Nr 474, listopad 1994 - Znak

ISUMMARY I- It is times of meager masters we are living in - observes Jan AndrzejKloczowski in his opening article - times when authorities are eitherdeclining or losing credibility. Despite this dusk of authorities - or maybejust because of it - we have invited our Readers for a "lesson of greatmasters". The authors' texts succeed one another to form an array ofoutstanding twentieth-century figures whose personalities have impresseda deep and lasting mark on their disciples' lives. First JaninaKatz--Hewetson in an autobiographical sketch calls back her memories ofa teacher who not only entered her into the domain of literature but alsoshowed her how to acquire a difficult capacity - that of living a good life.The next three sketches delineate the figures of great revivers of religiouslife and thought: Simone Weil (by Ewa Bietlkowska), Jean Leclercq (by S.Malgorzata Borkowska OSB), and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (by Andrzej Drawicz).Bronislaw Geremek and Grzegorz Przebinda mention two notablevisionaries of history, Fernand Braudel and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn respectively.Essays devoted to renowned Polish painters: J6zef Czapski (byAndrzej O~ka), Jerzy Stajuda (by Tadeusz Nyczek) as well as Matejko,Malczewski and Kantor (by Jerzy Nowosielski in his discussion with PiotrKosiewski) convey us to the realm of art. Sketches on existentialists (byMarta Wyka), Gombrowicz (by Malgorzata Kitowska-Lysiak), the leadingPolish historian of literature Kazimierz Wyka (by Andrzej Zawada),and the essayists: Stanislaw Vincenz and Jerzy Stempowski (by ArkadiuszBaglajewski) number among pictures of "masters" in the field ofliterature.The closing article presents the silhouette of Brother Roger of Taize byPawel Trzopek OP.No sooner have we completed a series including comments on Veritatissplendor (this time Gabrielle Dufour-Kowalska reverts to the subject of theencyclic) than we pass over to another "dialogue" with the Pope: StefanWilkanowicz and Stanislaw Grygiel contribute their remarks on John PaulII's To Cross the Threshold of Hope.Nicolo Chiaromonte turns our attention back again to Simone Weil, onthe occassion of the 50th anniversary of her death. In the review sectionMichal Pawel Markowski writes about Czeslaw Milosz's Extracts fromUseful Books. Jacek Lukasiewicz discusses a selection of treatises byWiktor Weintraub, while lzabella Sariusz-Sk:wska reviews the Polishtranslation of Josif Brodski's Watermark. Andrzej Niewiadomski presentsa new volume of poems by Ewa Lipska, and Monika Adamczyk-Garbowskatakes critical stock of Joanna Siedlecka's monographic work devotedto connections between the life of Jerzy Kosinski and his literary output.Finally Maja Jurkowska sends a letter from Nantes, Aleksandr Dobrojer- from Almaty, and Robert Kaczmarek - from Paris, whereas KrystynaCzemi contributes her review of periodicals.