Religious aspects of Władysław Stanisław Reymont’s short stories during World War I. A few additions

Abstract

The author would like to recall W.S. Reymont as a “chronicler of war”. The volume of short stories published in 1919 entitled Behind the Front (re-published in 1925 as A cracked bell) was already the subject of interest both to researchers of World War I literature and to reymontologists (B. Utkowska, M.J. Olszewska, M. Jazownik).

In the article, in accordance with its title, the author – often referring to the findings and analyses of the aforementioned scholars – tries to shed new light (“a few additions”) on the war short stories of the author of The Peasants, emphasizing their Christian dimension (in line with the intentions and religiosity of Reymont himself), as well as their anti-Germanism and anti-Jewish accents. By showing the heroism of the Polish peasant in the face of the brutality of war, he emphasized its source: the Christian, Catholic faith. The narrator usually does not distance himself from this faith, being a kind of eyewitness and a member of this rural community. Writing about war as a work of Satan and an emanation of evil, Reymont simultaneously emphasizes its inevitability.