COMPARISONS AND DISCOURSES ESSAYS ON COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND THEORY 2 BOGUSŁAW BAKUŁA COMPARISONS AND DISCOURSES ESSAYS ON COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND THEORY Edited by Emilia Kledzik _____________________________ Wydawnictwo Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne POZNAŃ 2017 PRACE INSTYTUTU FILOLOGII POLSKIEJ UNIWERSYTETU IM. ADAMA MICKIEWICZA Publication series of the Library of “Porównania. A journal on comparative literature and interdisciplinary studies”, Vol. VII Comparisons and Discourses. Essays on Comparative Literature and Theory Reviever: Dr Jakub Lipski Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz Edited by: Emilia Kledzik Translated by: Marcin Tereszewski, Marcin Turski Copyeditor: Katarzyna Kołodziejczyk Cover design: Andrzej Komendziński Typesetting: Agata Strykowska Preparation and editorial editing, translating into English 20 texts published in the journal “Porównania” in Polish – type of task: creating of English-language versions of published publications. Funded on the basis of the agreement 501/P-DUN/2016 from the funds of the Mini- stry of Science and Higher Education for the spread of science. Financing proposal preparation: Dobrochna Dabert © Copyright by Wydawnictwo „Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne”, 2017 ISBN: 978-83-65666-32-1 Wydawnictwo „Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne” ul. Fredry 10, 61-701 Poznań, Poland tel. 61 829 45 90 CONTENTS EMILIA KLEDZIK Comparisons and Discourses. Introduction .......................................... 7 PART ONE. THE CULTURE OF POSTCOLONIAL SITUATION DOROTA KOŁODZIEJCZYK Where Is a Place for Central and Eastern Europe in Postcolonial Studies? Possible Trajectories ........................................................................ 15 ANNA GAWARECKA Hodrová, Urban, Macura – a Postmodern Perception of Czech National Myths ....... 29 JACEK NOWAKOWSKI The Orient in Postwar Polish Cinema: Reconnaissance .............................. 39 PIOTR DOBROWOLSKI Deracination and Rootedness. The Drama of Shifting Borders in Polish Contemporary Theatre ............................................................................ 51 BŁAŻEJ WARKOCKI Three Waves of Homosexual Emancipation in Poland ................................ 65 PART TWO. GEOPOETICS AND NOSTALGIA LENKA NÉMETH VÍTOVÁ Re-discovering the Sudetenland in Czech Literature after 1989 ....................... 81 SYLWIA NOWAK-BAJCAR Memory and Oblivion versus the Yugoslavian Heritage. The Case of Serbian and Croatian Emigrant Literature – a Preliminary Diagnosis ............................ 95 DOBROCHNA DABERT Ostalgia and Irretrievability in Central European Cinema ........................... 111 6 Contents TOMASZ DERLATKA Vineta – the Literary “Lost Territory” of Western Slavs? Considerations Based on Case Studies of Selected Texts in Western Slavonic Literatures ....................... 127 KINGA PIOTROWIAK-JUNKIERT Of Non-Place: Spatiality in Ádám Bodor’s Fiction ................................... 139 PART THREE. CZESŁAW MIŁOSZ IN COMPARISONS MAREK WEDEMANN Between a Colony and an Empire. Miłosz and Dostoyevsky .......................... 153 AGNIESZKA CZYŻAK An Emigrant about Emigrants. Flawless Portraits of Oscar Miłosz and Josif Brodsky .. 165 ZBIGNIEW KOPEĆ Wat – Russia – Miłosz ............................................................. 179 AGATA STANKOWSKA Czesław Miłosz and Osip Mandelstam on Language and Culture: Meetings and Departures ........................................................................ 191 PART FOUR. INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN POLAND ELIZA GRZELAK The Other in Poland. Intercultural Communication in a National State ............... 209 JOANNA GRZELAK-PIASKOWSKA, EMILIA KLEDZIK Command of the Polish Language and the Integration of the Roma in Poland: an Outline ........................................................................... 223 ELŻBIETA NOWIKIEWICZ Microhistories of German-Speaking Residents of the Poznań Province vs. Geopolitics .. 235 PART FIVE. COMPARATIVE STUDIES – NEW PERSPECTIVES HANNA MAMZER The Animal as a Subject: Meta-strategies of Colonizing Nature ...................... 253 RYSZARD K. PRZYBYLSKI Till the Limits of the Visible ........................................................ 271 DANUTA SOSNOWSKA Cultural Impact as Tradition and Challenge for Czech, Ukrainian and Polish Comparative Studies ............................................................... 283 Index of names ....................................................................... 295 EMILIA KLEDZIK Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań COMPARISONS AND DISCOURSES. INTRODUCTION Comparisons and Discourses is one of a series of compilations of texts coming out in the half-yearly Porównania in the years 2007–2015. It reflects the major issues identified by the Editors of the periodical and its Authors in that period. The discourses signalled in the title include primarily postcolonial studies, which have recently become one of the major modes of addressing the past and present status of Central Europe, and of necessity also a tertium comparationis, a plat- form for making comparisons. Postcolonialism has proved a capa- cious category, inclusive of the languages and tools used by many new theories such as geopoetics, gender studies and posthumanism. Introducing new theoretical tools goes hand in hand with opening up Comparative Studies to discourses other than literature. Therefore, the volume abounds in texts analysing realms such as film, theatre or the visual arts, as well as those that address the transformations of social life in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989. Within such an approach, literature becomes one of the many forms of reflection on the quality of life in Central Europe, a yardstick of the language used in reference to themselves and to Others by successive generations of Central Europeans. Comparative Studies themselves, as evident through the discursive receptivity demonstrated in this volume, are changing from a discipline closely linked with an analysis of a literary text towards a successor of theory (of literature). 8 EMILIA KLEDZIK The first part of the book sums up the conference “The Cultural Impact of the Postcolonial Situation”, held at the Adam Mickiewicz University Institute of Polish Studies on 6–7 May 2017. It reflected on the use of postcolonial methodologies for analysing contemporary art in Central and Eastern Europe, and indirectly – for analysing local communities. It starts with Dorota Kołodziejczyk’s text highlighting the typology of postcolonial theory in the context of Central and East- ern Europe. The author points out fields such as reflection on identity, border studies and reflection on the global aspect of literature, espe- cially the cosmopolitism of the novel, demonstrating the wealth of forms of being on the periphery. Anna Gawarecka looks into Czech national myths in the literary works of Vladimír Macura, Daniela Hodrová and Miloš Urban. Czech postmodernist novel games refer to the National Revival, ever-present in the collective memory, only to deconstruct and debunk its myth. Jacek Nowakowski in his text about the images of the Orient in Polish Cinema after the Second World War wonders if it is possible to abandon the stereotypes originating in the tradition of adaptations for the screen of novels by Henryk Sienkie- wicz such as In Desert and Wilderness or Colonel Wolodyjowski, heavily based on colonial clichés. In his article Deracination and Rootedness. The Drama of Shifting Borders in Polish Contemporary Theatre, Piotr Dobrowolski addresses the general tendency of Polish theatre authors to break free from the monolith of an unequivocal national narra- tive, this time in reference to the so-called Regained Territories. He moreover analyses the theatre productions after the transition period, empowering national and ethnic minorities and citizens of the Third Reich, who continued to live in these areas after the war. Błażej War- kocki in his text Three Waves of Homosexual Emancipation in Poland discusses three decades of homosexual activism in Poland since 1981, starting with the discursive invisibility of gays and lesbians through to the politicising of homosexuality and homophobia. The second section of the book includes texts, proceedings from a conference “The Return of Space. Central European Geopoetics and Nostalgia”, hosted by the Adam Mickiewicz University Institute of Polish Studies on 7–8 May 2012. It essentially focused on (post)natio- nal space read through the prism of a new theory of space in litera- ture and arts – geopoetics (the spatial turn). Subject to analyses are texts concerning places operating in more than one national discourse as well as mythical, imaginary, phantasmatic places and travel litera- Comparisons and Discourses. Introduction 9 ture, both emigration and migration ones. Lenka Németh Vítová’s text Re-Discovering of the Sudetenland in Czech Literature After 1989 concen- trates on the literary images of the Czech-German and Czech-Austrian frontier in the art of Jaroslav Rudiš, Radka Denemarková and Josef Urban. The author argues that with the aid of e.g. mythologizing, plot and narrative inspired by actual events, contemporary Czech litera- ture endeavours to dwell on the repressed and hidden historical as- pects of space. The text by Sylwia Nowak-Bajcar Memory and Oblivion Versus the Yugoslavian Heritage. The Case of Croatian and Serb Emigrant Literature. A Preliminary Diagnosis addresses the many and varied val- orisations of the legacy of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in post-Yugoslav émigré narratives.