Cieszyn i okolice w geografii wyobrażonej Renaty Putzlacher‑Buchtovej
Cieszyn and its surroundings in the imaginary geography of Renata Putzlacher‑Buchtova

Author(s): Krystyna Kossakowska-Jarosz
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: The author of the article, using the theory and research tools of imaginary geography, analyses the work and cultural activity of Renata Putzlacher‑Buchtova, a Polish poet born and living in Český Těšín for a large part of her life. Renata Putzlacher devotes a lot of her attention to the problems of border culture, of which her hometown and region of Zaolzie is a part. Putzlacher’s broad discourse on imaginary geography is constructed in two directions: as a person with a multi‑faceted family tradition, she develops identity narratives and moves towards discovering the genius loci of her native land by uncovering its values created in the local community of “interpeople” – as she often calls the inhabitants of her motherland – because they live at the intersection of different traditions. The identity reflection is closely intertwined with the discourse of a place, which takes on two forms – at first sceptical, from which Putzlacher distances herself from the beginning, and later laudatory, exceptionally close to the author. She does not agree with the vision of regionalism rooted in polonocentrism treated as a “syndrome of culture resistant to colonization”. Thus, she juxtaposes this perspective with the description of the reality of her borderland in a new language of meanings, which introduces an innovative “solution” based on perceiving the image of community on this land. Hence, the writer accounts for the original imaging of her own region, where the Těšín region appeared to be a divided area. More importantly, in this visualization Zaolzie lost its attractiveness, which was restored by a particular interest in the spirit of the multinational community treated as an asset of the borderland people.

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