About the Warsaws of Prus

Does The Doll contain a true portrayal of contemporary Warsaw? Are Bolesław Prus and Aleksander Głowacki one and the same person? So familiar to all, Bolesław Prus is, in fact, one of the least transparent figures in Polish literature. We have all fell for the myth of the great realist, and we tend to forget about the impressive imagination of Prus, which so often completely changed reality. Everyone remembers the elderly man in a frock coat, and we forget the young man who fought in the January Rising or the frenzied reporter in his late thirties. Simultaneously, it seems that, with time, Prus’s works gain more and more allure, also when considered in the context of the entire nineteenth-century Europe. Our collection offers a new encounter with Prus and his Warsaw; we hope that it will bring back many beautiful stories and will uncover a few unexpected tales. The tour of the Warsaws of Prus is guided by the leading scholars of nineteenth-century literature and culture: Barbara Bobrowska, Grażyna Borkowska, Agnieszka Bąbel, Ewa Paczoska, Marek Pąkciński, Włodzimierz Pessel, and Bartłomiej Szleszyński. The collection is a revised version of the CD released by the National Centre for Culture to commemorate the Year of Prus.