Abstract
This article explores the construction and various representations of Polish collective suffering and victimhood in Polish literature. It argues that the loss of independence (1795–1918) and the subsequent struggles to regain it can be read as Poland’s most important cultural trauma that heavily marked Polish identity. It discusses how the paradigm was created and established, as well as the unsuccessful struggle with the paradigm of suffering over the subsequent years. Overall, it argues that literature after 1945 lost its power over the national imagination as Polish identity is no longer bound by the past representations of suffering.
The text of this article is only available as a PDF.
Copyright 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
2019
You do not currently have access to this content.