Letter to Władysław Sebyła

The name of the addressee of the letter - "My Beloved Convict" - is connected to a court case brought against Władysław Sebyła by Stanisław Szwajcer, the author of a collection of poems entitled Na cmentarzu biły dzwony. Śpiewy demoniczne [Bells Rang in the Cemetery. Demon Chants], published in Warsaw in 1937 by Ferdynand Hoesick's bookstore and publishing company. In 1935, Sebyła began working for the Polish Radio, where he hosted a literary quarter-hour every other week, sometimes arousing heated emotions. In July 1937, he discussed Szwajcer's collection of poems on the radio. Mentioning neither the author nor the title, but only the subtitle of the volume, he stated that the bad works it contained were "an example of mental illness". Stanisław Szwajcer (a professional court trainee) felt offended by the criticism of his work and took his case to court. During the libel trial, literary critic Karol Wiktor Zawodziński acted as an expert witness, and one of the defenders was attorney J. Lesman (Jan Brzechwa). The court found Sebyła guilty, although - as we learn from the memoirs of the poet's wife, Sabina Sebyłowa - the expert K. W. Zawodziński claimed that "the limits of permissible criticism were not exceeded by the defendant". The author of Koncert egotyczny [The Aegotic Concert] was sentenced to two weeks of suspended arrest, a fifty zloty fine and a one hundred zloty penance. In addition, Sebyła published a statement on Szwajcer's offence in "Wiadomości Literackie" (1938, no. 43) and Kurier Warszawski (1938, no. 274).

When reading the letter of Józef Czechowicz, it is also worth paying attention to the footnote in which the poet mentions Jan Brzękowski's project to publish a magazine called "Meta", which - as Tadeusz Kłak recalls - "was supposed to bring together old members and continuators of the Krakow avant-garde", while its title referred "to the concept of metarealism put forward by Brzękowski in his article Integralizm w czasie [Integralism in time]" ("Pion" 1937, no. 39). Ultimately, the magazine was not published, and the materials originally intended for "Meta" were passed on to Czechowicz's "Pióro".