Polski Wykop, czyli Wschód Andrzeja Stasiuka
Polish The Foundation Pit or Andrzej Stasiuk’s The East

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to compare and discuss, direct and indirect, intertextual references to Andrzej Platonov’s The Foundation Pit in The East of Andrzej Stasiuk. A. Stasiuk’s novel is an attempt of self-discovery, finding own roots, seeing „clarity of existence”. Autobiographical narrator of the novel often refers to fragments of The Foundation Pit by A. Platonov, which he finds in the past of his grandparents, his parents and his own. Characters in both novels try to find the same sense, hidden truth, despite time and geographical gap dividing them. Traveller from The East, communism child, recalls resettlement and Jewish extermination, in other words about matter annihilation. Image of Poles, Russians, Chinese people and communism creates integral whole and forces to reflect over past, present and future times. Whereas the East, which according to narrator, begins at the east bank of Vistula and reaches to China, becomes a foundation pit, where through fire and destruction, foundations of communism were built.

• Details
• Contents