The death of Józef Czechowicz : a history of meanings

This article focuses on the interpretations of Józef Czechowicz’s death that have been constructed since 9 September 1939 by biographers, essayists, historians of literature and, especially, Polish poets. Czechowicz’s death is seen here as a "text" that has engendered a variety readings. The article compares various "reading styles" and interpretative strategies, analyzes the process of transformation of the biographical fact into a figure of symbolic delimitation, and examines the narrative component in culture, literature, history, etc. The interpretation of Czechowicz’s death in Trzebiński’s manifesto and one of Anna Kamieńska’s poems. In these texts the symbolization of the poet’s death is treated as a device functionning within the framework of the generational narrative, in this case constructed by authors who belonged to the wartime generation