Między powieścią i cyklem. Temat wojny i okupacji w polskiej prozie lat 1944-1948

Abstract

The aim of the article is to describe the first literary response to the Second World War and the Nazi occupation. This is done from a genre perspective and the texts under discussion combine the features of a novel and a narrative cycle. The author examines the best, most important and most representative books from 1944-1948 (The Night by Andrzejewski, The Unmoved Landscape by Filipowicz, From the Land of the Dead by Żukrowski, The Great Shadow by Pytlkowski, O, Holy Ball by Putrament). The main categories analysed in these novels are time, subject and character. The first two ones allow the writer to say how the war determines a time sequence of a story and its subject (September 1939, concentration camps, the Ghetto Uprising, The Warsaw Uprising). The character (his existence and participation in a narration) is a category which helps to distinguish the prose depicting the war experience as a whole. The difference between a novel and a cycle seems to be a natural context for such a presentation.