Języki mitu, historii, religii w literaturze na Górnym Śląsku : analiza wybranych dzieł XX wieku regionu pogranicza

Abstract

The dissertation attempts to reconstruct the Silesian semiosphere by describing its mythical, historical and religious systems. It arguments that the contemporary reception of culture is based on exploring differences in its products rather than treating them as a homogenous structure. The interpretation dominant of Upper Silesia’s 20th century multilingual literature would thus be to identify the difference made by the Silesian question to the subject matter of national literatures of Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. This interpretation is rooted in the presumption that the Upper Silesian community, while searching for its own subjectivity and emphasising the distinctiveness of its own Tale, is at the same time engaged in establishing a supranational discourse. It is not done in the spirit of invented tradition, but refers to the community’s heritage; it is not created, but recollected and imaginatively modified. To prove this theory, a comparative analysis of a set of selected works in the Polish, Czech and German languages has been conducted. The author takes a critical look at the Grand Narratives imposing their tale on the indigenous community and including it in their schemes of Imagined communities, such as Piast Poland, Enlightened Prussia or Mitteleuropa. Their influences affect three major domains: myth, history and religion. Discovering these influences on the level of literary poetics will be executed mainly by applying the conceptual framework shaped by the hermeneutic philosophy and postcolonial critical review of the mythical discourse. The argumentative part of the dissertation consists of three parts. The first part comprises an analysis of the mythical discourse. The author isolates a number of inherent narratives, such as folk-tale based stories of gods (Skarbnik, Utopiec or Mora) and heroes (Ondraszek Szebesta, Karol Godula), Enlightenment stories of civilizational development (the myth of a Silesian savage – “Indian”, in both Polish and German texts), a romantic ennoblement of a folktale and its historiosophical framing (myths of fighting against Teutonic Knights) or Kazimierz Kutz’s novel and film impressions on Silesian histories. Within these contemporary transformations one can identify the myth’s classic reconstruction (G. Morcinek, J. Buczyński), detached rationalization (K. Kutz, S. Twardoch), political updating (P. Bezruč, O. Łysohorsky), and – first of all – descriptions of the local community foundations (A. Scholtis, H. Niekrawietz, H. Nowak and G. Zivier). Work on Myth can most clearly be observed in subsequent Polish portrayals of Karol Godula, who first appears as an infernal creature, then as an inert servant of count Ballestrem and eventually lives to earn the name of a venturesome industrialist. These and similar ceaseless updates of old stories constitute a part of the Silesian Logos. The second part of the text describes the historical discourse based on H. White and F. Ankersmitt’s narrativism. Its perspective makes it possible to distinguish appropriating influences of political discourses in the description of Upper Silesia’s history, which seem to be most clearly noticeable in the 1921 plebiscite literature, in the works written on the anniversary of the Battle of Annaberg (1931), in the texts referring to World War II and in the literature of the Polish People’s Republic. Critical interpretation of the works by G. Morcinek or Z. Kossak-Szczucka leads to discovering the propaganda mechanism behind these narratives, which was also provided means to legitimise the rule of Michał Grażyński, the Province Governor of Lesser Poland, and his team. On the other hand, the works of Silesian German-speaking authors are born out of nostalgia for the undivided (pre-1945 texts by A. Schlotis and H. Niekrawietz) or lost (H. Bienek, Janosch) land of childhood. Whereas prewar texts were characterised by a distinctive political trend, this was replaced in post-war literature by a critical analysis of German history, coinciding with the collapse of the Heimatliteratur project. In Silesian Polish-language literature, on the other hand, Polish historical narration patterns following the style of Sienkiewicz, well established in the postwar period (G. Morcinek, K. Gołba), give way to autobiographical and documentary forms in the 20th/21th texts (K. Kutz, F. Netz, A. Lysko). A characteristic narration motive revealing the works’ ideological message seems to be the portrayal of Wojciech Korfanty, whose role was either significantly marginalised or subjected to a biased distortion in both pre- and postwar periods (Z. Kossak, G. Morcinek). Prose of the turn of the century (K. Kutz, A. Urbas) offered an attempt to address these shortcomings, which may be perceived as the pursuit of recovering their own say in history. The third part of the dissertation aims to describe transcendent feelings in the spirit of religious phenomenology (G. van der Leeuw). The author refers to the three religious systems shaping the Silesian community – Judaism, Lutheranism and Catholicism. Horst Bienek’s series of novels as well as Julian Kornhauser’s prose reveal Jewish influences: both authors make a connection between the awakening ethnic identity and religious spirituality and consider these two issues in the light of the Shoah experience. Jerzy Pilch’s novels create the world of the Lutheran community inhabiting the Silesian Beskid mountain region, where the ritual characteristic of the Catholic community has been replaced by the ideal of work ethic, sanctifying an individual. Literature based on Catholic dogmas, on the other hand, abounds in descriptions of a variety of ceremonial rites: veneration of the saints, propitiatory pilgrimages or church fairs. The author pays special attention to these forms of religious expression which refer to the poetry of Joseph von Eichendorff (lyrics of J. Szymik) or combine it with the use of the Silesian language (texts of Z. Kadłubek). The religious category uniting these different denominational narrations is the experience of sanctifying sacrifice (Gr. hagiazo), which has the power to strengthen the community’s bonds. Reconstructing these three areas of objectification of the Silesian spirit allows the author to conclude that it is in fact possible to isolate a separate Silesian discourse present in the multilingual literature of Upper Silesia. Its rise coincides with the discussion on status of the local dialect as an individual language and also with the emergence of literature written in this specific language. The author thus states, arguing with the view presented by Stefan Szymutko, that Upper Silesia may pride itself on its own Logos, which is the way to express its autonomous identity.