Cenzura na gruzach. Szkice o literackich świadectwach życia w PRL-u

Abstract

The premise of the book is to assert censorship (both institutional and self-censorship) as a fundamental element of the Polish People's Republic's cultural universe. The issue of censorship is not treated here as a field of research for a handful of scholars specializing in archival investigations, but as an issue that is essential for everyone with an interest in research on literature and other creative activities in the People's Republic of Poland. Moreover, in this book thinking about censorship as a means of control over all kinds of public statements is connected with the issue of tabooization. Acts of censorship (which were not allowed to be officially commented on) in some way simulated or institutionalized the mechanisms of cultural taboo. By preventing the publication of content marked as prohibited and by not allowing the public to see and criticize such decisions, censorship imposed the impression of a general consensus on what the society ought to be silent about. It also encouraged the perpetuation of genuine taboos and generated quasi-censorship practices where official control of speech did not reach (publications in exile, second circulation). Another important concern is the issue of tabooization developing as a result of years of censorship or its residuum internalized by the authors working under its shadow. The issues ranging from censorship to taboo include, among others, the problem of Polish anti-Semitism, which is discussed in connection with the campaign to illuminate the dark sides of Polish history (Chapter XI). Research on the People's Republic of Poland, profiled in this way, is important not only because of the concern for organizing the growing body of scientific knowledge. It is also key to recognizing the cultural heritage that has been given to all of us, including those who do not want to or cannot remember the Polish People's Republic. This burden still hinders our thinking and actions. The approach presented here emphasizes the multi-faceted impact of censorship practices, their often pivotal influence on the shape of literary canon (Chapter III), individual texts, the fate of writers and their works, interpersonal relations, societal divisions as well as collective notions about the historical past and national, civic and ethnic identity. Migration is one of the most important themes of this book, not only because it centers on writers whose biographies have been deeply affected by this experience (Paweł Jasienica, Tadeusz Konwicki, Eugeniusz Paukszta, Stanisław Cat-Mackiewicz, Leopold Tyrmand, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz). A more important reason is the inherent flaw of the origins of the Polish People's Republic, a country created as a result of the territorial shift of Poland to the west. It entailed displacement of a significant number of people from the former eastern borderlands, the "taken away lands" (the term was consistently censored), to new western borderlands – the "regained lands" (for migrations related to new Polish borders see chapters VI, VII, X). For many Poles who escaped the war, the argument not to return to the country lied in the fate of their small homelands, which found themselves outside the borders of post-Yalta Poland. One of the main tasks of the Polish People's Republic's censorship was to conceal the fact that the country had weak geopolitical foundations, as a result of which nobody felt secure, including the people in power (chapter II). The shaken sense of ownership, and thus of identity, is reflected, among others, in the worldviews of multi-national inhabitants of today's Podlasie, a region whose complicated history (e.g., exile in 1915, Soviet invasion in 1939, anti-Semitic acts during the German occupation, independence guerrilla warfare) was not suitable to be told in the Polish People's Republic without far-reaching propaganda and censorial misrepresentations. Chapters XI, XII, XIII are devoted to these regional issues. The author is less interested in censorship as an instrument of oppression than in its role as the mechanism and process of cultural creation. Hence, in selecting certain writers as protagonists of a handful of essays collected here, the author is not limited to analyzing their approaches to, skirmishes, or simply dealings with censorship. Instead, a great attention is given to the turning points in the writers’ careers or biographies, in which censorship played an important role, whatever it may be. Similarly, when the author reaches for specific literary texts (Jasienica's book on the January Uprising – Chapter IV, Rojsta by Tadeusz Konwicki – Chapter V), she demonstrates not only how censorship devastated them, but also how the pressure of censorship led to the multiplication of versions of the texts, which poses a difficult task for today’s editors of literature originally published under the communist regime. When addressing the issue of censorship of the memory of the national past – the case of the Warsaw Uprising (Chapter XIV) – the author did not only focus on the symbolic violence perpetrated by the authorities, but also pointed to the phenomenon of split forms and scenarios for commemorating the August anniversary. The censorship not only made sure that the officially sanctioned story of the Warsaw Uprising corresponded to the interests of the ruling party, but also indirectly influenced the collective counter-story. Thus, censorship was an instrument meant to discipline and keep the post-war congregation of people in check, but it also contributed to anarchizing – in its own fashion – public and literary life, and to the confusion in the national imaginarium.