Żydowskie dziedzictwo. Uwagi o sagach współczesnych
Jewish Heritage – Notes on the Contemporary Sagas

Summary/Abstract: In the article I pay attention to the contemporarily increasing importance of the family saga in the Polish Jewish studies. I propose the reading of the prose of Bronisław Wildstein (Czas niedokonany), Ałbena Grabowska (Stulecie Winnych), Ben Elton (Two Brothers) and Karina Schaapman (The Mouse Mansion. Sam and Julia). The 20th c. history of the European Jews present in these books usually focuses on several key pictures/moments/situations, that is: pre-war pogroms, the Shoah, and – only in the Polish version – żydokomuna [“Judeo-Communism”] and March 1968. I demonstrate their influence on pop-cultural narration through the analysis of Czas niedokonany in particular. In this story the inheritance of trauma, significant for the narration of the Second Generation, gains a supplement in the form of the inheritance of the Jewish capital, post-war Jewish careers and professional advancement. The article is an introduction to the profound study on the newest pop-cultural story tackling the subject of Jewishness; it also indicates the necessity of extracting from a large group of Polish, noble and post-noble family sagas the storylines centered on Jewish culture, based on a different ideology and distinct myths.

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