Before the Thaw: The Beginnings of Dissent in Postwar Polish Literature (The Case of Adam Wazyk's “A Poem for Adults”)
Before the Thaw: The Beginnings of Dissent in Postwar Polish Literature (The Case of Adam Wazyk's “A Poem for Adults”)

Summary/Abstract: The strange history of a long poem first published in Warsaw in the summer of 1955 gives perhaps the most eloquent picture of a crucial moment in postwar Poland's cultural life: the birth of political dissent in literature after more than six years of suffocation by the principles of Socialist Realism. In Poland the process of revival began before the actual thaw of 1956. The work that gave it a decisive push is undoubtedly "A Poem for Adults" (Poemat dla doroslych) by Adam Waiyk (1905-1982), published in the official literary weekly Nowa Kultura on August 21, 1955. To be sure, quite a few unorthodox works had appeared in Polish literary periodicals before that date, but "A Poem for Adults" immediately surpassed them all in terms of political significance. [...]

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