The essay aims to analyse Dostoevsky’s artistic and literary strategies in relation to A Writer’s Diary and the short story A Gentle Spirit. The intention is to demonstrate how Dostoevsky’s artistic processes as a writer and as a publicist are combining, starting from crime news to reveal to the reader, through the path into the abysses of the human soul, the representation of the author's conception.

This is an interpretation of Ireneusz Iredyński’s short novel Manipulation in the context of acedia, a state of depressive indolence and spiritual apathy. This psychological condition received its earliest description in the writings of the Desert Fathers (most notably Evagrius Ponticus), Christian hermits who lived in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd-4th Century A.D. The article lists and analyzes some of the acedic symptoms and motifs that recur in the experience of the main character of Manipulation (i.e. temptation by demons, suicidal fantasies, imprisonment in a cell); it also examines the temporal structure of the narration. For intertextual reference the discussion reaches out to the writings of Evagrius Ponticus and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Possessed.

Niniejsza wypowiedź jest próbą charakterystyki osobowości twórczej Henryka Elzenberga. Zwłaszcza pragniemy ukazać swoistość, oryginalność i odmienność zainteresowań i refleksji myśliciela oraz jego szczególny sposób filozofowania, które nie mieściły się w konwencjach teoretycznych ani w stylach myślenia swej epoki. Jako ilustrację powyższego przeświadczenia przywołujemy tu zaledwie cztery charakterystyczne przykłady, a mianowicie refleksje filozofa na temat: relacji kultura – nauka, samobójstwa, fenomenu śmieci, oraz zastanawiamy się nad tą cechą jego pisarstwa, jaką jest, z takim powodzeniem przez niego uprawiana, aforystyczna forma wypowiedzi.

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'.