"A może jednak wątpię w tę wojnę, tak samo jak wątpię w istnienie wielkich gadów? [...]". Świat (p)o wojnie w poezji Tomasza Pietrzaka

Abstract

This article focuses on Tomasz Pietrzak’s Pospół [The Common], which correlates the memory of the Shoah with Silesian tropes. The traces of tragic past – which still inhabits the reality – are visible in on-going social and psychological conflicts, and in the attempts to integrate the memories that rely on the liminal events. As it is shown, the memory of the ultimate event is presented in Pietrzak’s works as a process. Its first stage is concerned with inscribing the Shoah in a regional folk tale, making it possible to distance oneself from the traumatic yet already transmitted past. Furthermore, this variant relies on the interrelation between the ultimate event and nature. The poet refers to the Slavic fest of dziady, which not only brings the dead back to life in a very peculiar manner, but also encourages us to familiarise with and understand the past. The next stage places the Shoah in the environmental and geological contexts. Recalling the tragic past relies on the author’s dependence on a landscape which accumulates the remnants preserved in the soil. In the course of its analysis, the article comments upon a “turn to museums” in re-thinking the Shoah, which is supposed to be the last transformation of memory, anticipating the outbreak of yet another war.