Łódź „retro” w kryminałach historycznych
“Vintage” Łódź in Historical Crime Fiction

Summary/Abstract: The article analyzes the way of constructing the image of the city in historical crime fiction set in Łódź. The texts analyzed in the article are the novel Perkalowy dybuk [Percale dybbuk] by Konrad T. Lewandowski about the events of 1929, Tramwaj Tanfaniego [Tanfani’s tram] by Marcin Andrzejewski, a novel set in 1905, and Krzysztof Beśka’s trilogy Trzeci brzeg Styksu [The Third Shore of Styx] Pocztówka z Londynu [A Postcard from London] and Dolina popiołów [Valley of Ashes], novels set in the years 1892–1893. All the texts provide an point of departure for showing the image of Łódź at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and in the interwar period, as shaped in the contemporary popular literature. Władysław Reymont’s Ziemia obiecana [The Promised Land] seems to be a starting point for all authors, but in all texts this image borrowed from the fundamental “Łódź text” becomes complicated. It seems that eventually in this unconventional form, which historical crime fiction undoubtedly is, we find a reflection of contemporary dilemmas of the urban space. Its residents try to find their own identity in the meanders of memory and oblivion in the industrial-proletarian past of the “bad city”.

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