Postcatastrophic Re-Reading of Tadeusz Hołuj’s Puste pole Cover Image

Postkatastrophische Re-Lektüre Tadeusz Hołujs Puste pole
Postcatastrophic Re-Reading of Tadeusz Hołuj’s Puste pole

Author(s): Katarzyna Adamczak
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts, Polish Literature, Government/Political systems, Post-War period (1950 - 1989), History of the Holocaust
Published by: Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: postcatastrophy; re-reading; Shoah; drama; staging; re-presentation; reception; communism;

Summary/Abstract: Adamczak Katarzyna, Postkatastrophische Re-Lektüre Tadeusz Hołujs Puste pole (Postcatastrophic Re-Reading of Tadeusz Hołuj’s Puste pole). “Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne” 12. Poznań 2017. Publishing House of the Poznań Society for the Advancement of the Arts and Sciences, pp. 17–28. ISSN 2084-3011. This article deals with the re-interpretation of Tadeusz Hołuj’s drama Puste pole (1963; The Empty Field) and its theatrical staging by Józef Szajna in 1965. Based on the drama I want to demonstrate how the artists – who were both survivors of the concentration camp in Auschwitz – managed re-presenting the Holocaust despite the political situation and the accompanying anti-Semitic government campaign in Poland in the 1960s. The reception of the drama of then and nowadays shows how that re-presentation was once interpreted due to the political circumstances, which made the issue of the Holocaust and the Jews bannend from public life, language, and memory. Finally I explore how Hołuj’s drama can be read today when we approach it via postcatastophic re-reading determined by after-knowledge, retrospection, and retroactivity.

  • Issue Year: 2017
  • Issue No: 12
  • Page Range: 17-28
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: German