Teoś Olkiewicz i inni. Obraz funkcjonariuszy MO w cyklu powieści neomilicyjnych Ryszarda Ćwirleja
Teoś Olkiewicz and others. The image of MO functionaries in the series of neo-militia novels by Ryszard Ćwirlej

Summary/Abstract: One of the most recognizable cultural phenomena for the culture of the People’s Republic of Poland is undoubtedly the militia novel, which dominated the native crime novel of 1955–1989. After the political transformation, the militia story was forgotten for many years. Currently, this work is experiencing a “second youth” as a literary and sociological phenomenon, devoid of an ideological dimension. An artistic manifestation of the return of interest to the crime novel are novels by Ryszard Ćwirlej. Reconstructing the old realities, this writer creates an image of the epoch in the “culture of nostalgia”. The “neo-militia” novel is one of the manifestations of this longing for the People’s Republic of Poland, in which the sentimental dimension of the novel is expressed in the tendency to regain for the contemporary reader the ethos of efficient power. However, its representatives, who are MO officers, use methods that are far from lawful. The emerging image of law enforcement officers in Ćwirlej’s works is quite often marked by the stigma of corruption. The revealing potential of this formula results from showing the deeds and motivations of the characters as a derivative of their – not always exemplary – mentality, far from the idealized image of MO officers, which can be found in a militia novel. At the same time, however, it is precisely this interpretation by the protagonists of works from the circle of “neo-militia” stories on the border of the law, the blunting of ethical sensitivity, the choice of the “lesser evil” in the name of the fight against the “greater evil” that completes the image of the militiaman with aspects of artistic creation, which are most often missing in the ideologized works of 1955–1989.

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