Appreciation and Hostility: Tadeusz Bobrowski, Włodzimierz Spasowicz, and Joseph Conrad on Russia and Russian Writers

Brygida PUDEŁKO

Instytut: Instytut Nauk o Literaturze. Wydział Filologiczny, Uniwersytet Opolski, pl. Kopernika 11, 45-040 Opole, Poland , Poland

Abstract

Joseph Conrad, who shared strong affinities with Ivan Turgenev because of his objective evaluation of Russia and the West, openly articulated his hatred towards Fyodor Dostoevsky, who never concealed his hearty dislike and distrust of Poles and the West. The Russian writer’s hatred for Poland and the Poles was so vehement that it might be called pathological. In Poland and in the Polish character, Dostoevsky singled out only the negative elements, forming from these shortcomings the notorious types of his “Polyachishki.” Conrad may have known from his maternal uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski, who after Apollo Korzeniowski’s death became Conrad’s guardian, mentor and adviser, that Dostoevsky violently attacked, and in his novel The Brothers Karamazov parodied in the person of the lawyer Fetyukovich, Bobrowski’s good friend Włodzimierz Spasowicz—a prominent lawyer, liberal politician, journalist, and literary critic. The enmity between Spasowicz and Dostoevsky was public knowledge, and although Spasowicz recognized in Dostoevsky a great writer, he, similarly to Conrad, admired pro-Western Turgenev.

Keywords:

Joseph Conrad, Tadeusz Bobrowski, Włodzimierz Spasowicz, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevsky, memoirs, Polish culture in the Borderlands, national liberation movements