foreign culture on equal terms. Grudziński, initially critically observing from a distance, gradually succumbs to culturally understood Italianisation – he tends to write in Italian, he draws his inspirations from Italian literature more often, he also begins to be perceived not only – as he puts it – ‘a writer of Italian themes’ – but simply as an Italian writer (the history of the reception of the Italian translation of A World Apart and the literary prizes awarded to him, namely: Premio Viareggio, Premio Vittorini, Premio Ibla, posthumously – Premio Napoli, prove it well). Interestingly, when reporting in his Jour­ nal Written at Night (Dziennik pisany nocą) the trip to Poland in 1991, Herling even claims that he is an “italianizant”, that is a person who has become influenced by Italian culture (also the Italian language) to such an extent that he begins to perceive it as his own, and in extreme cases – closer to him than his native culture. In the same tone is Grudziński’s account of a morning stroll he took in Cracow; he compares the city to so close to him Italian cities (of Ferrara, Padua, Perugia), thanks to which the capital of Lesser Poland (Małopolska) becomes more familiar to him. The account surprises even more, when one realizes that the comparison was written by a Polish author – after all, what is native in this case becomes understandable thanks to what was once alien and became adopted.

3Grudziński’s works provide a unique record of this process of transformation, where traces of Italian readings and – often unconscious – borrowings go hand in hand with his adherence to the Polish language and his native culture. In this respect, many of Herling’s works can be perceived as a space for mediation, a product of interference of various cultural texts.

4This phenomenon was perfectly recognized by the writer himself in his short article Io, polacco napoletano (I, a Neapoli­ tan Pole), published in “Il Mattino” in February 1998. The sketch was published for the conference devoted to Grudziński’s work and titled – according to the writer’s suggestion – polacco napoletano (Neapolitan Pole). Two things seem of essence in this sketch: Grudziński’s linguistic sensitivity and his consent to “become neapolitanized” (neapolitanization). In the first case, the important is the awareness of how much Italian language and culture influenced his Polish. In the second case, it is a broader problem that affects not only linguistic competences, but has an impact on everyday life, daily habits, and finally – on the feeling of being at home, while being immersed in a foreign culture. The decision to die in Naples, away from his native Suchedniów, is on Herling’s part the expression of the acceptance of this double, Polish-Italian identity.

5Writing about Herling’s literary references and revisions, as well as his historical and critical literary texts, I clearly distinguish between two concepts – reception and trace. The first type of relationship is of a thematized character, the second one to a much greater extent becomes an element of Grudziński’s immanent poetics. In the case of reviews and essays in which Herling comments on 20th-century Italian works (playing the role of a literary critic), we deal with the issue of the reception of Italian literature (in this book to this phenomenon are devoted chapters in which I talk about Alberto Moravia, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and Luigi Pirandello). The sketches that I have commented on make up a private history of 20th century Italian literature written by Grudziński. What I call traces, on the other hand, are allusions (made more or less consciously) spread throughout Herling’s works to works of 20th-century Italian writers (in this context, one can mention authors such as Ignazio Silone, Nicola Chiaromonte or Leonardo Sciascia). That indicates that the concept of intertextuality I understand in a broader sense than it is assumed by the structuralist-semiotic tradition – not only as a deliberate reference and functional takeover of a “foreign” element, but also as a not-fully-realized and yet very important trace of (foreign to Grudziński-as-a-Pole and not-foreign to Grudziński-as-a-participant in the Mediterranean tradition) culture and literature of post-war Italy.

6In this book, I draw a picture of Italian literature present not only in Grudziński’s works written in Polish (as this perspective imposes a polonocentric viewpoint), but also (actually: predominantly) in his sketches and articles written in Italian, so far only occasionally referred to in Polish studies – in Polish literary studies the writer exists virtually exclusively as the creator of texts written in Polish. However, we should not forget that some of his journalistic and reviewing pieces are written in Italian and that at some point the context of Italian culture turned out to be dominant in his work.