Don Kichoci, Podziemni i Rewizjoniści. Postawy środkowoeuropejskich pisarzy wobec wolności
Don Quixotes, Undergrounders, and Revisionists. Central European writers’ attitudes to freedom.

Summary/Abstract: The article uses comparative methodology and juxtaposes the attitudes of Polish, Czech and, to a lesser extent, Ukrainian authors towards freedom obtained after 1989. The author distinguishes three main attitudes, calling them “Don Quixotes”, “Undergrounders” and “Revisionists”. The first type is related to retrotopic thinking and means attempts to mystify reality in order to counteract the degradation of the writer’s role in society. Don Quixotes try to fight the rules of the new postcommunistic time, emphasizing their role in the idealized past. The writers associated with the underground during the communism, such as Yuri Andrukhovych, Jáchym Topol, Petr Placák or Tomasz Jastrun, react differently: they are sensitive to attempts of political misusing of the works of culture. The younger generation of authors, called in this text “Revisionists”, born most often after the collapse of totalitarianism, tries to revise the social discourse and historical myths and express all what has been so far unspoken and “rotting”. This formation includes, among others, Radka Denemarková, Kateřina Tučková, Magdalena Platzová or Stanislav Biler.

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