Vengeful Memory. On Arkadiusz Morawiec’s Book Literatura polska wobec ludobójstwa

The article is a review of Arkadiusz Morawiec’s book Literatura polska wobec ludobójstwa [Polish Literature and Genocide], the first Polish literary study to address the acts of genocide that occurred before the Holocaust and the ethnic cleansing after World War II. The reviewer recognises the researcher’s scholarship and the ethical sensitivity with which he revises his previous theses about the uniqueness of the Holocaust. The book has been composed in a cross-sectional manner, the articles on Holocaust and Genocide Studies are accompanied by analyses informed by poetics and sociology of literature. Thus, the reader becomes acquainted not only with the historical realities of the described conflicts but also with the mechanisms of collective memory, which is shaped by both institutional activities (museums) and the reception of survivors’ testimonies.

The article is a review of Arkadiusz Morawiec’s book Literatura polska wobec ludobójstwa [Polish Literature and Genocide], the first Polish literary study to address the acts of genocide that occurred before the Holocaust and the ethnic cleansing after World War II. The reviewer recognises the researcher’s scholarship and the ethical sensitivity with which he revises his previous theses about the uniqueness of the Holocaust. The book has been composed in a cross-sectional manner, the articles on Holocaust and Genocide Studies are accompanied by analyses informed by poetics and sociology of literature. Thus, the reader becomes acquainted not only with the historical realities of the described conflicts but also with the mechanisms of collective memory, which is shaped by both institutional activities (museums) and the reception of survivors’ testimonies.