Jadwiga i Barbara – rola kobiety w narodowotwórczym zapominaniu. Historyczne opowieści w dramatach Mariana Pankowskiego

Abstract

Focusing on omissions and erasures, the author discusses the Benedict Anderson’s idea of nation as an imagined community in the context of history of Poland and its Eastern neighbors. Many critics argue that common memory, which constitutes an imagined community, comprises historical facts, stories and narrations. However, members of this community share also a tendency to remove or omit the same facts, stories and narrations – thus the community is formed by both common memory and common forgetting. Two historical plays by Marian Pankowski – Śmierć białej pończochy and Zygmunt August – provide the author of this text with examples that help to discuss the omissions and erasures which are specific for the Polish culture.