ZENON FISZ’S AUSTROPHOBIA

Abstract

The author of the article analyzes the account of the Polish prose writer Zenon Leonard Fisz (1820–1870) on a journey by steamboat from Odessa to Pest and then by rail to Vienna. Fisz is sensitive to the image of the wild civilization of the Balkans, admiring nature and the Danube from the ship. On the border of Austria, his Austrophobia is revealed. Austria and then Vienna, he identifies the Viennese with Germany, whose grotesque description is contained in Letters from a journey (Vilnius 1858, vol. 1-3). The identification of Austrian and German culture in Fisz is complete, ostentatious and charged with idiosyncrasy. Fisz’s austrophobia develops on a cultural and civilizational basis. The writer is afraid of the negative consequences of taking over elements of Western civilization by the European, Slavic East.