The objective of the article is reflection on folk culture in the context of knowledge about the memory and knowledge about the past, deepened by the contemplation of mechanisms that appropriate the secondary pasts through the discourses of the dominating groups. The author argues that the traditional folk (or so-called peasant) culture is nowadays a culture without a subject and the ideological selection sieve and processes of globalisation only contributed to its whole areas falling into oblivion or being denied, while selectively keeping only those aspects which can easily undergo its institutionalised restitution. Pointing to the process of restitution being embroiled in the appropriating politics of memory, the author argues with the opinion of Barbara Fatyga who views folk culture as the modern popular culture.

The subject of the article are conceptualisations of the experiences of Holocaust, war and occupation (from the Polish perspective) as well as Polish-Jewish (and peasant-Jewish) relationships that were formed in the context of violence that were formulated as a part of the most recent village literature. Seemingly telling is the fact that more and more publications appearing on the Polish book market discuss the issue of the village, amongst which are works where the Holocaust happening on the „outskirts” plays a central role. Therefore the starting point for the considerations presented in the article is the question about the possible causes of the current turn towards the village being embroiled in the Holocaust. The author places this literary phenomenon in the context of current historical research concerning the so-called third wave of the Holocaust and concentrates on the analysis of two books: Sońka by Ignacy Karpowicz and A Little Annihilation by Anna Janko which seem to be particularly representative for the strategies of formulating literary responses to the findings of the historians.

The following considerations are accompanied by the assumption that the poetry of Szewc should be primarily viewed in the framework of opinions represented by the researchers of the older generation and not in the context of the recent discussions about the place of Polish village in the culture. Influential – to the extent most interesting to the author: the reflection concerning the village – were poet’s memories from the time of his childhood and early adulthood, which coincided with the 60s and the 70s. Most probably the majority of poetic village visions in his poetry was formed as a result of the earliest experiences. The analysed poems come from different periods in poet’s life, some of them are still awaiting their publication. In the article the knowledge regarding village sociology, philosophy of things and the Jewish Kabbalah was utilised. The object of the utmost intensive consideration were the handy peasant tools. The author poses a question as to their presence in the poems, their role and the reason why Szewc remembers them in this particular way. The author also reminiscences over the way the elementary ideas of village, peasantry, folk culture or folklore are being defined, which leads to the remarks of a more general character on what is the folk culture in today’s poetry and in what way its modern version coexists with the tradition.

The article presents three novels in which the person of Jakub Szela and motif of the Galician slaughter appear. These are Fairy Tale about the Snake’s Heart or Another Word about Jakub Szela (2019) by Radek Rak, Deutsch for Intermediates (2019) by Maciej Hen and Galicians (2016) by Stanisław Aleksander Nowak. The starting point for the considerations is the remark of Stanisław Aleksander Nowak who acknowledged the 1846 peasant revolt as a relevant legacy that could support present-day forms of protest against injustice and exploitation. The author of the article examines if the modern prose writers who brought the person of Jakub Szela back to life in their novels truly invoke the aforementioned tradition and if Szela is a rebel icon and an avenger model for them. The result of said examination is negative: the author proves that only pop-cultural or quasi-pop-cultural presence of Szela (in artistic literature) comes into question, which is loosely tied to the broader discussion on “the peasant question” – the so-called plebeian turn in Polish culture, which became most visible in the years of 2015–2016. The author argues that the discussed works of literature do not have the ambitions to deal with the past; the allegedly renounced or unjustly forgotten legacy of peasant resistance and rebellion weren’t claimed. Thereby the difference between the demands of the historians and sociologists who reflected anew on the situation of serfs in spirit of the so-called pedagogy of shame and today’s literary practice was revealed.

The article attempts to present two anti-utopian novels written in the 1920s: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1920) and Miranda by Antoni Lange (1924). The author examines origins of both texts and points out cultural, artistic and ideological aspects of their interpretation. The reception of We and Miranda is discussed as well as the current state of research on the anti-utopian oeuvre of Yevgeny Zamyatin and Antoni Lange is addressed. The author attempts to present both novels in the context of evolution of the literary genre. Moreover We by Zamyatin and Miranda by Lange are depicted as statements of historiosophical character, often embroiled in disputes with the dominating artistic and aesthetic movements.

The relationship between the idea of Harold Bloom’s literary canon and the status of his own critic’s oeuvre is discussed in the article. Diverse topics and literary styles cultivated by the author of The Anxiety of Influence were characterised and evaluated from the perspective of their canonicality understood as an aesthetic and social value. According to Bloom himself, the canonical texts also offer the spiritual value with help of such tools as irony and metaphor, provoking the readers to assess their own condition. The article presents the Polish reception of Harold Bloom’s texts and examines the presence of Polish literature in the Western literary canon designed by him. Its weak representation demands response of the critics who could propose their own list of literary works based on criteria equally strong as Bloom’s ones but overcoming his oftentimes colonial, patriarchal and exclusionary influence.