The exhibition presents the figure and works by Anna Kamieńska – a poet, writer, translator, essayist, and author of books for children and teenagers. She dealt with translations of Slavic folk art: Russian, Bulgarian, Slovak, Croatian and Czech. She is also an author of translations of belles-lettres: Russian, Czech, Bulgarian and Italian; moreover, she translated from Latin and Hebrew.
The exhibition allows one to follow the artistic path of the author of Notatnik (Notebook), all stages of her writing personality development. The greatest amount of space is devoted to poetry, paying attention to the changes that had been taking place in her work over the years, as well as to the special dimension of Anna Kamieńska’s poetic voice, which is clearly marked by her personal experience; the author has repeatedly expressed opinions about the value of personal experience as the source of all poetry. We hope that the proposed exhibition will not only popularise the image of the poet, but may also make it easier to read her works, in which autobiographical themes often appear.
The title of the exhibition includes our hope for the return of the author of an established position in the history of Polish literature, but now somewhat forgotten. It is worth emphasising that the return is an extremely important category both in the life and in the work and consciousness of the poet, who in 1981 in Maria Brzezińska’s radio program Powrót do źródeł (Return to the sources) said: “Sometimes I wonder what poetry is. There are many definitions, but they all seem either too tight or compromise over time. And so I think now that one could define poetry as a matter of return. Poetry is a return to its source, to first experiences, to yourself, pure, unpolluted, to difficult simplicity and truth”.
The exhibition presents photographs, documents, letters, manuscripts, poetry drafts and family mementoes. Most of the materials come from the rich literary legacy of Anna Kamieńska, deposited in the Józef Czechowicz Museum. In addition, the exhibition includes materials from the collections of the poet’s family, as well as from the Julia Hartwig Archives/”Grodzka Gate – NN Theater” Centre, the Archives of the Catholic University of Lublin and the Anna Kamieńska Municipal and District Public Library in Świdnik.
Curator: dr Anna Marcińczak