“The tiny station of life” Ignacy Dąbrowski’s Lodz episode

Abstract

The article compiles the Lodz traces of Ignacy Dąbrowski, a writer of Young Poland who lived in Lodz intermittently between 1893 and 1897. The research carried out using archival and biographical methods made it possible to identify several threads of the writer’s biography related to characters associated with Lodz (including Władysław S. Reymont, Wacław Kloss, Edward Rontaler and the doctor Lidia Złobina). The work also deals with Dąbrowski’s never-published novel Mistrz (The Master), the manuscripts of which were long thought to have been burnt and are now being prepared for publication. The reconnaissance has made it possible to bring closer the writer’s connections with Lodz and the locals, as well as to unveil the supposed reasons for the abandonment of the publication of Mistrz in the magazine “Tygodnik Ilustrowany”.