“Poet as he is”: the image of konstanty Ildefons Galczynski in D. Samoylov's interpretation

This article shows how poet David Samoylov, basing on the memoir sources of Polish authors and his own translations, creates the literary image of Konstanty Ildefons Galczynsky, a Polish poet, as his “Polish double”, a real artist, a poet of Mozart-like type. Galczynsky is described as a free altruistic creator who lacks the posture of a genius. His true calling is to be a free street-artist who is able to lavish everyone with the music inside him. In addition, some of his characteristics directly refer to the image of Mozart in “The Little Tragedies” by A. Pushkin. Samoylov reinforces his interpretations by finding a typological similarity between the Polish poet and A. Blok. The author of the article sees an important research goal in analyzing the creative points crucial for Samoylov and are based on his literary position at the end of 1950s and in the 1960s. His translations of the Polish poet were included in the first Russian selection of Galczynski’s poems published in “Inostrannaya literature” (“Foreign Literature”) magazine in 1956. They were also included in the first Russian book of Galczynsky’s poetry (“Pigeons of Warsaw”, 1962). In the second half of the 1960s, Samoylov’s interest in Galczynsky’s poetry and personality increases noticeably. In the second Russian collection of Galczynsky’s works (“Poems”, 1967) Samoylov publishes, together with his new translations, the revised versions of the previous ones. In addition, he writes the preface “Konstanty Ildefons Galczynsky”. A year before Samoylov writes a poem called “Ildefons Konstanty’s Nightingales”. The very selection and interpretation of Galczynsky’s works and the facts of his life, shows how important the concept of “empathy” was for Samoylov’s concept of creative work in the second half of the 1960s. Due to the concurrence of the authors’ ideas and feelings, a “mutual emotional experience” is transformed into his own personal experience. In general, the aesthetic principles of Galczynsky are apperceived by Samoylov as an example of sociocultural behavior similar to his own concepts of creativity a genuine artist’s personality.