Stefan Zabierowski – Conrad Researcher

The study is an attempt to discuss and summarize the multidirectional and multifaceted Conradist achievements of Stefan Zabierowski. I carefully try to present the scholar’s work on many planes so as to reveal his precursorship, which is not always visible at first glance. It is Zabierowski who creates the entire background of reading and reception research in Conrad studies, starting from the monograph from 1971, entitled Conrad w Polsce. Wybrane problemy recepcji krytycznej w latach 1896-1969 [Conrad in Poland. Selected problems of critical reception in the years 1896-1969] up to Dziedzictwo Conrada w literaturze polskiej XX wieku [Conrad’s Legacy in Polish literature of the 20th century] from 1992. From the perspective of interpretive research, Zabierowski-the researcher represents the exegetical school, devoting most of his attention to one work, the analysis of which has been deepened over the years, also using modern reading theories (Umberto Eco’s concept of the open work) – Lord Jim. In the discussion on the so-called Joseph Conrad’s Polish, as well as borderland background, Zabierowski proposes a competitive metaphor to the one comparing Conrad’s writing to the cathedral in Kamieniec Podolski by Paweł Hostowiec (Jerzy Stempowski) – Conrad’s literature is the Slutsk Belt of competing currents, motifs and poetics and as such, it requires original intertextual reflection. Zabierowski initiates it by comparing the Gould marriage from Nostromo with the Niechcic marriage from Maria Dąbrowska’s Nights and Days.