The Shadow of the Father

Zofia Kossak, a leading Catholic Polish novelist, in a critical analysis of Dobraczynski's writing says:".......Dobraczynski's works are characterised by a profound approach to fundamental problems. None of his stories has been written solely for the sake of the color of the narrative, the current significance of the theme or a desire to show off his knowledge of the subject. In all his great literary leaps, across centuries and nations - from St Paul to John Hus, or Joan of Arc, from Biblical times to the Warsaw Rising, from the Gospel times to the Napoleonic wars, or the German occupation of Poland - he always and constantly devotes to the desire to find and stress the true relationship of man to God and of God to man. God and man - these two uniquely immortal values in the universe, so terrifyingly distant from each other and so mutually indispensable and close - fill every page of Dobraczynski's stories irrespective of the theme. There is no anachronism in this, since this age-old problem has occupied human minds from the earliest days of their existence."