Reytan. Lekcja ciemności, która wraca echem żywym

The plot of Rymkiewicz’s Reytan. Upadek Polski (Warsaw 2012) about the close of the 18th century in Poland is full of digressions on our times. This tale-essay written by a learned philologist and poet is about history which is being revived here and now. Tadeusz Reytan’s mosaic biography is presented by a detective narration which is not free from doubts deliberately raised by the author, who revives various documents and iconographic materials, above all Matejko’s painting-allegory Upadek Polski. Their significances have an effect on our history; they are the source of our anxieties which we fail to dispose of. The author-polymath has acquired in the internal world of this plot the status of the major element. He is prone to putting forward hypotheses and spins a fragmentary, unformed and open tale. He reveals his own thinking about the past and its echoes in the present. Our today and the 18th century yesterday create a marriage that is impossible to separate. They worry us and evoke the shape of tomorrow. ‘From St. Petersburg to Smolensk an icy wind is still blowing’.