Dwie „Zemsty” Bohdana Korzeniewskiego

This article discusses the history of Bohdan Korzeniewski’s work on Aleksander Fredro’s Revenge[Zemsta] at Teatr Polski in Warsaw from 1951 into 1952. When the theater director took over the management of Teatr Narodowy, rehearsals were halted. The author documents the traces of the unrealized production in order to juxtapose it with Korzeniewski’s 1953 staging of Revenge at Teatr Narodowy – not with the aim of reconstructing the former, but to investigate the latter and Korzeniowski’s approach to Fredro’s comedy more generally. The perspective of cultural poetics (cultural history of theater) reveals Korzeniewski’s strategies and games, and, more generally, the functioning of Polish theater artists under Stalinism. Engaging with speculative history enables a nuanced look at Korzeniewski’s biography.