Old stones

Stare kamienie [Old Stones] is a joint work of Józef Czechowicz, the "emperor of the second avant-garde", and Franciszka Arnsztajnowa, a social and independence activist, an inspirer of Lublin's literary circles, a poet who dedicated many works to "her beloved Lublin", contributing to the poetic ennoblement of the city.

The bibliophilic volume Stare kamienie [Old Stones], published in 1934, was called a regional poetic double voice, a tribute paid to his hometown by authors belonging to different literary generations. As Gralewski emphasised: "Stare kamienie [Old Stones] are a unique manifesto of friendship between two generations, different in the way they perceive art, but walking along one poetic road". In the same year, in a volume entitled w błyskawicy [in a lightning] Czechowicz dedicated to Arnsztajnaya, a poetic tetralogy prowincja noc [province night] - a cycle of landscape nocturnes presenting the cities and towns of the Lublin region. The artistic symbiosis of the author of Odloty [Departures] and the "emperor of the second avant-garde" was also expressed in the poem Dwugłos [Double voice] - an interesting discourse on the transience of human existence, and at the same time, on the durability of a literary work and the fundamental objectives of art.

According to Anna Kamieńska, the confrontation with the avant-garde author's work w błyskawicy saved Arnsztajn as a poet. Under the influence of Czechowicz, she abandoned the lofty, Young Poland literary convention and sought new approaches and artistic solutions. The senile poetess increasingly wrote non-prophic poems, with irregular rhythmic lines, more concise and expressive.

When the volume Stare kamienie [Old Stones] was published in Lublin, Czechowicz had been living in Warsaw for a year. However, he never forgot his home town and all the time tried to maintain lively ties with the Lublin literary community. Arnszajnowa also left Lublin in 1935. She settled in Warsaw with her daughter, Stefania Mieczysławska. In a letter sent to Kazimierz Andrzej Jaworski on 24 October 1935, she states: "[...] it was with great regret that I left Lublin, to which I had so many ties. I have plenty of work here, too, but I do not have that vital sense of indispensability which gave impetus to my actions in my home town". Her longing for her home town is also expressed in two poems: Bystrzyco, młodości rzeko [Bystrzyca, the River of Youth] and Ostatni film [The last film], in which the poet evokes the realities of Lublin.