„Przyświecały mi pewne ideały…” Autokreacyjne strategie i pułapki we wspomnieniach i korespondencji Jana Wantuły

Abstract

This article’s aim is to present the ways of creating the author’s image in memoirs and letters by Jan Wantuła (1877–1953) – a peasant and steel worker from Ustroń, self-taught person, expert on the Cieszyn Silesia’s history, old prints and Protestantism, writer, publicist and a famous bibliophile. In the sketch the author analyzes the patterns Wantuła employs while creating his self-portrait, as well as central elements of that portrait and its purport. Not only typical leitmotifs from peasant memoirs are indicated, but also complex endeavors, which the booklover uses. The principal question here is whether this social and national campaigner’s portrait has not been influenced by the means of expression it has been written in. The authoress recognizes the value of rhetoric as cultural space of agreement, but she also portrays how in Wantuła’s texts patterns are broken by that what is local, specific, physical and temporary.

Keywords

• Jan Wantuła
• self-portrait
• autocreation
• memoir-specific
• conventionality
• rhetoric