Kraus, Lec, Bernhard – spotkanie pod wieżą Babel
Kraus, Lec, Bernhard – Meeting at the Foot of the Tower of Babel

Summary/Abstract: The point of departure for the presented reflections is the declaration made by Walter Benjamin: “The satirist is the figure in whom the cannibal was received into civilisation”. This thesis is subjected to a discussion and emphasized in the persons of three great satirists from the Viennese circle – Karl Kraus, Thomas Bernhard, and Stanisław Jerzy Lec, whose linearly bonded biographies are integrated into the twentieth century, which they elucidate. The author recounts their meetings in real and symbolic space, and presents the life and literary strategies chosen by them depending not only upon their temperament but also the situation in Europe to which their works reacted. The fundamental question concerns the function fulfilled in literature by such statements as the one formulated by Benjamin – and those by the protagonists of the text – whose basic feature is brilliance and exaggeration. The article considers two linguist strategies: satire and metaphor (as well as elitism and ambiguity) versus gravity and literality (together with trivialisation and functionality). That, which in the satirical attitude appears to be “cannibalistic”, untamed, and exaggerated is actually anti-totalitarian, culture-creative, and redeeming.

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