,,Październik skończył się w listopadzie". Janusza Krasińskiego gra z cenzurą

Abstract

After being released from communist prison as a result of 1956 amnesty, Janusz Krasiński debuted as a poet and writer of short stories which he considered a testimony to what he and the public had experienced in the time of communist terror. The price to publish his prison short stories, already delayed due to the objections of the censorship, was the change of the setting for Spain and the time of the plot for the period of repression enforced by the victorious General Franco. The analysis of these changes, as to the volume and number extremely modest, enables to form some conclusions pertaining to literary theory and morality. The first one relates to the composition of a literary work and encourages to ponder upon the semantic stability of a literary work. In the case of Krasiński's prison short stories it was enough to change some names and a few expressions to produce items completely contrary to the author's life experiences and beliefs. The moral issue relates to the question whether in the People's Republic of Poland a chance to have ones works published justified any possible concession towards censorship, every tactic to circumvent its true or presumable objections. In his novel Powerlessness [Niemoc], published after the censorship in Poland had been abolished, the writer introduced an autobiographical motif related to the publishing of his short stories; he openly regrets having made the concessions in the past.