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Tadeusz Różewicz and Modern Identity in Poland since the Second World War
As Andrzej Mencwel observed, “as a result of fundamental historical changes” the need arises for “restructuring of the whole present memory and tradition system” (Rodzinna Europa po raz pierwszy). Changes of such significance took place in Poland during the Second World War and several following decades. Collective experience of that time was made up of – apart from political antagonisms – social and cultural phenomena such as change of elites, reinterpretation of their grand narratives (or symbolic world), the ultimate inclusion of the masses into the national project based on the post-gentry tradition and national history, the intensive development of urban lifestyle and the ex...
The Sound of Modern Polish Poetry
An illuminating new study of modern Polish verse in performance, offering a major reassessment of the roles of poets and poetry in twentieth-century Polish culture. WhatÕs in a voice? Why record oneself reading a poem that also exists on paper? In recent decades, scholars have sought to answer these questions, giving due credit to the art of poetry performance in the anglophone world. Now Aleksandra Kremer trains a sharp ear on modern Polish poetry, assessing the rising importance of authorial sound recordings during the tumultuous twentieth century in Eastern Europe. Kremer traces the adoption by key Polish poets of performance practices intimately tied to new media. In Polish hands, tape ...
Underground Modernity
The literary scholar Alfrun Kliems explores the aesthetic strategies of Eastern European underground literature, art, film and music in the decades before and after the fall of communism, ranging from the ‘father’ of Prague Underground, Egon Bondy, to the neo-Dada Club of Polish Losers in Berlin. The works she considers are "underground" in the sense that they were produced illegally, or were received as subversive after the regimes had fallen. Her study challenges common notions of ‘Underground’ as an umbrella term for nonconformism. Rather, it depicts it as a sociopoetic reflection of modernity, intimately linked to urban settings, with tropes and aesthetic procedures related to Su...
Polish Flows
The contributors attempt to describe Polish rivers and lakes as a nexus of narratives about nature culture, pointing out those elements of the story around which scientific, political, media, social and ecological narratives are created. All of them influence the shape of reflection on the water ecosystem and its function in Polish education. The authors recreate old and contemporary Polish mythmaking narratives about Polish rivers and lakes and, by proposing a critical reading of them, try to develop new educational practices that would take into account the 21st century conditions related to the climate catastrophe. The context related to the crisis also opens up thinking about rivers to other categories (cooperation, solidarity, activism) than those that have been applicable in Polish education so far (national symbolism, utility).
The Kingdom of Insignificance
In one of the first scholarly book in English on Miron Białoszewski (1922–1983), Joanna Niżyńska illuminates the elusive prose of one of the most compelling and challenging postwar Polish writers. Niżyńska’s study, exemplary in its use of theoretical concepts, introduces English-language readers to a preeminent voice of Polish literature. Niżyńska explores how a fusion of seemingly irreconcilable qualities, such as the traumatic and the everyday, imbues Białoszewski’s writing with its idiosyncratic appeal. Białoszewski’s A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising (1977, revised 1991) describes the Poles’ heroic struggle to liberate Warsaw from Nazi occupation in 1944 as harrowing yet ordinary. His later prose represents everyday life permeated by traces of the traumatic. Niżyńska closely examines the topic of autobiography and homosexuality, showing how Białoszewski discloses his homosexuality but, paradoxically, renders it inconspicuous by hiding it in plain sight.
East Central Europe Between the Colonial and the Postcolonial in the Twentieth Century
This open access book explores the ambiguity of East Central Europe during the twentieth century, examining local contexts through a comparative and transnational reworking of theoretical models in postcolonial studies. Since the early modern period, East Central Europe has arguably been an object of imperialism. However, at the same time East Central European states have been seen to be colonial actors, with individuals from the region often associating themselves with colonial discourses in extra-European contexts. Spanning a broad time period until after the Second World War and covering the governance of Communism and its legacies, the book examines how cultural and literary narratives from East Central Europe have created and revised historical knowledge, making use of collective memory to feed into identity models.
Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction
The Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction aims to increase the visibility and show the versatility of works from East-Central European countries. It is the first encyclopedic work to bridge the gap between the literary production of countries that are considered to be main sites of the Holocaust and their recognition in international academic and public discourse. It contains over 100 entries offering not only facts about the content and motifs but also pointing out the characteristic fictional features of each work and its meaning for academic discourse and wider reception in the country of origin and abroad. The publication will appeal to the academic and broader public i...
Contemporary European Crime Fiction
This book represents the first extended consideration of contemporary crime fiction as a European phenomenon. Understanding crime fiction in its broadest sense, as a transmedia practice, and offering unique insights into this practice in specific European countries and as a genuinely transcontinental endeavour, this book argues that the distinctiveness of the form can be found in its related historical and political inquiries. It asks how the genre’s excavation of Europe’s history of violence and protest in the twentieth century is informed by contemporary political questions. It also considers how the genre’s progressive reimagining of new identities forged at the crossroads of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality is offset by its bleaker assessment of the corrosive effects of entrenched social inequalities, political corruption, and state violence. The result is a rich, vibrant collection that shows how crime fiction can help us better understand the complex relationship between Europe’s past, present, and future. Seven chapters are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
