also provides an orientation in Soviet fiction of the past two decades, the here tend to pale in comparison with the poetry and essays of Joseph Brodsky ("The Ethics of Language," 1986/1988), a writer for whom Baranczak has special kinship and one who also deals with the conundrum of East versus West. Several essays illumine the mechanisms of totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe. In "Renouncing the Contract" (1985) Baranczak applies a linguistic model of communication to a conceptual analysis ofAntonin Liehm, the Czech author who coined the phrase "New Social Contract" to describe the success of Communist rule. Inside viewsofcensorship ("Big Brother's Pencil," 1984) and the Polish Writers' Union ("The Godfather, Pt. III, Polish Sub- titles," 1988) complement an essay on Mikl6s Haraszti's Velvet Prison ("The State Artist," 1987) and an explication of the prison-letter genre perfected by Vaclav Havel ("The Absolute Horizon," 1989). Regarding the current Polish situation two essays provide particular insights. One concerns the challenges facing the Polish church in an open society (a propos An drzej Micewski's 1984 biography of Cardinal Wyszynski). Here the brevity of the review is a disadvantage. Just as the real issue emerges, the white paper appears; we see the text ending and are left wanting more. The other concerns Adam Michnik, editor ofGrzzeta Wyborexa and since his 1990 open letter on the political appropriation of the Solidarnosé logo, outspoken opponent of President Walesa. Baranczak's 1989 profile ofMichnik is a moving tribute to a friend and colleague from whom he has been separated by emigration. In light of 's struggle with democratic forms, Michnik's brilliance, integrity, and faith in pluralism take on new significance. Yet it would be incorrect to treat these essays only as an extraordinary vade-mecum to Polish culture, 1978-89. Barariczak remains first and fore- most a poet. He cites Joseph Brodsky's dictum that the poet's only obligation to society is to write well. The poignant final essay ofBreathing Under Water gives readers who may not know Baranczak's Polish poetry a glimpse of its power. Long after the analyses of Solidarity, martial law, and Lech Wa4esa have entered the archives, Baranczak's elegy to Graiyna Kuron (in "Revenge of a Mortal Hand," 1987) which closesBreathing Under Water will remain- a testimony to the indomitable human spirit, to friendship, and to the poet's art.

Theodosia S. Robertson University of Michigan, Flint

Eugeniusz Klin. Deutsch-polnische Literaturbeziehungen. Bausteine der Verständigung von der Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart. Köln, Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 1988. 187 pp.

This volume does not present a single, unified argument. Rather, it is best read as a collection of related essays, united by their subject—German-Polish literary relations-and by Klin's dedication to the branch of comparative studies known as comparative imagology, as developed by such Western critics as Hugo Dyserinck and Manfred Fischer, and by the Russian Viktor Zhirmunskii. This method concerns itself with the sources, goals and literary applications ofimages and stereotypes, particularly national and ethnic ones. In addition Klin, Like Zhirmunskii, emphasizes the social andhistorical roots of literary movements. The approach is essentially antithetical to those modern literary theories which are primarily text or linguistic oriented. As is made clear by the subtitle-"Building Blocks for Understanding from the Enlightenment to the Present"-a central concern of the book is the role of literature, and literary criticism, in any constructive discourse be- tween nations in general, and between and Poland in particular. The literary use of national images has played an especially important role in the relations between these two peoples and deserves to be examined with special sensitivity. The topic is one which appears with some regularity in Polish criticism, but which has enjoyed much less attention from German critics. (This is not the case among writers themselves; a number of prominentt German novelists and poets, including Gunter Grass, Horst Bienek, Johannes Bobrowski, Siegfried Lenz and , have focused on the question of German-Polish relations.) The book is divided into five main sections, each containing several essays; the structure of these sections varies greatly. The first, "Starting Points and New Approaches," introduces the topic of German-Polish rela- tions, attempts to place the subject in the context of comparative literature, and gives suggestions for approaching the study of texts from separate cultures. This is methodologically the most interestingsection. Part II, "Early Im pulses," presents a historical overview of the opinions and achievements of Kazimierz Brodzinski, a Polish scholar of the early nineteenth century whose writings, indebted to Goethe and Herder among others, were instrumental in creating a comparative tradition in Poland. This section would be of interest primarily to the literary historian. In Part III, "Classic-Romantic Connec- tions," Klin presents essays treating various aspects of historical interaction, including the importance of German Classicism for Polish and an account ofMickiewicz's famous visit to Goethe in Weim ar. The fourth essay in this section provides an interesting examination of the critical term Romanticism in its Polish and German usages. Section IV, "The Historical Chance," and Section V, "Decline and Re- newed Hope," are more diffuse in their contents, but because of the individual essays' greater focus and specificity, the sections contain some of the most interesting material in the book. In Part IV Klin provides a good historical overview of the so-called "Polenlieder," pro-Polish poems written by in response to the November Uprising of 1830-31. In this section he also examines the vision of Polish society offered by three nineteenth-century German travelers, and an essay on the Austrian-Moravian literary scholar Franz Thomas Bratranek who, like Brodziriski on the Polish side, functioned as a go-between and interpreter between Polish and Germanic culture.