From the January Uprising of 1863 to Regaining Independence in 1918 – a Synthesis of Polish History in the Blue uniform [Błękitny mundur] by Donata Dominik-Stawicka

Abstract

The novel of Donata Dominik-Stawicka entitled The Blue uniform [Błękitny mundur] treats about Poles’ way to regaining independ­ence by Poland, starting from the January Uprising in 1863 to No­vember 1918. The way to freedom consisted of the armed struggle of Poles from various partitions, the tragic that in time World War I, fighting on different fronts under foreign command, they had to stand against each other. The title blue uniform is a reference to the biogra­phy of one of the heroes of the novel – the soldier of the Blue Army of General Józef Haller. He is, next to the gray uniform of soldiers of Józef Piłsudski, a symbol of dreams about the Polish army and the free homeland. The Blue Uniform is a family saga based on the stories of ancestors, photographs and other souvenirs. Family history on the ba­sis of pars pro toto becomes a story about a nation struggling for sur­vival, its own identity and dignity. The memory of the past of an indi­vidual and collective character passed from one generation to the next turns out to be the superior value. Intergenerational communication builds historical, cultural and community identity. The intergenera­tional relationship is ethical and the memory of the past is the same as pride. The author writes her narrative about the family and the nation into the post-memory discourse. Thanks to the testimonies of our an­cestors, history becomes an important source of identity.