Error at headquarters – mutiny in the field. A humorous picture of the beginnings of The Institute of Literary Research in ʻEtiuda Rewolucyjnaʼ [ʻRevolutionary Étudeʼ] and ‘NaKuBi’ by Krystyna Tokarz and Teresa Tyszkiewicz

The topic of discussion are the unpublished, humorous texts and drawings dating to 1948-1952, by Krystyna Tokarz i Teresa Tyszkiewicz. In the playful journal ‘NaKuBi’ (circulated in one copy, through the grapevine) and in the tragicomedy ‘Etiuda Rewolucyjna’ [‘Revolutionary Étude’], the adepts of Polish studies in Poznań explored the problems of a young team preparing the first yearlies of ‘Polish Literary Bibliography’. An analysis of these inedita is joined with a depiction of the pioneering years of the Bibliographical Workshop, led by Stefan Vrtel-Wieczyński, and forming a part of The Institute of Literary Research (IBL), established in 1948. In the article, local themes are interlaced with a wider issue – that of the ideological Marxist offensive against the Humanities, intensified during the realisation of the so-called Six-Year Plan. The mocking distance towards the headquarters of IBL in the capital city is presented in relation to the distinctive atmosphere at the Academic Society of Polonists in Poznań, at the time when it was supervised by professor Roman Pollak.