On Doctor Feliks

The protagonist of Józef Czechowicz's trifle is Feliks Araszkiewicz (1895-1966) - a literary historian, teacher and teacher of literature. literary historian, pedagogue and cultural activist. He was connected with Lublin from his early youth; he studied at the Lublin School, and at the same time was active in underground youth organisations of an independence nature. In 1913, he started studying Polish philology at the Jagiellonian University. During the First World War, he continued his education in Moscow. In 1918, he returned to Lublin and started working as a secondary school teacher. He combined his duties as an educator with scientific and research work, as well as social and cultural activities. As Stanisław Fita writes: "Feliks Araszkiewicz's scholarly and writing activity reveals his triple involvement: as a scholar, teacher and activist. He was not a 'cabinet' type of scientist. He always regarded scientific work as a service to society and cared about the direct social usefulness of its results".

He participated in the establishment of many scientific and cultural institutions in Lublin in the interwar period. He was a member of the Lublin Society of Book Lovers, the Lublin Union of Writers, as well as one of the organisers of the Society of the Friends of Learning in Lublin. In the years 1934-1936, he headed the Lublin Association of Cultural Work, which coordinated the activities of a dozen or so cultural associations in the Lublin voivodship at that time.

Throughout his life he was engaged in scientific research, mainly the history of Polish literature of the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries. The main subject of his research was the life and works of Bolesław Prus.

Araszkiewicz's oeuvre also includes works on regional themes, presenting the literary circles of Lublin in the interwar period. He wrote, among others, about Father Ludwik Zalewski and Franciszka Arnsztajnowa. He is also the author of a memoir about Józef Czechowicz, who in turn portrayed "Doctor Feliks" in one of his "courtesans". Julian Krzyżanowski explained this trifle as follows: "Dr Feliks [...] is the inspector of the Board of Trustees, Araszkiewicz, who, after taking up this post, alienated his recent colleagues with an excess of official zeal, which is precisely what the pen of the trifle writer has perpetuated".