In 1975, summarising mountain themes in Polish literature, Kolbuszewski emphasised that, through several literary generations, the mountains had become an important cultural factor. It is significant, however, that an expert on mountain issues in literature writes with a reserve about the “socalled mountain literature” (Kolbuszewski 1975: 41). The researcher distances himself from the popular term which integrates the milieu of “professionals” (mountaineers, climbers, mountain people), but is less useful for literary scholars due to its imprecision. At the same time, he emphasizes the significance of the phenomenon. According to Kolbuszewski, literature on mountains is not isolated from the main development trends of Polish literature but has a substantial share in them (Kolbuszewski 1975: 41).
Particularly in his earlier works, Kolbuszewski emphasised categories such as motif, theme, image of mountains in literature, and wrote mainly about “literature about the Tatras” (Kolbuszewski 1992: XXII; 1982). Following these findings, by analo gy, one would have to use the term “literature about mountains,” or write about mountain themes in literature. However, from the perspective of contemporary mountain studies,such terms seem inadequate, as they suggest a methodological limitation (with regard to thematology research).
Less dubious, according to Kolbuszewski, are the narrower terms denoting works written by climbers: literature related to tourism in the Tatra Mountains and in the Alps. He notes that mountaineering literature started to emerge in the first half of the 20th century, when the community of mountaineers became more and more numerous, although it was still connected with the intellectual ethos and a certain elitism. The process is documented by the anthology of mountaineering prose Czarny szczyt [Black Peak](Kolbuszewski 1976), edited by Kolbuszewski. He writes the following about this “professional” climbing literary work and its relationship to literature:
The mountaineering environment grew in numbers, but became more hermetic and closed, while literary creativity was actually limited to intraprofessional circulation, which did not prevent it from reacting vividly to the phenomena occurring in “official” literature. Hence, all the “-isms” that existed in “the grand literature,” such as expressionism (Jan Humpola), psychologism (Wincenty Birkenmajer), constructivism (Wiesław Stanisławski), avantgarde tendencies (Jan Alfred Szczepański), catastrophism (Wiesław Stanisławski), and vitalism (Zdzisław Dąbrowski), were manifestly and promptly reflected in the professional works on Tatra Mountains. At the same time, however, moun-taineers themselves treated literary creativity as “a path beside the path” – as a secondary and not the most important aspect accompanying the main con-tent and the sense of their endeavours, that is, climbing, which was considered by some to be the selfrealisation and creativity par excellence (Jan Alfred Szczepański). Hence, a new kind of aestheticism appeared in mountaineering itself, while a kind of perfectionism appeared in literary works, which – and of course thanks to the literary talents of such mountaineers as Stanisławski and Birknemajer – resulted in works of great artistic merit […]. (Kolbuszewski 1992: LIX).