Syreni śpiew i narodziny alternatywy: literatura Edmona Jabesa, Leopolda Buczkowskiego i Haliny Birenbaum wobec Zagłady

Abstract

The article examines the rise of the postmodern Holocaust narrative in Polish literature taking as a case in point Leopold Buczkowski’s novel Pierwsza świetność (First Glory), published 1966, in the context of the musings of Edmond Jabés and the testimonial writings of Halina Birenbaum. In this study the postmodernization of the Holocaust is treated as an alternative to the traditional genre of the Holocaust testimonial. Contrary to the broadly-held view that the postmodern Holocaust narrative is a fairly recent phenomenon, the article claims that it made its appearance some time after the war, in the mid-1960s. Its emergence can be seen as an attempt to voice the aporias and doubts that resulted from the pressure to draw a line on the wartime experiences and move on. Many writers, including Leopold Buczkowski, were convinced that it was necessary to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust by encrusting the historic record with other plots, problems and metaphors. This article is the fi rst in a series of studies of this problem in the 1970s and the following decades of the 20th and the 21st century.