At the turn of the 20th century, the territory of Poland was divided among Prussia, Russia and Austria. Despite serious political problems, literary and artistic life blossomed in two largest centres of Polish culture, Krakow and Lviv, which then belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy. The paper analyses Karl Kraus’ Die Fackel, the only literary journal in the Austrian Empire that attempted to present the Viennese intellectuals with the samples of lavish Polish culture of that time. The study shows that Kraus’ choice fell solely on the texts originally published in German, i.e. the works of Przybyszewski and Rittner’s theatre criticism. Kraus also mentioned his close friend Janikowski, a journalist from Krakow’s bohemian circles, but did not refer to his works. Die Fackel clearly failed to present the full spectrum of Polish modernism, mainly due to a language barrier and lack of German translations. From the perspective of early 20th century Vienna, Polish literature seemed peripheral.