Not Much Has Been Written about the Mountains… On the Subject of Mountain Studies

The researcher notes that the process of distinguishing mountaineering literature from the framework of literature (as a separate literary phenomenon) coincides with the process of the formation of mountaineering as “a specific, specialised form of human activity in the mountains” (Kolbuszewski 1981: 57). Unlike mountain literature, it is therefore a young, 19th- and 20th-century phenomenon (Kolbuszewski 1981: 57). Kolbuszewski regrets that mountaineering literature has not attracted the interest of literary criticism, too:

Scientific literary studies do not see the need to distinguish mountaineering literature, only occasionally, when prompted by the issues of greater importance for the national culture, taking up the notion of mountain literature (hence it is no coincidence that much nonsense has been written in our country about Asnyk, Witkiewicz, Nowicki or Tetmajer). The subject of separate studies of mountaineering literature in Poland has thus far not been a subject of study, whereas in Alpine countries it is understood as a manifestation of a mature form of mountain literature development. (Kolbuszewski 1981: 63-64).

In the conclusion of his 1978 work, the researcher writes about the need for a “bibliography of Polish mountain and mountaineering literature” (Kolbuszewski 1981: 66).

In his later works, Kolbuszewski returns to the problem of mountain literature, noting that the singling out of this type of writing (increasingly common in the 21st century) is done for more pragmatic than strictly academic reasons. For him, the growing popularity of the term in the readers’ circles, in bookshops and among mountain people is not a sufficient and convincing argument. As he states:

Colloquially, mountain literature is understood as a variety of openended professional narratives related to mountain themes and geared towards public reception. I do not like and do not use this name, […] it is a broad-brush term under which all sorts phenomena are included: fiction and various genres of applied literature, creating specificclassification systems ad hoc. Systems to which I would critically refer as literary folklore. When dealing with literature, the history of literature, I systematise things using a few basic categories: theme, motif, literary genre – their function and the way they enter into circulation, that is, to whom the works in question are addressed, how, by whom and why they are read, and how they have a social impact. I therefore prefer to talk about mountain themes in literature. (Kolbuszewski 2019b: 82) [9].

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[9] Quoted from Mirek (2020