EN
The article is devoted to an interpretation of the role of grotesque in Leszek Kolakowski’s literary creativity from the years 1956–1968, taking 13 bajek z krolestwa Lailonii dla duzych i malych (Tales from the Kingdom of Lailonia) into special consideration. Grotesque aesthetic and cognitive strategies (e.g. the unusual, play with contrasts and a clash of contradictory qualities, operating with changing motivation orders) serve as highly important means of Kolakowski’s the then philosophical thought – so-called radical rationalism, commonly known as “philosophy of a fool.”