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Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
Академия специальной педагогики им. Марии Гжегожевской, Варшава, Польша Институт философии и социологии PhD по социологии
The Maria Grzegorzewska University, Warsaw, Poland Institute of Sociology and Philosophy PhD in Sociology mcobelto@gmail. com
ЛИТЕРАТУРА И ПАМЯТЬ: ПОСЛЕДНЕЕ ПОКОЛЕНИЕ ПОЛЬСКОЙ НАРОДНОЙ РЕСПУБЛИКИ
В настоящей статье рассматривается чувство ностальгии, проявившееся у представителей последнего поколения Польской Народной Республики, на примере трех изданных в последние годы книг: серии комиксов Мажены Совы «Мажи», эссе Паулины Вильк «Особые приметы» и сборника рассказов Виолетты Гжегожевской «Гугулы».
Теоретической основой для рассуждений на тему памяти о ПНР стали среди прочего исследования Гренбецкой (2. Ог^Ьеска), Ныча (Я. Кус2), Низиолек (К. М2ю1ек). В работе используются также рецензии на вышеупомянутые книги и публикации о способах представления условий жизни в ПНР в литературе для детей и подростков (К. Gajewski).
Последним поколением ПНР называют людей, родившихся в 1970-х - начале 1980-х гг. Память об их детстве, проведенном в ПНР, несопоставима с памятью других поколений. Специфика этой памяти представлена в статье на примере трех публикаций, различных по своей цели. Комикс Мажены Совы имеет образовательные функции: это издание, впервые появившееся на Западе, чтобы познакомить читателей с экзотическим для них миром за железным занавесом. Книга Паулины Вильк была классифицирована как публицистичная попытка автопортрета поколения. В свою очередь, рассказы Виолетты Гжегожевской отличаются высокой литературной ценностью, рисуют неочевидный образ детства в польской провинции.
На основании анализа этих произведений можно прийти к выводу, что способ представления
ПНР в литературе не совпадает со стереотипными образами, становится многоплановым и неоднозначным. Коллективная память последнего поколения ПНР базируется на индивидуальных воспоминаниях, что можно наблюдать в текстах, обсуждаемых в статье.
Ключевые слова: ПНР, ностальгия, прошлое, память, литература, социология литературы, 66 социология детства, биографическая память, социология объектов.
LITERATURE AND MEMORY: THE LAST GENERATION OF THE POLISH PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC*
The article focuses on nostalgia in the last generation of the Polish People's Republic (Polska Rzec-zpospolita Ludowa - PRL). I will present its specificity on the example of three books published in recent years: a comic book about Marzi by Marzena Sowa (br. 1979), a book by Paulina Wilk (br. 1980) entitled Znaki szczególne [Distinguishing Marks], and a book by Wioletta Grzegorzewska (br. 1974) entitled Guguly [Unripe Fruit].
The research of the memory of the PRL is based on the works of Z. Gr^becka, R. Nycz, K. Niziolek. I analyze book reviews and articles on the reception of everyday life in PRL in children and adolescent literature (K. Gajewski).
For the purposes of this text I called individuals (Polish citizens) born in the 1970s and early 1980s,
| 3 (36) 2019 |
Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
who entered adulthood after 1989 the "last generation of the Polish People's Republic". The memory of their childhood spent in the PRL is incomparable to the memory of other generations. The comic book has educational functions, it is a publication that first appeared in the West to tame the local readers with the exotic world from behind the Iron Curtain. The book by Wilk has been classified as a journalistic attempt at a generational self-portrait. By contrast, Grze-gorzewska's stories have a high literary value, drawing a non-obvious portrait of childhood in the Polish province.
The analysis of the texts reveals that the representation of PRL in literature doesn't correspond with its stereotypical image. On the contrary it is depicted it in a more nuanced, complex, multi-dimensional ways. Thus, the regarded texts show that collective memory of the last generation of PRL ('memory of thirty-year-olds') is based in individual reminiscences.
Key words: Polish People's Republic, PRL, nostalgia, past, memory, literature, sociology of the literature, sociology of childhood, biographical memory, sociology of objects.
Introduction
"Our memory [...], the memory of everyone who experienced the PRL1, seems to be permanently divided [...]. It seems that anywhere, where - as in the case of cultural memory and culture in general - we cannot distinguish bare facts from their value and meanings (to distinguish things that happened from the things that actually happened), where we are unable to determine, what was that, that was, it is where the bond of the individual and the common does not create a homogenous whole, but rather something that cannot be easily untangled, the Gordian knot. Thus, the goal is to provide a scrupulous, careful description of the individual, idiosyncratic strands that this knot of collective memory is composed of [...]. One could expect that this task would be much easier for those, who did not actually experience
* This is an English modified version of the article: Cobel-Tokarska M. Ostatnie pokolenie PRL: pamiqc "trzydziestolatkow" // Socjologia czasu, kultury i ubostwa / Ed. by Gorniak K., Kanasz T., Pasamon-ikB., Zalewska J. Warsaw: APS, 2015.
1 Pol. abbrev. of Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, Eng. The Polish People's Republic.
the PRL, and the memory of that time is, at most, a bundle of childhood memories"2.
Such a bundle of childhood memories, i.e. the memory of childhood in the last decade of the 67 PRL, as expressed today in the texts of symbolic culture processed artistically in books and comic books, will be the topic of the present article. It is the memory of a pretty specific post-war generation, i.e. the generation of 'thirty-year-olds'. I will use the notion 'thirty-year-olds' in this text in single quotation marks, as the notion itself is, in a sense, arbitrary. This is because the term, as I use it, covers individuals born in the 1970s and early 1980s, who entered adulthood after 1989, which means that it will also include individuals now approaching their forties.
The issue seems interesting, especially for me, as a representative of the above mentioned group. Even more so, as the problem in question is not so well-researched. Czeslaw Robotycki3 takes
2 Nycz R. PRL: pami^c podzielona, spoleczenstwo przesiedlone // Teksty Drugie. 2003. № 3. P. 6.
3 Robotycki Cz. Pami^c o PRL - antropolog wobec
doswiadczenia przeszlosci wlasnej kultury // Kontek-
sty. 2003. № 3-4 (262-263).
| 3 (36) 2019 |
Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
up the issue of the PRL memory. He points to one important regularity, i.e. anyone who lived in this now non-existent country for at least a couple of years will definitely have a personal, indisputable opinion about it; indisputable, because it is based on their truly own life experience. In the case of individuals who lived in the PRL as adults, this has certain significant implications, e.g. related to the moral judgements of either their own involvement in the communist system, or the involvement of others, or in the fight against that system4. So, what about the memory of those who only experienced the PRL as children?
Research papers, debates in the press, collections of polemics on the issue of "settling accounts with communism", and recollections of the PRL, such as the book entitled Spór o PRL [The Dispute on the PRL] published in 1996, authored by the most prominent Polish intellectuals, aimed at understanding the phenomenon of the bygone era, overlook - in a self-evident way - the youngest generation born in the PRL. Scholars interested in social history provide descriptions of the youth of the 1980s quite readily5. However, the children of the era - and this does not necessarily refer to the above-mentioned decade, but to the PRL per se - are rather in the realm of interest of pedagogy scholars, who analyse the problems of social care institutions or the press for children from a histor-
4 Kersten K. Bilans zamkniçcia // Spôr o PRL / Ed. by Fik M. et al. Krakôw: Znak. 1996.
5 Kosinski K. Nastolatki '81. Swiadomosc mlodziezy w epoce „Solidarnosci". Warszawa: TRIO. 2002; Kosinski K. Oficjalne i prywatne zycie mlodziezy w PRL. Warszawa: TRIO. 2006; Olejniczak-Szukala W. Obraz polskiej mlodziezy lat osiemdziesi^tych w swie-tle prasy mlodziezowej // Doctoral thesis, manuscript / Poznan: Wydzial Historyczny UAM, 2012.
ical perspective6. Those who in the 1980s barely attended primary schools, and had no real influence on the situation in the country, are not seen as having had any agency, and - as such - have rather been overlooked by sociologists. When it comes to other research perspectives, there is one interesting publication from the discipline of literary studies by Padula7 on young Polish literature and the 'literary generation'; however, the author, in the publication, does not take up the question of the childhood of the authors she analyses. I assume, for the purposes of this text, that we are unable to draw a definite line between children and the youth. According to Kosela8: "it is widely accepted in social sciences that adolescence covers the period from the beginning of puberty to attaining social maturity. There are, however, certain problems in determining the said period precisely. 68 The amount of time one belongs to the group defined as the youth is not identical from person to person". If so, let us assume that, from time to time, we will cross this fuzzy 'borderline'. What is interesting, in the above quoted Encklopedia soc-
6 Kolakowski A. Reorientacja celow wychowania dzieci osieroconych w Polsce po II wojnie swiatowej w swietle czasopismiennictwa pedagogicznego PRL // Przegl^d Pedagogiczny 2012. № 1; Ossowska-Zwierzchowska A. Swiat dzieci w ich wypowiedziach na lamach "Plomyczka"z okresu PRL // Przegl^d Pedagogiczny. 2012. № 1; Grzybowski R. Socjalizacja w cieniu konfliktu. Sytuacja wychowawcza dzieci i mlodziezy w Polsce w latach rz^dow Wladyslawa Gomul-ki (1956-1970) // Przegl^d Pedagogiczny. 2012. № 1. Et al.
7 Padula J. Proza pokolenia rocznikow 70 i 80 XX wieku w Polsce. Wybrane zagadnienia, master's thesis. Uniwersytet Pedagogiczny. Krakow, 2012 // URL: www.up.krakow.pl/polski/downloads/0408937001361 620049.pdf (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
8 Kosela K. Mlodziez // Encyklopedia socjologii. T. 2.
Warsaw: Oficyna Naukowa, 1999. P. 253.
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Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
jologii [Encyclopaedia of Sociology], one can find the entry mlodziez [the youth], but the entries dziecko [child] or dziecinstwo [childhood] are missing.
Nevertheless, the above-mentioned group is rather specific. Their experience of life and socialization at the turn of two epochs and two worlds cannot be compared to any other experience. One should ask oneself a question whether it is justifiable to use the term generation in this particular case, at all; the term, which in sociology, has a very precise definition.
"Individuals born towards the end of the 1970s and at the beginning of the 1980s have a common characteristic, i.e. they emphasize their personal independence and distance themselves from generational generalisations. [...] Can we even refer to a heterogenous group of Poles as a generation? What is the underlying difference of the youngest generation of the PRL, and can we even state that this generation is so different from the previous ones? [...]"9. One can assume that generation is "a set of young individuals who undergo similar processes of socialisation in a certain specific historical period, who create a distinctive conceptual framework, through which they view the world around them, define their own identity, and which is instrumental in determining their life choices and defining the current situa-tion"10. The term in question also covers "the worldview unity", "the common worldview, which provides the foundation for intra-
9 Padula J. Proza pokolenia roczników 7G i SG XX wieku w Polsce. Wybrane zagadnienia, master's thesis. Uniwersytet Pedagogiczny, Kraków, 2Gi2 // URL: www.up.krakow.pl/polski/downloads/0408937001361 620049.pdf (дата обращения 30.06.2019). 1g Swida-Ziemba H. Mlodziez PRL. Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2010.
generational communication, independent from any individual differences"11. The group of today's 'thirty-year-olds' can be seen as such (as a generation), because they - without a shade of a doubt - experienced 'similar processes of socialization' in a specific period of time, strongly marked by historical processes. Determining the existence of their 'collective worldview' seems to be a far more complex issue. Most probably, there is the need for a much wider time perspective in order to analyse the said question. However, the unity of memory that childhood in the PRL provides the base of, or rather its strong artefacts present in the media discourse, seem to be such a link that justifies the usage of the term 'the last generation of the PRL'12.
11 Ibid.
12 Some authors specify where one can draw the line between this, and the previous generation. Wujec (1999) descryibes the generations of the 1960s and the early1970s, called pokolenie '89 [Generation'89], or Dzieci Przelomu [the Kids of Change]. In 1989 they were already university students, and entered adulthood in the 'new world'. They are very often described as successful people (Cf. Tadla B. Pokolenie '89 czyli dzieci PRL-u w wolnej Polsce. Warsaw: Gruner und Jahr, 2009), and their generational experience is exactly the turn of 1989. Late age groups of the 1970s and early 1980s are called pokolenie 2000 [Generation 2000], Dzieci Wolnego Rynku [The Kids of the Free Market]. According to Wujec, they are not connected by their generational experience, as the most important moment in history occurred when they were in kindergartens and primary schools. "The above generational distinction is the most faithful equivalent in the Polish context, to the distinction between Yuppies and Generation X. Even the problems are similar; however, in the case of young Poles, the onset of these problems can be identified at a much later date, and the causes are the result of a completely different socio-political situation. The economic boom and the consequent economic condition of the early 1990s resulted in the situation where unemployment was not an issue. Ten
69
| 3 (36) 2019 |
Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
They have a completely different vantage point when it comes to the past, as compared to older people. They did not experience too many bad things the PRL is famous for, and even if they did, it was not because of the communist system. The PRL was not part of their 'adult reality', where they would have to make difficult decisions and deal with the consequences of their choices. At the same time the 1980s is the only PRL they know. When mentioning childhood, they mention the PRL. These memories are important to them, as they make them the witnesses of a certain historical epoch; the epoch that people younger than them did not personally experience and will not have a chance to experience at all. The date of birth can even give a sense of superiority - 'thirty-year-olds' may reminisce about the PRL with full impunity, which means that they have the advantage over the older generation (who cannot afford to look at the PRL through the glasses of innocence), and also over the younger generation (who, in this particular context, have nothing to remember).
It is not my ambition to paint a generalised portrait of the generation in question, neither to provide a social diagnosis, nor to look for the cause and effect relationship between childhood in the PRL and attitudes in adult life. I aim at describing the phenomenon, which appears to be an interesting niche in the Polish culture, and can be a valuable trigger for the discussion on the memory of the PRL.
Narrating the memory of 'thirty-year-olds' has only just begun. This is because the Polish
years later, well-educated young people are unemployed and experience what it means to have little to no money in the modern consumerist world" (Padula J. Proza pokolenia rocznikow 70 i 80 XX wieku w Polsce. P. 35).
writers of both genders who are the members of this generation are publishing their first books; they are still very young. Even though it might seem that they do not remember much, they create and publish texts about their childhood in the 1980s, giving themselves a voice and recognising their experience as important, meaningful, and worth telling. I would like to offer here an insight into the works of three female authors: a comic book about Marzi by Marzena Sowa (br. 1979), a book by Paulina Wilk (br. 1980) entitled Znaki szczegolne [Distinguishing Marks], and a book by Wioletta Grzegorzewska (br. 1974) entitled Gug-ufy13 [Unripe Fruit]. The authors narrate the past in their highly individualistic ways: educational, journalistic, or literary. The protagonists of their books are equally: children, adults, and objects14. They mention certain things, while other things 70 are omitted. What is interesting, I think, is their picture of memory, which, solidified in culture, becomes a part of collective memory.
Analytical categories: sociology of childhood, biographical memory, sociology of objects
The sociology of childhood is one of the interesting subdisciplines of sociology15. What seems to be especially cognitively interesting, is the exclusion of family from the context of childhood, and - in addition - analysing it from other vantage points. "The idea of a child seen as a social actor and an active observer allows not only
13 The word, itself, is a regionalism.
14 Bogunia-Borowska M. Trzy bajkowe modele opisy-wania swiata spolecznego. Od swiata porz^dku dziecka przez swiat porz^dku doroslych do swiata porz^dku przedmiotow i ich zaczarowania // Dziecko we wspolczesnej kulturze medialnej / Ed. by Laciak B. Warsaw: Instytut Spraw Publicznych, 2003.
15 Erikson E. H. Dziecinstwo i spoleczenstwo. Poznan:
Rebis, 1997.
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Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
for capturing the world of childhood experiences that covers multiple areas (economic, sociopolitical, cultural, ethical, or theological), but also it allows for accounting for the barriers and constraints in social life. [...] Children account for a separate social group (or social category), which means that their interpersonal relations and children's cultures require to be considered within a research perspective delimited by their own specific characteristics that is distinct from other perspectives assuming the adult point of view. [...] Children's identity changes within the limits of political contexts of different forms of discourse, each narration - on the other hand - depicts the life of children differently"16. Within the context of our deliberations, works that depict childhood from the historical and literary perspectives seem to be especially thought-provoking17. Because the social dimension of childhood has been, for a long time, within the area of interest of pedagogy, anthropology, and other disciplines, some issues have already been well-characterised. We are most interested in the classical distinction between the two constructs of childhood, i.e. 'the idea of a child as a non-adult' and 'the idealised concept of a child'. The key idea of first construct is that a child is seen as not having the attributes typical of an adult, which the child should acquire in order to become one. [...] The second construct, on the other hand, is based upon the perception of a child
16 Ornacka K. Od socjologii do pracy socjalnej. Spoleczny fenomen dziecinstwa. Cracow: Wydawnic-two Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego, 2013. P. 9.
17 Leszczynski G. Kulturowy obraz dziecka i dziecinstwa w literaturze drugiej polowy XIX i w XX wieku. Wybrane problemy, Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2006; Mielhorski R. Topos dziecinstwa w swietle historii (ogólny zarys problemu w poezji nowoczesnej 1939-1989 // Tematy i Konteksty. 2012. № 2 (7).
as having certain positive attributes typical of his or her nature that an adult does not have"18. It seems that, in the analysed texts, both perspectives complement each other. The child protagonists of both genders suffer from both the inaccessibility to the adult world (to certain activities, or objects), but they also have an advantage over adults - they enjoy the freedom typical of childhood, which in itself cannot be overstated in the temporal context of the PRL.
Because of the fact that the analysed works are autobiographical in their nature, another important concept that has to be mentioned, is the notion of autobiographical memory. Autobiographical memory consists of experiences rather than the knowledge about the past. However, this type of memory undergoes constant changes. This
71
especially concerns the memory of childhood, _
which can be seen as a patchwork of images remembered by individuals and, indirectly, through the memories of other individuals. "Autobiographical memory is the effect of the narration created towards, or better, for others, but also through others; and in this sense other people become coauthors, or co-creators, who share at least a part of the narration, and also who incorporate these parts into their own inventory of autobiographical memory"19. When the memory of childhood of particular individuals who are related by the date of birth and by a certain unity of experience is transformed into texts of culture, then one may
18 Brzezinski W. Obraz dziecka w perspektywie histo-ryczno-porównawczej. Przeszlosc we wspólczesnosci, wspólczesnosc w przeszlosci // Przegl^d Pedagog-iczny. 2012. № 1. P. 142.
19 Kazmierska K. Pami^c biograficzna i zbiorowa a
emocje // Studia z socjologii emocji / Ed. by Czerner A., Nieroba E. Opole: Uniwersytet Opolski, 2011. P. 144.
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Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
say that they deal with the 'voice of the generation'. Individuals who see themselves as part of this generation, will consume these texts, add them to their autobiographical memory, and by reconceptualizing and reinterpreting the key elements of the message ad infinitum, they will inevitably build the framework for another chapter of collective memory. I believe that we also deal with the same mechanism described above in the case of the analysed group. The members of the group in question have been able to impose their narration about childhood in the 1980s in such a way that one is able to recognise some of its basic elements without any problems.
In today's individualistic culture, the memory of childhood in the PRL is one of the distinguishing markers, an opportunity or a pretext for establishing a social circle, a reference group. All over the Internet, small 'communes of memory' seem to appear out of nowhere. They are based upon the same generational experience. And because this is all about childhood, the experiences are related almost exclusively to everyday objects, such as Chinese erasers and pencil cases, characters from Dobranocka20, cosmetics, household appliances and items, and food products. Such a 'manifesto of the memory of a thirty-year-old' is a personal introduction to the first volume of a popular text entitled Dekady 1975-1984 [Decades 1975-1984] by Mikolaj Lizut. Lizut writes from the perspective of a child, reminiscing about 'all the high points of the show', i.e.: Cuban oranges, Teleranek21, ration chocolate (bought
20 Dobranocka (and later Wieczorynka), was a goodnight programme for children aired on the main channel of Polish Television, TVP1, from the 1950s to 2013.
21 Teleranek was a weekly (every Sunday), morning show for children aired on the main channel of Polish
with food ration stamps), problems with buying toilet paper, sweets in parcels sent from the West. There is a good example of a consciously created community of memory of everyday life in the PRL in the form of the website Born in PRL (www.inprl.pl). Other examples of comparable websites that fulfil a similar function include: mlodelata.pl [young years]22, mojecudownelata.pl [wonderful years]23, the Internet forum Polska Céntrala Mitosników Lat 80-tych [Polish Head Office of the Lovers of the 1980s] (http://forum.80s.pl), and dozens of other, more or
Television, TVP1, from 1972 to 2009. The show resumed airing in 2016.
22 Mlodelata.pl is a website for individuals that want, once again, experience unforgettable moments and 72
reminisce about good old times. The idea of the web- -
site can be best summarized by out motto: Youth is not
only Your Class [reference to Nasza-klasa.pl, Eng. Our class, which was a networking service used mostly by alumni to connect with their old schoolfriends] [...] Who does not experience a faster heart-rate when they hear such oldies but goodies such as Lambada, Bur-sztynek, or Zakazany Owoc [songs of the late 1980s, by, respectively: a French-Brazilian pop-group Kaoma, Polish kids band Fasolki, and a Polish singer, born in 1973, Krzysztof Antkowiak]. Who does not feel a light shiver when they watch for the umpteenth time movies such as Rejs, Seksmisja, Akademia Pana Kleksa, or the episodes of Alternatywy 4. Is there anybody who does not remember the taste of [the dietary supplement] Vibovit, [cocoa cream wafer bar] Kukuruku, or Donald Bubble Gum. Or, finally, who does not shed a tear when mentioning that jump over the fence as performed by Lech Walesa, the Fall of the [Berlin] Wall, or the first free elections in Poland. This website has been created for such memories exactly (http://mlodelata.pl/oserwisie).
23 Moje Cudowne Lata is a website created to bring back your memories. Refresh and share your memories about the past with others. Get inspired by the memories of others (URL: http://mojecudownelata.pl/strony /16,instrukcja-obslugi, дата обращения: 30.06.2019).
| 3 (36) 2019 |
Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
less developed Internet websites24. One can assume that the autobiographical memory of this very specific epoch that is now 'in fashion', which - by itself - makes it positively valued in popular culture25, is one of the elements that builds up identity.
Researchers enumerate the ways in which individuals deal with the matter of their biography: "memorialization of here and now - living in the past, remembering family life, ignoring past hardships and transforming them into something positive, denying the image of the past Self incompatible with the present Self"26. It seems that the easiest way to construct an attractive identity based on the memory of the PRL is through simplifying memories, and through the rejection of things that were difficult, ambiguous, and incompatible with the present Self, all of which is done in order to adjust own biography to the above mentioned fashion for funny artefacts. "To those people, too young to formulate judgements about the past political system based on their personal experience, and too young to have any retrospections of the everyday problems of the past, the PRL appears to be seen as the country of their childhood, dreamlike, unreal, distant, associated with warmth, to which there is no return. (...) To most of them, it is a virtual journey through a kind
24 Gajewski K. Od nostalgii do eksploatacji (i z pow-rotem). Rzut oka na topik^ PRL-owsk^ w tekstach kul-tury elektronicznej // Teksty Drugie. 2013b. № 3.
25 Gr^becka Z. Mi^dzy smiechem a nostalgia - powro-ty do komunistycznej przeszlosci // Popkomunizm. Doswiadczenie komunizmu a kultura popularna / Ed. by Boguslawska M., Gr^becka Z. Cracow: Libron-Filip Lohner, 2010.
26 Czempka-Wewióra M. Pami^c autobiograficzna ja-ko podstawa ksztaltowania tozsamosci na przykladach
ze wspólczesnej literatury autobiograficznej // Swiat i Slowo. 2011. № 2 (17).
of a memory land, a virtual representation of the past - says Professor Waldemar Kuligowski, a cultural studies researcher from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland - in this new narrative, the PRL appears as an animation studio, a production company, whose main responsibility was to provide them with good-night cartoons on television, and Red Westerns with Yugoslav actors. The repository of past artefacts"27. This type of 'editing' performed by the mind is even easier due to the fact that the end of the PRL coincided with the end of childhood of these individuals, and so there is no continuation of the narrative and no opportunity for verification, or developing this one-sided depiction.
It is worth highlighting, once again, that the main element of this memory is constituted by objects often described as iconic [pol.: kultowe, in 73 the sense of 'cultural' icons]. The mind of a child functions in such a way that it remembers the reality through the senses: images, tastes, smells, etc.; and, because a child lacks a proper conceptual framework, his/ her mind is unable to register much more complex elements of the reality. Hence, 'lifestyle', or 'consumption' become important interpretative categories of such recollections based around the material side of the reality. However, this may result in the risk of oversimplification, or 'flattening' the image of the epoch. This, in turn, promotes the idea that the times in question are solely defined by the strong relation between the individual and the object. Such a syn-ecdochical image of the era, reducing the PRL to a set of significant objects, supersedes the entirety of that past, complex world. The 'repository of past artefacts' becomes, in fact, the synonym for
27 Kapiszewski K. Fascynacja PRL // Przegl^d. 2012. № 37 (661). P. 8.
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the past world, and is being increasingly researched as such28.
Text analysis
Before I move on to the analysis of the above mentioned works, I will begin with a few general statements. The autobiographical narrative can, as such, develop along the two main strategies: the return to the perspective of a child and describing the past world through his/ her eyes, or confronting and describing the past from the vantage point of an adult. The authors of the above mentioned texts use both of these strategies, but in the case of Sowa and Grzegorzewska, the first strategy is used more often, while Wilk prefers the second perspective. All of the analysed authors are women, which makes it justifiable to mention another category, i.e. that of gender. Is their perspective, strictly speaking, womanly or girlish? I will develop this notion, by presenting successive texts. However, it is worth mentioning -- at this point -- that because we are discussing the issue of childhood, and not adolescence, in the case of these texts, the perspective of gender is not of the utmost importance. The way in which all of the stories are narrated is rather traditional, i.e. the authors do not employ any novel means of literary expression. All of the narratives are chronological, showing the concurrency of living and growing up, and the declining of the old political system and the beginning of the new one. Taking into consideration the fact that the memory of a child is rather fragmented in its nature, all of the works take the form of a collection of short stories, focused around specific themes, objects, and events.
2S D^browska J. Made in PRL. Wybrane przedmioty w
codziennosci Polaków lat SG // Wywoiac PRL / Ed. by
Biaious M. Biaiystok: Fundacja Uniwersytetu w
Biaiymstoku, 2011.
These are not all-encompassing novels, but rather images composed of patches of memory. Similarly, as it is really difficult to draw a specific line between childhood and youth, in the case of the discussed texts, the childhood in the PRL changes seamlessly into youth in the times of transformation. It is also important that all of the texts describe the life in the provinces. Sowa writes about the town of Stalowa Wola, Wilk writes about a nameless town at the outskirts of Warsaw, one may guess that the author describes Wesola [which is now a district of Warsaw], and Grzegorzewska, under the name of Hektary describes her home village of Rzeniszôw in the Krakow-Czçstochowa Upland. This is important in the context of the 'renaissance of localism' in modern Poland, and it constitutes granting of the symbolic value to the provinces.
Marzena Sowa and Marzi, the comic book: education
The series of autobiographical comic books by Marzena Sowa, illustrated by Sylvain Savoi were the earliest published out of the works examined in this article. The series describes the adventures of a small girl called Marzi, growing up in Poland in the 1980s. The first edition was published in French. It is a series of six volumes published by Éditions Dupuis S.A., i.e. Petite Carpe (2005); Sur la terre comme au ciel (2006); Rezystor (2007); Le Bruit des villes (2008); Pas de liberté sans solidarité (2009), and Tout va mieux... (2011). The Polish publisher, Egmont, published them in the form of a collective volume translated by the author herself, i.e. Dzieci i ryby glosu nie majq (2007), Halasy duzych miast
74
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| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
(2008), and Nie ma wolnosci bez solidarnosci (2011)29.
Despite the fact that the comic book about Marzi is not a story of any specific person, a biography, or a place, one may treat Stalowa Wola as a town that is representative of the past, provincial Poland. Apart from the story about the strike in Stalowa Wola Steelworks, which is closely related to the place (seen as a pars pro toto representation of multiple strikes that took place across various locations in Poland in the 1980s), the rest of the events evoked in the comic book concern either the macroscale, i.e. with regard to the entire country (such as the Chernobyl disaster, or the reverberations of Pope John Paul II's visits to communist Poland), or belong to the category of mi-croscale, i.e. everyday life that took almost identical shape in every place in Poland. In such a way, the housing projects [blokowiska], courtyards, and local 'self-service shops [Sam] in Stalowa Wola are depicted as the proverbial 'Middletown' of Middletown studies by Robert Staughton Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd. It is seen as a place situated very precisely within the dimension of time, and yet, when it comes to the dimension of space, located everywhere and nowhere. At the same time, what is important for the author is that the content of the comic book is consistent with historical facts. She highlights herself that while writing specific parts of the story, she has used
historical sources and research publications cited in the masthead of the latest volumes30.
The story of the comic book takes place in a small circle of the closer and further family, countless aunts, uncles, and cousins, neighbours from the block of flats and from the projects, father's colleagues from work, and female school-friends, acquaintances, and shop assistants. It has to be admitted that in terms of sociological accuracy and ethnological observations, Marzena Sowa creates a very faithful representation of the social life and attitudes of the epoch. Similarly to Stalowa Wola, Marzi is a completely average girl, who lives in an average family. Each of the individuals depicted in the story falls within the norm of a typical PRL's everyman. Marzi's childhood is also very usual, one can use the adjective typical to describe it. The story is comprised of individual 75 short stories, whose main protagonist is the girl herself. Each of these short stories is narrated around some theme which coincides with the calendar, i.e. the beginning of the schoolyear, summer holidays, national and church holidays, or First Communion. There are also 'universal' stories related to everyday life, e.g. playing with friends on the staircase, shortages of basic commodities in shops, going shopping, or pets. The two planes of memory are intertwined in the comic book. On the one hand, we have the focus on localism, and the 'immortalized' image of the re-
29 About the same comic book, see: Cobel-Tokarska M. Detství v komunistickém Polsku. Marzanna Sowa a její komiks "Marzi"// Pop & brak. Populární literatura v kontextu promen literární kultury / Ed. by Kudlác A. K.K., Studeny J. Pardubice: Univerzita Pardubice, 2014.
30 This includes both, more general studies such as the book by Paulina Codogni entitled Okrqgfy stot czyli polski Rubikon [The 1989 Round Table Talks or the Polish Rubicon], and also texts describing specific events that took place in Stalowa Wola, e.g. the two books by Dionizy Garbacz, one entitled Strajk w Stalowej Woli 22 sierpnia - 1 wrzesnia [The Stalowa Wola Strike: 22 August - 1 September 1988], the other one Ztqczyt nas protest [United by Protest].
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ality of a specific town. On the other, we are faced with the 'universal' story, as Poland abounded and still abounds in such towns or cities with their projects, a factory where 'dad works', or the countryside where you go for summer holidays to visit your grandma, as depicted by Sowa. What is important here, is what Sowa has to say about her motivations. She suggests that she wanted to depict exactly "communism of the Polish province. Not communism in Warsaw or Gdansk, but in Stalowa Wola and in the countryside"31. Hence, one may state that the author has the ambition to leave the mark in the form of her autobiographical memory on the collective memory.
In one of the interviews, the author admits that "Marzi stands for Marzena; she is me. These comic books are autobiographical. Obviously Sylvain, the illustrator, has interpreted my stories in his own way. I didn't look like Marzi when I was a child. The girl in the comicbook has huge, blue eyes that imply curiosity about the world. All of the characters look very cartoonish"32. It is hard to determine the importance of the fact that it is the story of a girl and not of a boy. Thus, it is difficult to apply the category of gender in the analysis of this particular comic book. This is due to the fact that its content generally lacks typically girlish accents. The protagonist, and other kids, are of the same age, they play together without differentiating genders. Even piercing ears, in the 1980s a
31 Fr^ckiewicz S. Wytlumaczyc im komunizm // Poli-tyka. 2012 (14 January). URL: www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kultura/1523195,2, dziewczyna-komiks-i-stan-wojenny.read (дата обращения: 30.06.2019).
32 Buczak D. Komiksowa Sowa // Wysokie obcasy.
2007. (15 October). URL: www.wysokieobcasy.pl/wysokie-obcasy/1,53581,4572982.html (дата обращения: 30.06.2019).
typically girl thing, excludes Marzi's friend only because of his mum who does not want him to have his ears pierced. Marzi herself is depicted in a quite androgynous way. She does not wear clothes that are characteristic of girls. She usually wears trousers and a t-shirt, or a turtleneck. This is why one may read these stories as a narrative about childhood, of both girls and boys, who have much more in common than not.
So, how did the comic book come to life? The author answers: "In France I was often being asked about Poland, about our traditions, and I was continuously describing my childhood. Thanks to this, while living abroad, I realised who I really was. Finally, Sylvian came to me and asked to write down my memories. He said 'You'll forget about past! Write! You will later want to tell your story to your grandkids, and 76 you'll be unable to do this'. So I started writing. I began with the story about the carp in the bathtub. It turns out that, as a person geos down the memory lane, she/ he remembers more and more. I used to wake up in the morning and had my head full of memories. So, I put a notebook by my bedside in order to be able to write down what came to my mind at any given moment. And Sylvian read my stories. Then he began to make sketches, and later he suggested to make a comic book out of the material we came up with"33.
In order to understand the story about Marzi correctly, one has to acknowledge the fact that the first edition of the comic book was published in Western Europe. The world depicted by the author was exotic and indeed belonged to a universe unknown for the original audience. What comes to mind of a careful reader is another autobiographical comic book, i.e. Persepolis by Mar-
Ibid.
33
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| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
janne Satrapi. Satrapi's main character is also a girl of a similar age to Marzi. Persepolis is written with a sarcastic sense of humour, and - in fact -its serous subject matter is treated somehow lightly. The comic book by Satrapi makes it easier for the Western audience to understand exotic Iran and the reality of life under the totalitarian regime. The main function of the comic book about Marzi is primarily educational. The front cover of the new French edition even says Pologne vue par les yeux d'une enfant, i.e. Poland as seen through a child's eyes, in order to highlight the documentary and historical character of the comic book in question. "When one picks up the comic book about Marzi, it becomes clear straight away that we deal with a true story, the story about communist Po-land"34.
Authors have become informal ambassadors of Poland in Europe, who have a popularizing mission: "twice a week, on average, we discuss Marzi and Poland: in the European Commission, during film festivals, or workshops with children"35. The comic book, mainly, tells the story about everyday life in the PRL: "some French people thought that what we were missing the most was freedom. They thought, primarily, about ideas, rather than about the practical side of life. Thanks to Marzi, they noticed that we lacked the most basic things - soap, toiled paper."36. When it comes to the 'the PRL artefacts', the comic book, apart from the obvious things (oranges, or toilet paper) evokes also the objects of a less
34 Fr^ckiewicz S. Wytlumaczyc im komunizm // Poli-tyka. 2012 (14 January). URL: www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kultura/1523195,2, dziewczyna-komiks-i-stan-wojenny.read (дата обращения: 30.06.2019).
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
'spectacular' nature. These objects are depicted with a specific kind of affection, and extend this 'repository' (e.g. hairbands made of bicycle inner tube rubber, Turkish carpets, golden earrings from the Soviet Union, etc.).
Let us try to summarize the advantages of the [visual] medium through which the story is told. First of all, the story in the form of a comic book is much easier in reception. It can also be read to children, who cannot yet read. Comics as a typical genre of popular culture, can indeed reach wider audiences. Secondly, the light form contrasts with the serious subject matter. Colour and humour both soften the gloomy mood of the times described. This is how the myth of the grey Communism reality is deconstructed. Thirdly, the visual form has specific properties. Realistic, although stylized drawings make it possible to focus 77 on the details of everyday life. The comic book in question does not abound in abstraction. What is more, the large number of details comes to the foreground thanks to the illustrations.
Sowa's retrospection needed to be supplemented with other sources of memory, i.e. the memory of her family and friends. Thanks to an interview with Sowa, we may reconstruct that process: "[My mum] still lives where she used to live, and she has the same neighbours that she had in the past. She showed them my book, and they were asking questions, such as: 'Why there's not so many of us depicted in the book?'. They reminded her of various stories: 'Do you remember this, or that?'. Sometimes I needed somebody else's memory. I very often called my parents and asked them about various details. For example, whether it was true that in 1985-86 you could see workers who were on strike on television. My parents admitted that sometimes these strikes were
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shown in Dziennik [Telewizyjny, Eng. Television Journal]37, so I included this piece of information in my story. However, now, when I was translating the story into Polish, the editor underlined that fragment, and wrote: 'Are you really sure about this?'. I am not anymore. My mum thinks that I should not bring up any political matters, as it might even be dangerous for me to do that"38.
To sum up, the comic book about Marzi is the most realistic and detailed story about childhood out of the three mentioned texts about childhood in the PRL. Despite its down to earth description of the world depicted, Sowa smuggles some magical elements related to the ways the mind of a child processes the reality, e.g. dreams, mental projections, attempts to cope with real-life problems with the help of imagination. The author was driven by her ambition to sketch a complete image of that world, and one may suggest that she succeeded in her effort. Marzi's world is described without any attempts to embellish the story. It holds true with relation to both, social and political issues, and private life. The author is sincere when she writes about not-so-good relations with her mother, or about her alienation from the adult world. Adults do not explain important events to Marzi. In the story entitled Stan strachu39 [State of
37 Dziennik Telewizyjny was the main news program on public television (aired from 1958 to 1989).
38 Buczak D. Komiksowa Sowa // Wysokie obcasy. 2007 (15 October). URL: www.wysokieobcasy.pl/wysokie-obcasy/1,53581,4572982.html (дата обращения: 30.06.2019).
39 The title, Stan strachu, is a clear reference to the
introduction of the Martial law in Poland in 1981, Pol. Stan wojenny (the period from 13 December 1981 to
22 July 1983). In the Polish language, the word stan has a number of meanings. The PWNOD states that stan may refer to: "1. A situation in which something
Fear], Marzi feels invisible, and has nobody to talk to about the issues that she does not understand, but of which she is really afraid40. The process of growing up of the narrator coincides with the "growing up" of the country at the turn of 1989/90 to become a 'free market economy', and a democracy. Thus the word transformation can be understood as both, a child growing up to become [transforming into] a young person, not yet an adult; but, it is also a socio-political metaphor: all of the citizens of the PRL can be seen as children, lacking full freedom, and social and political subjectivity.
Sowa does not create a myth of idyllic childhood. She discusses dramatic events (e.g. drowning in the pond, or father's participation in the strike); however, the blow is always softened by the use of humour. The author does not wallow 78 in nostalgia after the false illusion of the egalitari-anism of the PRL either. She describes inequalities between the children that are of the economic and social nature ("There is a girl in my classroom. Her name is Agnieszka. Her daddy lives in America and sends her a lot of nice things"41), differences in lifestyles, or different systems of values (e.g. between the families on the mother's side
is at a specific time" (an equivalent to the first meaning of the English word state, as suggested by OED). In the context of the title of this particular story, the word stan refers to both, Stan wojenny, a situation, a state "involving the suspension of ordinary law", and "Military government" (OED), but also to a particular state of mind, the fear, which it evokes in a small child unaware of what is actually going on.
40 In the 1980s, in Poland, it was a rule that children were excluded from the adult world, i. e. the world of children and that of adults were apart. Children were not privy to 'adult issues'.
41 Sowa M., Savoia S. Dzieci i ryby glosu nie maj^, Warsaw: Egmont, 2007. P. 73.
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and on the father's side). However, she also emphasises that, in the realm of microcosms such as the factory housing project, everybody lives in the exact same way. Sowa also describes the dark side of life in 1980s Poland; manly, the humiliation resultant from the 'economy of shortage', disturbing scenes in the shops or queuing at night to get some of the most basic goods (that a Westerner could buy at any time), her parents' exhaustion, and the poverty. One can consider Sowa's comic book to be the first such a complete and, all things considered, successful attempt to create a kind of compendium of knowledge about the 1980s in Poland from a child's perspective, aimed at a very wide readership; maybe, at a price of some simplifications or schematicity. What is really important, however, is the fact that Sowa actually takes up the topic of everyday life which may seem very prosaic and not worth of a separate story; after all, for the people growing up in the 1980s in Poland these things seem pretty obvious. However, Sowa's pioneering role in elevating the everyday to the rank of important in the context of literature cannot be emphasised enough - it turns out that what seemed apparently obvious and undeserving of a special place in artistic discourse, turns out to be very interesting indeed.
Znaki szczegolne by Paulina Wilk: journalism
Widely publicised book by Paulina Wilk, under the title Znaki szczegolne was first published in 2014. This is a more ambitious, but, one can suggest -- less successful attempt (in comparison to Sowa's effort) - at, not even depicting, but analysing childhood in the PRL from the current perspective. It is not, however, an artistic or literary piece. It is rather a journalistic form: a defence of a ready-made thesis on a couple of hundred
pages. Wilk is the only one, out of the three authors, that tries to provide diagnoses, extend her own experience onto the entire generation, and compare the PRL to current Poland. In a rather banal way, the author contraposes the times when everything was easier, and people were much closer to one another with today's dehumanization. It is exactly the idea for which she has been strongly criticised in the reviews. The opposition between the PRL and III RP42 in her novel, leads very often to an indiscriminate praise of the past times at a number of planes. It seems that Wilk fell for the nostalgia trap, similarly as did the authors of the blog Pogadajmy opeerelu [Let's talk about the PRL], reminiscing about the 'good-old-times' (http://polska-peerelu.blog.onet.pl/)43. It may also be possible that through this attempt, she returns to the perspective of a child44.
The literary critics recognise, however, all the hard work the author put into enumerating items on the list of 'childhood objects of desire' that were a part of their (today's thirty-year-olds) 'imaginarium'"45. However, in comparison to a
79
42 The Third Polish Republic.
43 Gajewski K. "My, mlodziez peerelowska". Kultura uczestnictwa w refleksji nad przeszlosci^ // PRL. Zycie po zyciu / Ed. by Chmielewska K., Mrozik A., Wolowiec G. Warsaw: IBL, 2013a.
44 In one of the interviews, the author explains that her generation knows the PRL only through childhood experience; and consequently "We have no reasons to feel any personal resentment against it" (Sowinska A. Dlaczego porzucilismy budyn z syropem malinowym? (rozmowa z Pauling Wilk) // Gazeta Wyborcza. 2014 (17 March). URL:
http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,15639226,Paulina_Wilk_
autorka_Znakow_szczegolnych_Dlaczego.html
(дата обращения: 30.06.2019).
45 Kiezun P. "Znaki szczegolne" nie takie szczegolne, czyli urodzeni w roku '80 // Kultura Liberalna. 2014.
№ 272. URL:
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similar list provided by Sowa, Wilk's inventory is much less detailed and less appealing to the senses. It turns out that the things that only a couple of years ago were sensational for the Western and Polish readership (Sowa and Savoia received multiple awards for their comic books), are now, in 2014, seen as much more commonplace. One of the reviewers states flatly: "Yes, and I, myself, was born in 1980. And I, too, did eat Vibovit straight from the packet, (...), and I also did like the lovely lady who taught us Russian, and who, just after one semester, was replaced with an uneducated teacher of English. The coincidence of these details is, actually, pretty impressive. (...) Thus, even more so, I would expect, from the author of a book about the generation of the transformation, something more than just a plain description of our shared past; at least in the form of asking a question 'what can be learnt from all of this?'" 46.
Nevertheless, I think that the question has been asked. Wilk, similarly to Sowa, extend her story onto the years of the transformation, but she also draws a line that connects the past with the present. The only chapter that is solely devoted to the images of the PRL, is Chapter 1 (pp. 7-25). To be precise, Znaki szczegolne, according to the promotional materials prepared by the publishing house, is a story about "how deeply rooted, all-pervasive, and unfinished, the transformation of
life in Poland still is"47. Recollections from the PRL in this context are used in a purely instrumental way. They serve as a base for a certain mental construct. In the successive chapters, focused around particular themes (travels, phones, consumption, or elections), the same pattern repeats itself: the first few pages describe the point of departure, i.e. the situation in the PRL, the rest constitutes a description of the process of change during the transformation, and today constitutes the end point. Unfortunately, "everything that the author discusses, has already been described and discussed countless times, and solidified into a cliché" 48.
Wilk really wants to highlight the importance of the intergenerational community. She situates her own generation in the gap between two worlds: "Znaki szczególne draw a cross- 80 sectional portrait of the author's generation; the author was born in 1980. The 'turning point' generation, which was the first generation that, from the beginning of entering adulthood, had to face a completely different, new world. The older generation was shifting slowly and gradually, with experiences from the 'past times' kept in mind. The 'we' from Znaki szczególne, are the ones without the baggage of the past, and who experienced the new, unknown, and constantly changing reality first-hand. The parents were 'lost' in this new reality, and, consequently, could not be 'guides' for
http://kulturaliberalna.pl/2014/03/25/znaki-szczegolne-szczegolne-urodzeni-80 (дата обращения: 30.06.2019).
46 Król Z. Na socjalistycznych podwórkach // Dwuty-
godnik. 2014. № 129. URL:
www. dwutygodnik.com/artykul/5128 -na-
socjalistycznych-podworkach.html (дата обращения
30.06.2019).
47 Wydawnictwo Literackie// URL: www.wydawnictwoliterackie.pl/ksiazka/2662/Znaki-szczegolne—Paulina-Wilk (дата доступа 30.06.2019).
48 Nowacki D. "Znaki szczegolne": Wilk przedwcze-snie portretuje pokolenie dzisiejszych trzydziestolat-kow // Gazeta Wyborcza. 2014b (18 March). URL: http: //wyborcza.pl/ 1,75475,15638987,_Znaki_szczegol ne___Wilk_przedwczesnie_portretuje.html (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
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Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
their offspring. Former habits and norms of behaviour were becoming invalid with every single day"49. This idea also came under heavy criticism. According to many critics, Wilk uses the pronoun we all too readily. Paradoxically, despite the fact that this is an autobiographical story, the book is not personal, and the author does not use the full potential of her own biography. She seems not to notice that her own experience of living in the military housing project in the town on the outskirts of Warsaw is pretty specific. Thus, due to this particular fact - unlike in the case of Sowa's story - Wilk's own experience cannot be projected onto the entire generation.
Another problem that one stumbles upon when reading Wilk's book, is what one may call the 'mythology of uravnilovka'50. Wilk does not ask the question whether everybody really was in the same situation in the PRL, even though she writes about the difference between 'this' and 'that' side of the railroad track in her hometown, or between different block of flats in the same housing project. However, the description of these differences does not bring anything new. Even when she notices that some of her friends from the neighbourhood lived in the 'slums', wore torn clothes, and later sat on benches in front of their houses as blokersi51. Wilk, in truth, does not see
49 Niedzialek M. Z pami^tnika trzydziestolatki. 2014. URL:
http://kultura.gazeta.pl/kultura/1,132860,15676200,Z_ pamietnika_trzydziestolatki.html#TRCuk (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
50 Uravnilovka is a term of Russian origin, and is used in reference to the Communist Party's policy of enforcing uniformity (complete 'evening' or 'levelling' out).
51 To use the slang word chav to refer to blokers (sin-
gular of blokersi), would be a grave oversimplification.
In fact, similarly to the multitude of culture-specific
them. She, metaphorically, looks through them as if they were invisible. She does not deepen her description, does not attempt to empathise with their situation and - finally - she does not see how privileged she is. Uravnilovka continues, also in democratic Poland, as the above-mentioned we comprises exactly the beneficiaries of the 1989 transformation52.
Thus, the book is an example of using the memory of the PRL to paint a homogenous portrait of the generation, ignoring the difference. For the author, the experience of living in the PRL is an important differentiating factor that sets apart her generation form the older and the younger generation. However, she ascribes a more important role in the formation of this generation to growing up in the times of transformation and to the tangle of events later on (the crisis)53. 81 Nowacki states that Wilk "paints the portrait of
items in language, there is no readymade equivalent for this particular word and the entire 'subculture'; even functional equivalents, such as chav, fail, as in order to understand the phenomenon of blokersi, one has to understand the socio-political situation in Poland in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including the fascination of the then-young people with hip-hop culture, and early attempts at creating [a specific, Polish kind of] rap music (Cf. Paktofonika, Kaliber 44, Molesta Ewenement, Grammatik, etc., or the documentary by Sylwester Latkowski from 2001 entitled Blokersi), art (graffiti), and so on.
52 Nowacki D. "Znaki szczegolne": Wilk przed-wczesnie portretuje pokolenie dzisiejszych trzydziestolatkow // Gazeta Wyborcza. 2014b (18 March). URL:
http://wyborcza.pl/1,75475,15638987,_Znaki_szczegol ne___Wilk_przedwczesnie_portretuje.html (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
53 Cf. The socio-economic consequences of the so-
called Balcerowicz Plan (also known as Shock Therapy).
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Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
the generation of thirty-year-olds prematurely"54 Wilk seems to realize that: "I do not create a global portrait. I have not tried to define the generation precisely, or to provide a name for it. Without a doubt, I present a story of a very narrow middle-class. Formally or in terms of the date of birth, we are not a part of any generation. People born between 1975 and 1985 have a similar, a bit dual identity; identity that is comprised partly of the memories from the PRL and partly from the memories of independent Poland, and the global world. These are people who just remembered childhood towards the end of the PRL"55. The scholar may be right, as - today - it is really hard to provide an unequivocal verdict about the life success or failure of the entire generation, which seems to be an important factor for Wilk. The author puts forth a claim that it is exactly their generational experience that forces today's thirty-year-olds to favour the Slow Movement; they start their own, client-friendly, businesses after leaving corporations, and try to return to the warm and cosy world of close-knit relationships that they remember from their childhood. It proves really difficult to confirm this claim, as many people of the similar age in the West also follow that particular route. Moreover, the Slow Movement origi-
54 Nowacki D. "Znaki szczegolne": Wilk przed-wczesnie portretuje pokolenie dzisiejszych trzydziestolatkow //Gazeta Wyborcza. 2014b (18 March). URL:
http: //wyborcza.pl/ 1,75475,15638987,_Znaki_szczegol ne___Wilk_przedwczesnie_portretuje.html (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
55 Sowinska A. Dlaczego porzucilismy budyn z sy-ropem malinowym? (rozmowa z Pauling Wilk) // Gazeta Wyborcza. 2014 (17 March). URL:
http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,15639226,Paulina_Wilk_
autorka__Znakow_szczegolnych___Dlaczego.html (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
nated in the West. Thus, this may be not so much about childhood in the PRL, but this is rather about the memory of a different world, the world before the advent of the Internet and smartphones.
What is more, the myth of generational belonging seen by the author as the factor conditioning further life, and especially career successes and failures, can be easily disproven: "I do not belong to any of these generations, as I simply do not believe that they have ever existed. They are also a creation of the story written by the few. These are not generations, but rather social milieus - metropolitan, intellectual milieus. In order to get a job in any ministry, at the beginning of the transformation, one had to be in the right place at the right time, e.g. she or he had to graduate from the right department at a good university. And then, later on, another person who graduated from 82 the same department of the same university would not be able to get a similarly good job. This is why the less successful bought into this narrative about 'generations'. Such a narrative provided an explanation of the world around them. In fact, the date of birth had nothing to do with success. Most of the young people, after 1989, had similar problems with finding work, as older people did. More important than the date of birth were factors such as: where you live, who you know, or the member of which group you are"56.
Gugufy by Wioletta Grzegorzewska: literature
The last of the discussed texts is a small collection of short stories by Wioletta Grze-
56 Wisniewska A. Wolnosc robienia zakupów. 2014. URL:
www.krytykapolityczna.pl/artykuly/opinie/20140610/ wisniewska-wolnosc-robienia-zakupow (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
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Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
gorzewska entitled Guguly (2014). The text can be categorised as high literature. Autor's talent makes the message about childhood in the PRL much deeper and ambiguous. Unlike the two previously mentioned texts by Sowa and Wilk, the reader will not find here what can be described as "the nostalgia after or the catalogue of the 1980s. The idealised perception of childhood is also not present in her texts"57. Objects, the scenery and the people that surround the author come from a slightly different world than the inhabitants of the block of flats in Stalowa Wola as seen by Sowa, or from the military project described by Wilk do. Gugufy constitutes a declaration of the difference of childhood in the countryside. In the case of the comic book about Marzi, the countryside is also present, but only in the context of summer holidays, and seen from the perspective of a guest from the outside. For Wioletka, the narrator of Gugufy, the village is the entire world. "One cannot use the marked word chtopski [peasant] that is 'alien' and originated outside of the periphery (i.e. the Polish countryside), as the word itself - as of today - has a rather (or rather altogether) pejorative connotations; one has to look for another term. The areas outside the city, the experience of the descendants of the culture of oral transmission, the space that is being shamed has its own female and male authors. Wioletta Grzegorzewska's writing is inspired by such a place of childhood that not so long ago would be seen as shameful to mention and was ignored as such by mainstream literature and the elites, whereas now it constitutes
57 Sobolewska J. Chrzçszcz^ce winniczki // Polityka. 2Gi4 (iS February). URL:
www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kultura/ksiazki/i57 G6S3, i,recenzj a-ksiazki-wioletta-grzegorzewska-guguly.read?print=true (дата обращения 3G.G6.2Gi9).
one of the main building blocks of language"58. It is important that the countryside is not treated as cepelia59, a sentimental image, a little homeland. The author describes the countryside neither as a 'fashionable' topic, nor as exotic. She simply tries to find a new language to tell her audience about experiencing the life in the countryside: "the folk culture [kultura chtopska] has been destroyed not so much by technological change introduced by the rulers of the People's Republic of Poland, but rather through shame. The children from the countryside who emancipated through education and emigration did actually erase the marks of their mothers and fathers, but did not bend under the pressure of their frowned-upon background. How to call or translate such a legacy to escape the traps of the idealizing, grotesque, or depreciatory patterns that already at one's disposal? (...) Grze- 83 gorzewska, through Gugufy, organizes a funeral reception for this broken world. The atmosphere is a bit bitter, a tiny bit sour, solemn and dignified, but the author does not, for a single moment, fall into hollow pathos or cheap sentimentality" 60.
The countryside depicted by Grzegorzewska is a lot more pre-modern than Wesola as described by Wilk. It is marked with "superstition, and, to a large degree pantheistic"61 . Time flows in cycles, and the Catholic religion in its
58 Marchewka A. Guguly. 2014. URL: www.instytutksiazki.pl/ksiazka-tygodnia,aktualnosci,31026,guguly.html (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
59 Understood as a somehow false perception of the Polish folk culture, seen through an oversimplified perspective of mass produced 'folk' objects.
60 Marchewka A. Guguly. 2014. URL: www.instytutksiazki.pl/ksiazka-tygodnia,aktualnosci,31026,guguly.html (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
61 Ibid.
| 3 (36) 2019 |
Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
folk variation is omnipresent there. Nowacki even compares this world to Reymont's Lipce. If it was not for certain details of the plot (e.g. the expected visit of the Polish Pope), these short stories could as well take place in the 1960s. One can even find the echoes of the Scandinavian books about the Six Bullerby Children [Barnen i Bullerbyn] written in the 1940s and 1950s (e.g. the story about Wioletka coming home from school through snowdrifts). At the same time, the village is not cut away from the world, consumption, and pop culture: "It's not far away from cities, you can see the main communication route of the country lingering on the horizon, the route littered with TIR trucks. The inhabitants of Hektary cannot be mistaken for uneducated peasants indeed; these are rather part-time farmers and part-time factory workers [Pol. chloporobotnicy, lit. peasant-workers], who go shopping to Katowice if they need to buy something that they cannot buy locally, and - as does the entire Poland - they also watch episodes of the TV soap entitled Escrava Isaura [Slave Isaura] and Stephanie Harper in Return to Eden"62.
It is very important that Guguly escape the trap of creating another 'list of cult objects', this time in the context of the PRL's countryside. Grzegorzewska creates an incredibly universal story about childhood; the PRL is merely the background for it. And, at the same time, unlike Wilk, the author does not, for a single moment, give in to the temptation of generalisation, and presents the reader with a very personal, and even
62 Nowacki D. "Guguly", czyli calkiem inna "Konopielka". O dziecinstwie bez horroryzacji // Gazeta Wyborcza. 2014a (11 March). URL:
http://wyborcza.pl/ 1,75475,15601825,_Guguly_czyl
i_calkiem_inna_Konopielka_O_dziecinstwie.html
(дата обращения 30.06.2019).
intimate story. "Indeed, it is a story of a very concrete Poland of the 1980s, and a very precise section of space - Wioletta Grzegorzewska transposes it onto the level of myth (...) she is interested in the basic matter of existence: home, the figures of parents and grandparents, the process of growing up, body, death"63. The entire story is woven from more or less realistic details, concrete things, descriptions appealing to the senses. The way they are constructed ideally reflects the child's sensitivity. "Because children's discoveries are very similar: vivid, earth-shaking. The memory of a child is selective, certain objects and situations - not always the most important from the point of view of an adult - are kept, while others are mercilessly erased. Similarly, for the author of Guguly - a fly on the windowpane, a walk through farm fields, the minutes spent at the PKS64 bus stop - become 84 magical. Who does not carry in themselves such
images?"65.
What does the PRL look like from the perspective of a small village of Hektary? Aleksandra Lipczak notices that big politics is only "a noise in the background, events that go around the village, e.g. the visit of the Pope John Paul II, who, instead of driving through decorated and expectant Hektary, decides to take the helicopter"66. Howev-
63 Lipczak A. Wioletta Grzegorzewska "Guguly" // Culture.pl. 2014. URL:
http://culture.pl/pl/dzielo/wioletta-grzegorzewska-guguly (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
64 Pol. Przedsiqbiorstwo Komunikacji Samochodowej (PKS), which can be translated as Motor Transport Company.
65 Majchrowska A. Dojrzale "Guguly" Wioletty Grze-gorzewskiej // Kultura Liberalna. 2014. № 282. http://kulturaliberalna.pl/2014/06/03/doj rzale-guguly-wioletty-grzegorzewskiej.
66 Lipczak A. Wioletta Grzegorzewska "Guguly" // Culture.pl. 2014. URL:
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Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
er, from time to time, this distant history influences the life of the characters depicted in the story; sometimes, in a very solemn way (Wioletka's father is imprisoned, or the school is visited by a 'sad man'67 because of the controversial artwork about Moscow). Sometimes, it is reflected in funny bits (e.g. when the grandfather laughs at converting the portrait of Józef Bem on the banknote into the portrait of Wojciech Jaruzelski, with the use of ground coffee beans).
In this respect the book is very similar to the fictionalized memoirs of other central European female authors published by Wydawnictwo Czarne: Simona Popescu, Zsuza Bánk, or Herta Müller. Communism casting shadow over Central Europe is equated here to modest living, limited consumption, virtually no mass culture (even though Wioletka has a TV at home, mass culture did not take over her imagination). The socialist school is a rather ruthless exponent of the state. Parents are close, but - at the same time - distant. You do not run to them with every single problem, but you accompany them in silence with everyday chores (helping with bird-stuffing). "The reality that is aestheticized through the poetic talent of the author is in fact so ugly that 'the eyes are cracking'"68. Moreover, it is lined with brutality and ruthlessness, which -- at the first sight - is imperceptible. The child lives her isolated life in such a world. The child who actually is not raised
http://culture.pl/pl/dzielo/wioletta-grzegorzewska-guguly (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
67 In Polish, the plural of smutny pan, i. e. smutni pan-owie is used to refer to the officers of the secret police.
68 Bratkowski P. Az p?kaj^ oczy // Newsweek. 2014.
№ 12 (17-23 March). URL: http://kultura.newsweek.pl/wioletta-grzegorzewska-guguly-ksiazki-grzegorzewskiej-newsweek-pl,artykuly,282198,1.html (дата обращения 30.06.2019).
by anybody but grows up on her own; who meanders between dangers and gets away unscathed.
These dangers are usually related to the body. Among the discussed works, in Grze-gorzewska, the importance of gender is the most visible. The experiences related to femininity are, however, negative, e.g. being sexually harassed by a doctor shows the realities of life back then very well: "when the doctor, behind the screen, unexpectedly whipped out his penis, Wiolka kicked him and run away. She did not tell about this to her mum. Many adolescent girls, in that period, can remember various advances. This was a kind of generational experience you just did not mention. Because of shame"69. This is another starting point for a story about the child's solitude in the 1980s: Wioletka decides to swallow mercury from a thermometer to solve the issue of future visits to the doctor; but she does not, for a single moment, think about talking to her mother, who, by default is on the doctor's side (on the side of the authority, an adult).
So, the memory of childhood in the PRL as served by Grzegorzewska presents the fullest image out of the three discussed texts. At the same time, it is not a memory of everyone. Due to the fact that it positions itself in the realm of high culture and because it is ambivalent, the book does not offer easy nostalgia and cannot be seen as a base for building any generational community. It rather forces the reader to deeper reflection, not only on the PRL, but on life in general. The child, the narrator of Guguly, decidedly challenges the romantic construct: she sees more, feels stronger,
69 Sobolewska J. Chrzçszcz^ce winniczki // Polityka. 2Gi4 (iS February). URL:
www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kultura/ksiazki/i57 G6S3, i,recenzj a-ksiazki-wioletta-grzegorzewska-guguly.read?print=true (дата обращения 3G.G6.2Gi9).
SS
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Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
as if she was a kind of medium that, as the only one, sees the real nature of the world.
Summary
The autobiographical books by the 'thirty-years-old' authors focusing on the 1980s constitute attempts to 'reclaim the epoch'70, to tell the story from their own perspective about their experiences that were marginalized before. Each of these attempts constitutes, simultaneously, the symbolic processing of and giving sense to memories. All the three authors create more or less nostalgic defences of the PRL, with slightly different points of focus. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The PRL in modern literature (...) means, and cannot mean anything different than childhood and young years, be it of an individual or of humanity per se. Such a perspective, by itself, provokes mythologization and compels ecstatic nostalgia"71.
Dehistoricization is also a characteristic trait of the child's vantage point. It is sometimes achieved through depicting the 1980s as a 'catalogue of objects' that is supposed to tell the story of the childhood of the 'generation'. Sometimes, it is done through naive attempts at searching a tele-ological sense in history. Sometimes, it is achieved through the myth similar to the one we find in Schulz, or Marquez, but transferred into a different scenery. Each time, the effect is the same; the 1980s are reduced to the micro-scale, to
70 Niziolek K. Odzyskac epok^. Spoleczne i artystycz-ne przetwarzanie pami^ci czasów PRL // Wywolac PRL / Ed. by Bialous M. Bialystok: Fundacja Uniwer-sytetu w Bialymstoku, 2011.
71 Gajewski K. "Ostatnie szcz^sliwe pokolenie". PRL w twórczosci Andrzeja Stasiuka // Opowiedziec PRL /
Ed. by Chmielewska K., Wolowiec G. Warsaw: IBL, 2011. P. 144.
the history of everyday life. Such an image is already widely visible in the discourse, so one may risk the assumption that - with time - it will be the dominating perspective.
It is worth adding that today's 'thirty-year-olds' - the last generation of the PRL - oftentimes have children themselves. The memory of their own childhood in the PRL becomes an element of a wider set that undergoes the process of inter-generational transmission. When confronted with today's standard of childhood, the 1980s seem to be unbelievably exotic, virtually incomprehensible. Modern children in Poland have a similar knowledge and the potential for understanding the PRL as French or Belgian readers of Marzi. This is why the educational strategy seems to come to the fore. Workshops are being organized and books are being written that aim at explaining 86 what this secret world really was like. And because these are organized for young readers, everyday life is the most important topic. Zielone pomarancze, czyli PRL dla dzieci [Green Oranges, or the PRL for Children] by Aneta Górnicka-Boratyñska72 constitutes one good example. The book has been written according to the following formula: now adult child of the PRL writes a guide around their world for their own children. The perspective of parenthood makes one to make evaluative judgements. The surprising strong nostalgia after that particular area may be an interesting theme in the reflection on childhood then and today. The belief that 'it was better in the past', in the case of childhood is in fact widespread. According to the poll carried out in April 2014 by TNS Polska, only 20% of the respondents believe
72 Górnicka-Boratynska A. Zielone pomarancze, czyli PRL dla dzieci. Warsaw: Agencja Edytorska Ezop, 2010.
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Марта ЦОБЕЛЬ-ТОКАРСКА / Marta COBEL-TOKARSKA
| Литература и память: последнее поколение Польской Народной Республики / Literature and Memory: the last Generation of the Polish People's Republic |
that the generation born in the 21st century is happier than the kids growing up in the 1970s or the 1980s73. The respondents believe that this is related to the fact that children no longer play outside (playing games such as budowanie bazy [lit. building the headquarters], kapsle [lit. bottle caps], guma [jump rope game], playing house, or playing grocery store). The memories of such games trigger strong nostalgia in the respondents. Moreover, the respondents also relate the above mentioned fact to lack of freedom and time of to-
day's children, who, from a very young age are being prepared for the rat race.
This probably means that the demand for nostalgic narratives based on the 'memory of thirty-year-olds' will not die down. One may only hope that the majority of the texts about the PRL that will appear in the future, will depict it in a more nuanced, complex, multi-dimensional ways, and only a small portion will reduce it to the stereotypical image. This is because our collective memory depends largely on the quality of autobiographical memory.
87
73 TNS Polska, Dzieci czyste czy szcz^sliwe?, 10 April 2014. URL:
www.tnsglobal.pl/coslychac/2014/04/10/dzieci-czyste-czy-szczesliwe-infografika/#more-483 (дата обращения: 30.06.2019).
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