History and politics in Tadeusz Konwicki's fiction

This dissertation offers the first comprehensive study of the two main themes of Tadeusz Konwicki's fiction: history and politics. This dissertation comprises five chapters, arranged chronologically, which analyze the changes in Konwicki's treatment of each theme and their underlying influences: the persistent importance of the Romantic tradition for Konwicki's generation and the ethical consequences of W. W. II.; The first chapter discusses Konwicki's life as typical for Polish postwar intellectuals; it explains contradictions in Polish contemporary political life as they are reflected in Konwicki's biography. The experience of W. W. II, Stalinism and the political opposition of the 1970s influenced both Konwicki's life and his works. An analysis of Konwicki's novels that were written in the normative poetics of Socialist Realism constitutes Chapter II. Despite their questionable artistic merit, the novels from 1951 to 1956 demonstrate the importance of Romantic ideology for Konwicki's philosophy, especially the dichotomy between the collectivity and the individual. Chapter III is devoted to the "emigration of imagination," which places the universality of Konwicki's writing in the territory of his home: the multicultural and multiethnic Vilnius region in Lithuania which became a part of the Soviet Union after W. W. II. The same chapter also studies the representation of women, which echoes the traditional patriarchal mythology presenting women either as woman-angel or femme fatale. Chapter IV discusses the role of personal and collective memory in determining human identity. The past is responsible for the torment of the protagonist but the world without past is absurd. Chapter V analyses the influence of the concept of honor and catastrophism in Konwicki's apocalyptic visions of an enslaved society. It also emphasizes the importance of humor in Konwicki's discourse, which counterbalances his pessimistic visions of the future. Chapter VI concludes the dissertation by emphasizing close connection between politics and Konwicki's fiction.