ON THE FIRST EDITION OF STEFAN ZEROMSKI'S 'FAITHFUL RIVER' (O pierwszym wydaniu 'Wiernej rzek' Stefana Zeromskiego)

The issue of the first editions of Stefan Zeromski's novel 'Faithful River' has not been settled unambiguously and undisputably to date. In his analysis of the remaining copies and source texts, the author of the article shows that the first publication of 'Faithful River' dated December 1912 in the total edition of ten thousand copies consisted of two mutations (i.e. full and censored version). The second publication (dated 1913) in the amount of six thousand copies also involved the full and censored version. As a result of such far-fetching censorhip intervention, Zeromski negatively estimated those versions which were designed for the readerhip under Russian partition. In the years 1913-1914 the editions met their expectations, since most readers lived under Russian partition and the role of book smuggling was not pivotal. The censored edition of 'Faithful River' is in the Polish subject matter literature an exceptional and drastic example of Russian censorship intervention.