Antoni Serednicki’s Literary Ukrainica On The Pages Of “Nashe Slovo”

Abstract

This article analyzes the literary work of the renowned Polish literary scholar, critic, writer, educator, translator, and editor Antoni Serednicki. Throughout his life, he not only studied Ukrainian culture and literature but also actively promoted them among the Polish public. His extensive body of scholarly work remains insufficiently explored within Ukrainian literary studies, a fact that underscores the relevance of this research.

The aim of this study is to analyze the articles A. Serednicki published in the journal “Nashe Slovo”, in which he examined the work of prominent Ukrainian writers spanning the period from the 18th century to the first half of the 20th century.

It is noted that the Polish literary critic’s collaboration with the Warsaw-based journal “Nashe Slovo” spanned from the mid-1950s to the 1980s. During this period, A. Serednicki — who frequently used the pseudonym Antin Verba — published over a hundred articles in the journal. These included works analyzing the writings of numerous Ukrainian and Polish authors, the artistic achievements of 20th-century Ukrainian literature, and topics related to literary scholarship, publishing, and translation studies. The scope of literary Ukrainian studies addressed by A. Serednicki in “Nashe Slovo” is broad and multifaceted, encompassing the work of numerous writers and the artistic achievements of 19th–20th-century Ukrainian literature as a whole, as well as literary scholarship, publishing activities, Polish Ukrainica, public gatherings, and cultural events.

A. Serednicki’s series of articles dedicated to the work of Ukrainian writers from various historical periods was part of a plan — unfortunately never realized — to create a textbook on the history of Ukrainian literature. This article analyzes the writings of a Polish literary critic who examined the works of H. Skovoroda, T. Shevchenko, M. Drahomanov, I. Karpenko-Karyi, P. Hrabovskyi, I. Nechui-Levytskyi, M. Starytskyi, M. Kropyvnytskyi, I. Franko, Lesia Ukrainka, A. Teslenko, S. Vasylchenko, and N. Kobrynska. It is noted that in his literary reviews, A. Serednicki sought to identify the key ideological and thematic trajectories of the analyzed writers’ works, as well as their artistic, stylistic, and genre innovations.