O „duchowej ojczyźnie” Marcela Reicha-Ranickiego

The aim of this paper is to present a profile of literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki (1920–2013), who lived on the borderland of three cultures: Polish, Jewish, and German. The paper attempts to reconstruct the main phases of Reich-Ranicki’s life in Poland, including an analysis of the critic’s interests and opinions about Polish literature, as well as his concept of a ‘spiritual homeland’. The status of M. Reich is studied in relation to the category of the alien commonly encountered in the discourse of the humanities. Reich’s strangeness is presented in three dimensions: space, culture and mentality. The paper also proves that it was the trauma of the Holocaust that had exerted the major impact on Reich-Ranicki’s personal memories and accounts.