Die Last der Erinnerung – Stanisław Srokowskis Repatrianci
The Burden of Memory: Stanisław Srokowski’s The Displaced

Summary/Abstract: In his novel Repatrianci [The Displaced] (1988), Stanisław Srokowski picks up the issue of Polish people expelled from their homelands in the East, the so-called “Kresy,” which Poland lost after World War Two. In spite of its title the novel does not concentrate on a new settlement in the regained regions in the West, but on a never-ending journey in a railway carriage, which brings the heroes from the East to the West. The journey, which does not reach its goal, becomes a metaphor for human homelessness caused by historical circumstances, in this case the crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists against Polish people. In his earlier works on this topic such as Repatrianci, Srokowski tries to avoid naming the people responsible for these crimes; in his later novels and short tales written after 2000, he does so and also joins the so-called “Kresy discourse” in Polish literature.

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