Reflections on the Reflections. A few thoughts on the Polish motifs in “The Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man” by Thomas Mann

Abstract

The following article should be read as marginalia to the Polish translation of the monumental work Thomas Mann’s The Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man, published in 2022. The focus lies on the mentions of Poland in the work. Using selected quotations, the political discourse and important figures of the political as well as literary scene of the time can be examined more precisely. For example, the cultural-political journalist Carl Jentsch and the West-Prussian writer Bogumil Golz, who wrote an ethnographic study about the Germans in the 1860s. Attention is drawn to opinions that may have influenced Mann’s views at the time. What else is discussed in these marginalia are Mann’s statements about the Prussian electoral reform and passages in his work, that proved somewhat problematic for a Polish translator. In addition, the author looks briefly at the acceptance of the Reflections in Poland, as well as its general attitude towards Mann’s oeuvre from the time of the First World War.