Alternowanie dziejów. Wyobraźnia historyczna w polskiej prozie przełomu XX i XXI wieku
Alternating History in Polish Literature. Historical Imagination in Polish Prose at the Turn of the 20th and 21st Centuries

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses two waves of alternate history genre in the Polish literature: thefirst one (1990s) had a revisionary character, the second one (early years of the twentyfirstcentury) – a compensatory character. To explain this negative evolution, I use thecategory of historical imagination, which itself is subject to historical change. Its initialstate (the decline of communism) was marked by a reduction of communal interests;historical imagination of the late twentieth century was individualistic, suspicious ofhistory planning and collectivism, oriented toward individual freedoms and distrustfulof equality aspirations. Collectivity as a challenge returns to historical imagination inthe second wave of the alternate history genre, which reveals the connection betweencreating history and expanding the collective subject.

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