Studies on Socialist Realism

This anthology of texts on Polish socialist realist literature, written from the early 1980s to date, depicts a comprehensive picture of this literary phenomenon: from its holistic interpretations, analyses of the general poetics and specific literary and political texts, to descriptions of how institutions of literary life functioned in this era.

Anna Artwi?ska is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the University of Hamburg. Her research interests include socialist realism, memory and post-memory of communism, post-colonial studies, as well as concepts of generation and genealogy in literature. Bart?omiej Starnawski is a historian of literature at the Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw. In his research he looks at socialist realism and literature of the People’s Republic of Poland from the perspective of history and theory of literature. Grzegorz Wo?owiec is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw. He researches literature and literary life in the People’s Republic of Poland, both from the historiographic and from the meta-historical perspective.

Contents: Anna Artwi?ska/Bart?omiej Starnawski/Grzegorz Wo?owiec: Introduction: Socialist Realism in Polish Literary Research – Anna Artwi?ska/Bart?omiej Starnawsk/Grzegorz Wo?owiec: « » On Socialist Realism in Meta-Discursive Perspective – Micha? G?owi?ski: Realism and Demagoguery – Zdzis?aw ?api?ski: How to Co-Exist with Socialist Realism? – Janusz S?awi?ski: A «New Type» of Literary Criticism in the Stalinist Period – Zbigniew Jarosi?ski: Literature as Power – Leszek Szaruga: The Literary Canon of Polish Socialist Realism – Micha? G?owi?ski: «Don’t Let the Past Run Wild»: : Short Course as Mythical Narrative – Jerzy Smulski: The Literature of Socialist Realism: Selected Genological Issues – Wojciech Tomasik: Newspeak: Style as Language – Wojciech Tomasik: Literary Clichés in Polish Tendentious Novel 1949-1955 – Dariusz ?nie?ko: The 20th-Century Panegyric Situation – Grzegorz Wo?owiec: The Ambiguous Charm of Self-Criticism – Edward Balcerzan: Socialist Realism - Subversions and Deviations – Jerzy Smulski: Variance in the Socialist Realist Literary Text as a Scholarly Issue: Thoughts on Examples from Russian and Polish Literary Studies – Anna Zarzycka: Wis?awa Szymborska as an Author of Socialist Realist Poems – Tadeusz K?ak: Scenes from the Life of a Poet: Tadeusz Ró?ewicz’s Adventures with Socialist Realist Criticism – Daria Mazur: PAX and Socialist Realism: A Marriage of Convenience? – Anna Artwi?ska: Two Left Shoes: «The Marxist Breakthrough» in Poland and Its Context – John M. Bates: Censorship in the Stalinist Era – Stefan Zabierowski: Melania Kierczy?ska: The Socialist Realist Critic – Wojciech Tomasik: Literature Without Literariness: On Socialist Realist Literature and Research.