Stanisław Przybyszewski dzieciom Zapomniany, ostatni utwór pisarza

This article deals with ‘Nad Gopłem’ [At Lake Gopło], the least known and arguably the oddest story in the Przybyszewski oeuvre. The book – missing from the writer’s biblio-graphy and, as far as we know, not mentioned in his correspondence – was addressed exclusively to the young reader. What’s more, it was commissioned by the editors of a Polish language teaching textbook (published by Ossolineum in 1928) from a writer with a reputation of a debaucher and corruptor of the young. The article points out that Przybyszewski’s text is an inspirational tale about the beauty spots of Kujawy and a story about the education of an artist. Showing that Poland is born in a personal, intimate and creative experience and beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, he pins down the sources of his writing onto a local map and argues that the artist’s ties with his homeland are unbreakable. The loose string d of reminiscences creates a warm, atmospheric portrait of the landscapes around Lake Gopło and, thanks to unobtrusive emotional touches, succeeds in eliciting a similar affection in the reader. In this way the story meets per-fectly the contemporary postulate of anchoring the educational goals in reading materi-als “based on the experiences of a child” and reveals an unknown facet of Przybyszew-ski’s persona you would not expect to find in a celebrity engulfed in scandal. He knows how to strike the right tone and find the right format to “talk” to children and gently touch their emotions.