The Bulwark against Trauma: Poetry as a Means of Survival in Totalitarian Prisons
The Bulwark against Trauma: Poetry as a Means of Survival in Totalitarian Prisons

Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses the specific function of poetry written by the prisoners in Nazi and Communist prisons and concentration, correctional and labour camps. These people wrote poetry for various reasons – e.g. internal and pragmatic – to survive the difficult situation they found themselves in. Surveying the texts written by the prisoners over the scope of more than 50 years, the specific phenomenon of poetry as a spiritual defence, a survival tool and bulwark against trauma becomes more and more apparent. Highlighting a rather marginal position of the prison and camp poetry within the confines of the contemporary literary studies, the paper attempts to explain the causes of this neglect. It therefore focuses on the very act of literary creation in the sense of manifestation of inner freedom and inner emancipation, rather than on interpretation of individual texts and critically assessing the literary values of the prison and camp poetry. The texts are viewed from other angles as well, e.g. psychological, social, and cultural.

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