Odyseja Guerniki. Obraz, władza, śmierć i pamięć historyczna
The Odyssey of Guernica. The Image, Power, Death, and Historical Memory

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the cultural biography of Guernica by Pablo Picasso, locating it within the context of the anthropology of memory. Twentieth-century transformations of culture, within whose range the cult of the victors has been supplanted by the cult of the victims, became the reason why depictions of death – once an important instrument of the legitimisation of all authority – now comprise the key tool of delegitimisation. In the text this thesis is exemplified by the successive stages of the wanderings of Guernica: from the time of its origin, “exile” in Europe and the USA, and “meaningful absence” in Francoist Spain to controversies connected with a return to its native land. At the time, Picasso’s painting served as a tool of iconoclasm (a weapon in the “war of images”) while becoming the object of numerous attacks.

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