Zawieyski może się bronić
Zawieyski Can Defend Himself

Summary/Abstract: The writer Jerzy Zawieyski (1902-1969) represented Catholics at the heart of institutions of political power, and as such the Polish secret service had him under surveillance. The resulting documentation, covering over a decade of his life, offers rich material on the culture, society and politics in the Polish People’s Republic. Joanna Siedlecka book Biografie odtajnione [Declassified Biographies] draws on Zawieyski’s files at the archives of the Communist security apparatus. But her sensationalist portrait, which imbues the files with the status of ‘dark knowledge’ on ‘how it really was back then,’ makes light of the demands of an academic approach towards historical sources. Her narrative is dominated by a focus on homosexuality; the profusion of scandalous details, half-truths and conjectures obscures the emotional troubles that influenced Zawieyski’s work. Tyszkiewiecz’s article points out the weaknesses of such an approach to literary non-fiction and proposes an alternative take on the same material.

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