Savage Mnemosyne is a meditation on different kinds of memory – one of the central ideas in several essays by Krzysztof Czyżewski. To quote the author himself: Over the past months, I have written extensively about memory. Santayana’s assertion—“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”—inscribed on the wall at Auschwitz, proves to be insufficient. Much depends on how we remember. Our world, and ourselves, are destroyed by harmful remembering. I find myself reflecting on the practices of good remembering. Writing about my encounter with Grotowski, I focus on remembering oneself. In my essay Rilke/Huelle: The Poetic Art of Geomancy, I meet wanderers who, along a path traced by memory, grow into becoming a Poet. In the introduction to the book The Great Successes of Small Theaters, I uncover the significance of remembering micro-phenomena, which—through the heartfelt densification of space—restore to us a night free from artificial light, allowing us to perceive the tiniest stars, scattering their glow in the deepest corners of darkness. Finally comes Savage Mnemosyne, a meditation on the culture of memory, in which I am thinking about various dimensions of the phrase “forget this for me.”
To find the essay by Krzysztof Czyżewski, see here.
Savage Mnemosyne: an essay by Krzysztof Czyżewski in the Arrowsmith Journal
Jan. 27, 2026, 6 p.m.
Krzysztof Czyżewski has had his contribution to the new edition of the Arrowsmith Journal.