Fałszywy mesjasz. O jednym toposie żydowskim w twórczości Juliana Stryjkowskiego

The study on the false messiah is a presentation of Julian Stryjkowski’s literary activity through one literary prism, and simultaneously an attempt at approaching its most important context, namely Jewish literature, theology, and culture. The first part of the paper is devoted to specifying the border character of Stryjkowski’s writings. It also shows the richness of messiah topics in XX century Jewish literature as well as the essence and history of Jewish messianism. The second part of the paper is interpretative. The collected material allows to formulate the following conclusions: 1) the false messiah is the meeting point for all important plots of Stryjkowski’s writings; 2) the intertextual dialogue is kept mainly with Jewish literature and culture; 3) the messianism, in the writer’s view, always leads to a failure, and in the final analysis contributes to a man’s constraint, and even to a totalitarian captivation.