Konwencja pamięci doskonałej w autobiograficznych utworach dla młodzieży Zofii Żurakowskiej i Zofii Kossak
The convention of perfect memory in Zofia Żurakowska’s and Zofia Kossak’s autobiographical books for teenagers

Author(s): Zofia Budrewicz
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: topos of Polish Home; memory; Zofia Żurakowska; Zofia Kossak;autobiography;
Summary/Abstract: The author of the present article analyses two novels for teenagers: Pożegnania domu [Farewell to Home] by Zofia Żurakowska and Ku swoim [Homeward] by Zofia Kossak in the context of perfect autobiographical memory as an artistic convention. Childhood memory consists not so much of facts as of sequences of images whose function is to project certain norms of behaviour. Both writers create a universal picture of a “community of memory” based on the fate of Polish families of landed gentry at Eastern borderlands, also drawing on their own memories dating back to the Bolshevik Revolution in Volhynia. The key to the ethical interpretation of the memory about historical events constitute the forms of presenting the dramatic imprint stamped by the revolution of the lives of both fictional families: 1) the technique of fragmentary flashbacks of memories of adults, employed by Kossak, 2) reporting ‘live’ by a teenage boy, employed by Żurakowska. In both novels, the interpretations of memory are constructed by means of the effect of the repetitive question about the sources and consequences of the most painful experiences. Both writers construct a narrative of transforming the landed gentry topos into the topos of the Polish Home. In the end, the dramatic events do not hinder the protagonists from transcending their sense of personal grievance. This issue is most strongly emphasized by Żurakowska in Nieporozumienie, in the preserved fragment of the planned continuation of her duology about Eastern Borderlands.

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