The author of the article deals with the subject of the Russian period of Tadeusz Miciński’s work (1873‑1918). The rationale here being the discovery of many ‘new’, previously unpublished articles by the writer. In turn, the context was published by G. Bobilewicz years ago: Tadeusz Miciński i Rosja. Szkic do tematu (2008). The author presents the state of research, discusses the previously unknown texts by the author of Nietota, and finally gives new facts about Miciński’s stay in Russia (from 1915‑1918). The author discusses the literary activity of Miciński from the First World War onwards. This encompasses largely journalistic texts: articles, manifestos, open letters, travel reports from the front and from the life of Polish soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front.

This article is an attempt to re-read Tadeusz Miciński's poem ‘Blood-red Snow’ (‘Krwawy śnieg’, 1914) in the context of a tragedy that took place in February 1914 at Zakopane, or more precisely, in Kościeliska Valley in the Tatras. It was there that Jadwiga Janczewska, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz's fiancée, took her life by shooting himself in the head. Her suicide prompted Miciński, a close friend of Witkiewicz, to write the ‘Blood-red Snow’, a poetic reportage infused with ambiguity, which presents a highly subjective vision of the tragic event and its circumstances. Read out of context, the poem seems be just another product of the poet's fascination with the philosophy of the occult (Luciferianism). However, when its real-life context is restored, the heady symbolism turns out to be a camouflage of a poème à clef, a genre which ‘Blood-red Snow’ actually exemplifies. The poem is an instant reaction to a dramatic event. To make sense of it one does not need to be familiar with the whole story of the relations between Miciński and Witkiewicz. What is perhaps worth noting is that their relationship soured after Jadwiga Janczewska's suicide, which triggered an unending blame game on all sides. While the public held Witkiewicz responsible for the young woman's death, he himself put the blame on Miciński and, first and foremost, on Karol Szymanowski. These controversies are, however, beyond the scope of the 'Blood-red Snow'.

This article deals with the first phase of Jerzy Jankowski’s severing ties with the Young Poland movement and his access to the futurist avant-garde. His conversion to the new poetic worldview, which he pioneered in Poland, was reflected in his articles and poems published in Widnokrąg [Horizon], a magazine he founded in 1913 to replace Tydzień [The Week], of which he was the main publisher. The rebranding came on top of disagreements between the magazine’s contributors. The divergent views focused on the assessment of Tadeusz Miciński’s novel Xiądz Faust. In May 1913, in his former magazine, Jankowski heaped praises on it. However, the following year, when it came up for debate in the Widnokrąg between Miciński’s aficionado Zygmunt Kisielewski and the skeptically-minded Leon Choromański, Jankowski sought to distance himself from both the emotionalism and the intellectualism of his colleagues. By that time he was absolutely adamant that the antinomies of Young Poland’s high art were a trap. Now that the worship of art striving for timeless perfection would have to give way to an unpretentious concern for ‘fugitive art’, the time was ripe for working out a new aesthetic, centered on the thrilling ‘beauty of big cities’, cabaret, cinema, and modern machines. Jankowski broke with his erstwhile mentor Ferdynand Ruszczyc and Zenon Przesmycki-Miriam, to follow the incomparably more exciting Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Meanwhile, Choromański made one last attempt to bring the young man back on track by writing an article, in which he argued that Futurism was crude, and shallow, a throwback rather than a modern breakthrough. However, his warnings made no dint in Jankowski’s faith in futurism. For him its triumph was a matter of historical necessity. And, he had already thrown in his lot with the new movement by publishing his first futurist poems, ‘Spłon lotnika’ [‘Pilot in flames’] and ‘Maggi’.