Święto prawie niezakłócone. O prawicowej próbie unieważnienia Nagrody Nobla
An Almost Undisturbed Celebration: On the Right-Wing Attempt to Invalidate the Nobel Prize

Summary/Abstract: The article explores right-wing quasi-critical-literary comments on Wisława Szymborskashortly after she received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997. The right-wing articlesapplied a critical-literary concept based on three assumptions: (1) one must consider aliterary work in close connection with the biography of its creator; (2) the evaluation ofthe aesthetics of a literary work must be linked to its ethical meaning; and (3) the ethicalduties of literature can only be defined in relation to the needs of the national community.Because of its ethical nature, right-wing literary criticism is one of several varieties ofengaged criticism – along with feminism and homotextual criticism – that emergedin Polish literary life in the mid-1990s. In this context, right-wing literary criticismwas characterized by a disregard for methodology, stemming from the subordinationof literary issues to the creation of a national community. The attack on Szymborskaalso served this role, but the force of the attack was mitigated by the liberal strategy ofincorporating hate into the celebration of Szymborska’s success.

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