Leśmianowskie dziwożony i ich słowiańskie konteksty (literackie i nie tylko)

Among the literary female characters to be found in Bolesław Leśmian’s writing, there are dzwiożonas – swamp or forest demons from the Slavic mythology, known as malicious and dangerous creatures that kidnapped babies just after they were born and replaced them with her own children. They were often portrayed as wild women with long, straight hair and breasts so huge that they could use them to wash their clothes. A survey of selected literary texts from the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century by Polish (Seweryn Gosz czyński, Michał Bałucki, Miron [Aleksander Michaux], Maria Konopnicka, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Wiktor Gomulicki), Czech (Karel Jaromír Erben) and Russian (Konstantin Balmont) writers, shows how the representation of such female demons evolved and provides a frame of reference for Bolesław Leśmian’s portrayal of analogous characters in his poem Dziwożona and in prose work Podlasiak from the volume entitled Klechdy polskie.