Paper given at International Symposium on Travel Literature, Galway, 18 October 2002.

Poeta to zwierzę zanurzone w świecie dlatego takie niepewne wobec świata

A poet is an animal Plunged in the world And therefore so unsure Against the world

1.

Stachura’s first short stories were published in Poland in1960s. In the Soviet Union this was the period of the post Stalinist thaw when new names such as Solzhenitsyn appeared in literature. This new literature, while endowed with individual talent, nevertheless carried on the old tradition of Russian literature as a medium bearing social, political or moral ideas. "A poet in Russia is more than just a poet", as Yevgeni Evtushenko once stated in a poem. Since that time, new, talented writers were regarded as scouts of freedom. What struck me in Stachura’s prose was the absolute loneliness of his hero, the feeling that his hero was facing the whole world in his struggle to remain sincere, dignified and generous in the most awkward situations. It was hard to imagine that something like that might be published in the USSR at that time because of its extreme individualism and aversion to any collective forms of life.

2.

The fact that Edward Stachura did not follow anybody in his manner of writing, philosophy and way of life caused many problems for Polish critics in their efforts to find him a place in "the literary process".

His first collection of prose "One day" (Jeden Dzien)", published in 1962, brought about conflicting reviews and estimations.

The most prominent Polish writer of that time, Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewich, at once paid attention to Stachura as to an unusual phenomenon (both in poetry and prose). In Stachura's prose Iwaszkiewich found "personality, melancholy, naive-like syntax, pure sentences with peculiar repetitions, ". He was fascinated by its depth of internal appreciation of life, the joy of everything that comes with life, the subtle sense of the Polish landscape and Polish everyday life, the belief in love". There were also absolutely contrary opinions regarding Stachura's debut, such as that by Henryk Vogler: "The language of "One day" is defective, awkward, stammering. The sticky clammy, tenacious, boring pulp of this prose is dragged with ostensible monotonous [repetitions] as in the stories of an imbecile".

Edward Stachura was born in 1937 in France into a working-class family of Polish émigrés. When he was 11 the family returned to Poland. Having finished secondary school Stachura left home and began living alone. He entered the University of Lublin but soon had to interrupt his studies for personal and economic reasons. Thereafter, he continues at Warsaw University, graduating with an MA in Romance Philology. At this time he also takes an active part in the literary circles of young poets. In 1962 Stachura marries. During his student years Stachura lived in poor conditions as he had no any financial support. In 1966 his second book of prose "Waving in the wind" (Falujac na wietrze) comes out and receives favourable reviews. In 1972 his marriage breaks up.

3. Travelling

As a promising young author Stachura was awarded a research fellowship at the university of Mexico and several travel grants. He visited South an North America, France, Norway and the Middle East. His travel notes are written in Polish, French, Spanish and occasionally in English. He also walked and travelled by train throughout Poland often getting off and staying at the stations the names of which seemed pleasing to his ear. Travelling always attracted him. As he mentions in his autobiography, one winter, when he was only 17, he wandered all around Poland finding wolf trails everywhere but never the wolves themselves.

Among the titles of his stories one can find "A Day trip by train" (Dzienna jazda pociagiem), "A night trip by train" (Nocna jazda pociagiem). Bright stay on the river (Jasny pobyt nadrzeczny). Travelling became his modus vivendi. In his short novels and stories the main hero is usually a young man (narrator) who comes to a small village or town for temporary work or hides himself in a shelter on the river or just wonders with no special purpose. It should be mentioned that Stachura never states geographical names in his stories (using phrases like The second largest river of the country or Somewhere above the middle run of the biggest river in the country making his narration universal rather than national, although the Polish natural and social environment is easily recognizable in it.

4. Sie

The novel Sie (1977) belongs to the period of his creative work when Stachura attempts to completely escape Ego and to become a total perception with a loss in his real life of all interest in property, career or home. In other words, Sie is a dramatic attempt to implement the idea that stays as a title of one of his prose collections, Everything is poetry. To be more correct Sie is not just a novel, but rather a collection of texts of different types, united by one hero: suffice it to say that one of the chapters entitled A lesson of English (Lekcja jezyka angielskiego) is nothing else but a part of an old English-Polish phrase book. Here again we encounter a lonely-heart wanderer as a main personage outside of any social network. Thinking about schools, Sie states: "Schools are to make one’s life easier. One goes to school not to learn too much by oneself".

Stachura’s last major work Fabula rasa can hardly be said to belong to any literary genre. This was his last attempt to express himself on the phenomenon of poetry and the values of life. This is a statement from the beginning of his last book: "This book is not for reading. This book is for discovering. What is in this book to discover? This among other things, but first of all, that each book is always only a book; that all words are always only words; they are never what they - with more or less success - try to describe" (Translation by Andrzej Duszenko).

In 1979 Edward Stachura took his own life.

In Krzysztof Rutkowski’s opinion, Fabula rasa is a manifesto of his conception of "active poetry", in which the work can not be divided neither from the moment of its creation nor from its environment and circumstances.

"Sie" is a remarkable novel from several points of view, including a linguistic one. The original feature of this novel is the specific role of the reflexive "self"- particle (or clitical form of the reflexive pronoun) sie in the text, which was also taken by Stachura as the title of the novel itself.

The novel begins with the following words:

meenifold mineyfold roads." (translation by Nigel Gottery).

According to the rules of the Polish grammar these sentences are grammatically incorrect, because the reflexive particle cannot take an initial position in a sentence. So, the novel begins in a grammatically incorrect way. Moreover, this grammatical deviation runs through the whole text and thus plays a special role in carrying the author’s main idea.

Whereas in the domain of vocabulary different forms of "violence on the language" are quite common ("lexical poetics is the poetics of freedom" - Jakov Gin), getting over the dictatorship of grammar is a phenomenon of a much more complicated scale than lexical innovations. "Sie"-phenomenon in this novel is an impersonal form made of a verb in the third person singular and the sie-formation.

It must be mentioned this construction in the past tense may appear only in neuter and again this supports Stachura’s idea of a ‘dissolved’ hero. This is a hero endowed with extremely developed senses. This hero feels others’ thoughts and pain, shares their sufferings (and often suffers from their deeds), sings songs to them and is absolutely devoid of any kind of ambition, social or marital status. He is a wanderer who lives in the "here and now" (in the current moment of the time-stream, he is dissolved in every present moment). He has no a human name. His name is "Sie". He is an impersonal, "passportless", almost fleshless wanderer. He is an alter-ego of the author’s soul. In this novel we see one of the numerous indications that sie is a representation of the author, such as a shift to "Me-narration" or to the name Mikhal Katny, used in his previous texts and his diaries. In the wider context of Stachura's work, sie also resembles another textual incarnation of his literary alter-ego: a No-man (Czlowiek-Nikt).

Understanding sie lets the reader understand Stachura's philosophy and discover his principles of "active poetry" in which life and words gain unbearable sincerity.

The story of "Sie" does not finish in the literary, printed text of Stachura's novel.

The most striking fact/document in this respect is a letter written by Edward Stachura to the editorial staff of the literary magazine Tworczosc in which Stachura insists his last novel "Fabula rasa" be published without the name of the author; he also refuses any royalties for it. Here is an excerpt from this letter:

On July 23, 1979 Edward Stachura committed suicide.

5. What escapism?

As a real poet he wanted to be a part of the entire world but not of a particular society. As one of his friends, the philosopher Andrzej Moszcinski, mentions, Stachura’s "struggles certainly belong to the issues described for centuries by the symbol of the Moloch. Society-machine, machine demanding obedience. And rebellion against distrusting the realism of the nature of the "machine" and rebellion against the necessity of subordination to the demands of the machine."

Indeed, his hero feels very uncomfortable and vulnerable in all social frames (in the restaurant because he has very little money, on the train – because he has no ticket, in a carriage on the siding way – because he is illegally sleeping in it at night, at a wedding – because some drunk guests are jealous of him, in the city – because it’s cold in winter and he has no warm shoes). He feels comfortable in a natural landscape in the summer speaking to his twin on another planet or singing songs to other people.

But his vagabond hero is not only a form of social escapism. It’s also escapism to ideal love. The woman in his texts is always shown as an ideal source of tenderness and consolation but not a source or erotic experience. She is mentioned in his texts under different names (The Apple-tree-branch, The Caramel, Olga) but never appears in flesh and blood.

It is noticed that his Love is in fact rather his aspiration to love and consolation. He travels seeking true feelings, and he is badly treated by people and he needs love as a remedy to his suffering.

Here is the end of the story "One day":  "Now I am at the railroad station, in the waiting room, where there is no tenderness. It is night and in it there is no tenderness. I'm looking at the others. Oh, to sleep! To sleep in this always accursed hour! To sleep to not envy anybody anything.
      And then to wake up. To wake up later, when I don't think any more, when I don't wander, when I never wander any more, not even in thoughts. Someone will come to me, take me by the hand, take care of me, take me by the hand and say: "My name is Olga. Close your eyes. I'm going to tell you about everything." (translation by Andrzej Duszenko)

6. Stachura – Vysotsky

Those who have an idea of basic tendencies and names in Polish and Russian literatures can not avoid comparing the controversial and outstanding figures of Edward Stachura and Vladimir Vysotsky. They were born and died within one year of each other (Stachura – 1937-1979. Vysotsky – 1938-1980). They both lived a turbulent life, neither could live without a guitar, both travelled a lot. Vysotsky wrote several hundred songs, some of which are considered outstanding exemplars of Russian poetry. But if we look to the origin and peculiarities of their talent we find their approach to poetry and life to be absolute polar opposites. Whereas Vysotsky wrote his songs (poems) on behalf of different people from different professions and social types so everybody might recognize him- or herself in them (a soldier, a prisoner, a sportsman etc.), Stachura was searching inside his own soul. While Vysotsky in his songs laughed and transmitted the trials and tribulations of people using their colloquial and even faulty language, Stachura was preoccupied with the search for a true language that could serve him as a medium in his attempt to come to terms with the world. Vysotsky and Stachura represent two approaches to the word: the word of the soil (Vysotsky) and the word of the soul (Stachura). In the philosophical analysis of Stachura’s work by Andrzej Moszczynski, Stachura was doomed to failure in his search of true language. But his struggle for it and his attempt to use his life as a measurement of the truth rank him among the outstanding figures in the world of literature.

8. Conclusion

In late 1980s postmodernism took root in Eastern Europe as a reflection of unfulfilled hopes and as a form of disappointment with the failed post-Communist experiment in unbridled or ‘wild’ capitalism. Cynicism, endless parodies and chains of hidden references and quotations have replaced direct narration. Writers do not believe their own words any more, moreover, they persuade the readers not to believe the writer’s words. We may only wonder whether in this situation such figures as Edward Stachura will re-emerge with their struggle for true life and true language.