1918: fine, inizio e séguito, ovvero Julian Tuwim da Primavera ad Andatevene tutti affanculo

The year 1918 and Polish Literature: End, Beginning and Continuation, or Julian Tuwim from Spring to You All, Go Kiss My Ass. This essay addresses issues of periodization, with a specific focus on the importance (or overvaluation) of the reconstruction of the Polish State and its effects and consequences on contemporary Polish culture and literature: in fact, 1918 was perceived as a turning point and as an ideal boundary between an old and a new era. At the same time, different opinions about the “limits of modernity” in Polish culture and literature were discussed, emphasizing the longue durée of such cultural macrophenomena as the “romantic paradigm” or “Sarmatian” mentality and their significant impacts on the processes of continuity and discontinuity of culture. Searching for a merely literary explanation for the periodization of this first troubled period of the “short century”, the author stresses the importance of two texts by Julian Tuwim, Spring (1918) and You All, Go Kiss My Ass (1938), which feature all the euphoria of the beginning and the drama of the end of the period. The article also offers an initial attempt at an Italian translation of the Tuwimian Poem in which the author politely but firmly implores the vast hosts of his brethren to kiss his ass.