Modalités de l'Histoire dans la littérature polonaise contemporaine

Abstract

The ways of history in the contemporary polish literature Laying down as a theoretical narratological principle that history has never taken the shape of an actual experience, but was until today a mere narrative representation, the author aims at following the evolution of the relation between literary shapes and historical past in the Polish literature after the Second World War. From 1945 onwards history does not appear any more as a kind of strategical staging; instead it becomes an attempt to live an immediate experience regardless of any intellectual reconstruction. Otherwise, sentimentalization and ideological recovery of the past lead the Polish writers to a real denial of history thanks to (self) parodical literary forms. Finally the multiplication of autobiographical works means a new attack against the traditional historical novel. Thus, thanks to this triple strategy which leads to a dismantling of history consistent with the now prevailing bursting of narrative forms, Polish literature brings its own answer to the history crisis which is to be seen nowadays in the western literature.