KING HENRY'S QUIET CHAMBER. ON JOZEF CZECHOWICZ'S 'A STORY OF A PAPER CROWN' (Milczaca komnata krola Henryka. Wokol 'Opowiesci o papierowej koronie' Jozefa Czechowicza)

The paper presents an interpretation of Jozef Czechowicz's 'A story of a paper crown' carried out in the research perspective of sexual identity. The debut story in question, whose main part takes place in the author's imagination, openly undertakes the theme of homosexuality. The key to the text's interpretation prove both biographical experience and cultural influences. The analysis of the works investigates the notion of homosexuality in the context of the epoch of modernism, referring to such elements of tradition as decadence, gothic, misogyny. The main thesis of the paper concerns the influence of homosexual panic over the imagination's development in the direction of catastrophic visionary - a permanent trait of Czechowicz's mature creativity. The musicality and stylistic embellishments of the prose, in turn, are shown in the light of the camp aesthetics. The research shows the distinctness of Czechowicz's catastrophism against the Inter-war literature.