Generał i pantofelki
General and Mary Jane Shoes

On Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski’s “Generał Barcz” (“General Barcz”)

Summary/Abstract: The paper refreshes a literary-oriented outlook view on most famous Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski’s novel—"Generał Barcz” (“General Barcz”). As its starting point, the paper sees the observation that the interpretations produced to that date focused on the political relevance and implicit keys (“pakierstwo” <“information overpacking”> of the political novel) or stylistically expressive words (“kadenizmy” <“Kaden words”> of their author). The author of the article suggests a different point of view in which he accentuates setting the novel’s issues in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s philosophy of history. It allows to discern that Kaden-Bandrowski in his novel describes the process of shaping the independent Second Polish Republic as anachronistic and peripheral, and thus missed, revolution. The reasons for the fall can be traced in that it has no solid social and economic basis (often recollected “miękkoszcz” <”mekhkhoshch” = ‘softness’> in the novel) that must many a time confront itself with the parallel woman emancipation. The endmost aspect causes that the first plane of the novel is occupied by the issues referring to negotiating the new contract of sex and sexual order.“Generał Barcz” (“General Barcz”) as a novel about a revolution also projects a specific role of the writer and literature. The figure of writer Rasiński unjustly remained on the margin of researchers’ interest. In the proposed interpretation, the author postulates acknowledging the protagonist and his metaliterary statements as critical for the order of meanings produced in the novel.

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