Tertiak Józef/ Bohdan Zalewski na tułactwie. Życie i poezya na tle dziejów emigracyi polskiej/ Kraków 1913-14/ Nakładem Akademii Umiejętności/ binding in half canvass, gilt titulature on the spine, stained page edges/ p.VII,323;VII,464/ black and white illustrations on separate pages/ very good condition
A detailed study of the life and work of poet Bohdan Zaleski against the background of the emigration changes after the November Uprising. The first volume focuses on Zaleski's Ukrainian roots and his role in the beginnings of Romanticism, while the second volume shows the poet in a new context - as a participant and witness to the dramatic fate of Polish political emigration.
Tretiak leads the reader through the successive stages of Zaleski's wandering - first through Galicia, then through Western Europe, where the key moment turns out to be his meeting with Mickiewicz in Paris. It was Mickiewicz, with his vision of the spiritual unification of emigrants, who exerted a decisive influence on the views and religious-patriotic mood of Zaleski's work.
The author shows how the poet undergoes a transformation - from a politically engaged émigré to a muted mystic and translator of Serbian folk songs. An episode involving Dyonizia Poniatowska - a beautiful Ukrainian woman who, despite her marriage, was a spiritual inspiration to Zaleski - adds a personal and emotional dimension to the book. Their relationship, based more on sister-brotherly spirituality than romantic love, inspired the poet to create works in which Poland appears as the "Magdalene of nations."
Unlike the messianism of Mickiewicz and the democratic currents of the émigré movement, Zaleski represented a view rooted in orthodox Catholicism and religious conservatism. The book shows his rapprochement with Catholic émigré circles, such as Janski and Kaisiewicz, and his participation in the creation of a Catholic press organ, with which even Slowacki was to clash.