Dr Zofja Marja Bessażanka as an unknown Polish poetess from Kolomyia. Between the literature of the Kresy and / or local patriotism?

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the poetic heritage of the unknown Polish poetess of the interwar period Zofja Marja Bessażanka, a probable native of Kolomyia or Kolomyia region in terms of ethnic history and political science, literature, culture of memory. Today it is impossible to establish the place of her birth and death, but it is known that in 1920 – 1930 she was engaged in literary studies, in particular defended a dissertation on the history of Polish literature, was active in Polish schools in Kolomyia, travelled to Pokuttya and Hutsul and other regions of the II Polish Republic. Given the interdisciplinary approach used in the article, the author, based on modern discourses in interpretations of literature of the Kresy (Alexander Fiut) and typologies of patriotism (Piotr Bugalski, Stanisław Ossowski), suggests interpreting Z. M. Besssażanka’s poetry as a kind of manifestation of “protective nationalism”, which was partly a reflection of the culture of interethnic relations in Eastern Galicia (Małopolska Wschodnia) in the interwar period. At the same time, the understanding of the poetess work as a kind of “echo” of an outstanding modernist Polish poet Jan Kasprowicz (allusions, paraphrases) was proposed, the intertextual basis of her poems was stated – given the involvement of Polish romanticists (Juliusz Słowacki, Adam Mickiewicz), partly German (Heinrich Heine). It is concluded that the poetic heritage of Z. M. Bessażanka is an original, albeit original expression of the ethnic “I”, a kind of picture of the world of the East Galician and Polish ethno-political sphere of the interwar period.