Abstract: | The article is an attempt at providing description of the functioning and
transformations of masculinity in culture, and above all in literature after 1945. While
employing theoretical languages of R.W. Connell and K. Silverman, well‑rooted
in the
tradition of masculinity studies, the author strives to reconstruct its dynamics, which
is shaped by tension between two categories: hegemony (as the required position of
masculinity ensured by military experience) and trauma (as a real and long‑term
result
of this experience). The tension between the cultural discipline of hegemony and the
increasing awareness of trauma shapes other oppositions, which makes it possible
to model the historical course of the transformations of masculinity and leads to the
creation of postmodern, demilitarized and “depatriarchalised” male habitus. One of
their distinguishing features is reevaluation of the previously neglected spheres of male
experience, such as fatherhood. |