Karnawał okrucieństwa w retrokryminałach Marka Krajewskiego
The carnival of cruelty in the retro crime fiction of Marek Krajewski

Author(s): Barbara Łągiewka
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: cruelty; violence; retro crime fiction;Marek Krajewski;
Summary/Abstract: The field of my research, whose fruit is the present article, constitutes crime, violence and cruelty in the retro crime fiction of Marek Krajewski. The object of my study constituted the novels of the Wrocław‑based writer, which represent the so‑called cycle about Breslau and Lwów. I intended my text to demonstrate the growing popularity of not so much the genre itself, which is constituted by crime fiction in its retro incarnation, but what propels it and what somewhat becomes its natural foundation i.e. cruelty. This is how this work arose – work which walks the fine line between the macabre, the ugly and the disgusting of all kinds, which demonstrates with complete awareness the savage side of human nature. However, it is the body and corporality which come to the fore in the article. These elements cease to be merely our private “property”, the body is no longer exclusively testimony of our existence but of repulsive mortality which is presented for effect, for the public to see, or it finally becomes an instrument in the hands of a murderer who triumphs, being able to do whatever he wants with the body of his victim. In the retro crime fiction of Marek Krajewski the body was cast from the pedestal into the area of sordid profanum, where the word “human” no longer produces a feeling of pride.

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