The Melancholy of an Eastern European. The emotional and affective dominants of Józef Mackiewicz's pre-war reports

Abstract

This article examines the geocultural conditions of melancholy in the pre-war reportages of Józef Mackiewicz, where melancholy takes two distinct forms. The first one is postcolonial melancholy, which has a social basis and stems from a sense of impossibility resulting from the long durée of the imposed subordination. In the text, this melancholy is expressed through the depiction of emotions experienced by men, usually from the lower social strata. The second kind of melancholy emerges in connection with the descriptions of nature, appearing as a distinctive aura of the Eastern European landscape perceived by the reporter in his encounter with the native environment.