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Abstract:

The article based on several textual bodies of different genres (diaries, journalism, poetry) reconstructs the evolution of Z. Gippius’s attitude towards Poland and the Poles from 1914 through 1940, the undertaken analysis relying on comparative and intertextual methodology. The utmost goal of the analysis is to present variants of Gippius’s comprehension and conceptualization of the said attitude on the historical background of several decades as well as the ways of their textual explication, and to work out the typology of the “Poland” image in the writer’s individual perception and her general worldview in two basic perspectives — the public and the private. Comparing verbal, cultural, and existential texts, the author argues that depending on Gippius’s public ideas, historiosophic views, external events and personal circumstances, there were four versions of “Poland” which either co-existed or succeeded each other in both her mind and writings. Formed on two levels, the public and the private, the image of Poland through time suffered a substantial transformation from a definitely positive one in her Petersburg 1914–1917 diary “The Blue Book” to an acutely negative one in the 1940 diary “The Grey with the Red”. In Gippius’s estimation, during the two and a half decades in question Poland lost its initial high status of a suffering crucified country inspiring deep sympathy, to acquire that of a country-traitor deserving the retribution for its sins.