Zachód czarnego słońca? O traumatycznych narracjach śląskich bohaterów
Black Sunset? On Traumatic Narrations of Silesian Characters

Summary/Abstract: The author describes the phenomenon of the sense of grievance deeply rooted in the Upper Silesian community. The starting point of the essay is a sociological diagnosis by Marian Gerlich, which dates the genesis of this phenomenon back to the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s. The author of the article finds examples of historical and structural trauma (according to the distinction drawn by Dominick LaCapra) in the fortunes of some literary characters featured in the texts by Wilhelm Szewczyk, Szczepan Twardoch, Wojciech Kuczok, Stanisław Bieniasz and Leszek Libera. He observes the dynamics of the development of this trauma by referring it to the essay of Julia Kristeva (Black Sun. Depression and Melancholia). The title metaphor (le soleil noir) is the reverse side of the narration of Upper Silesia, standing in opposition to the official story (the obverse), monopolised by accounts of a successful symbiosis between a Silesian and his geographical and geopolitical environment. The author has focused on the fortunes of characters excluded from a large ethnic community, usually illegitimate or abandoned children – fortunes which – on a symbolic level – illustrate the relationship between “Homeland” and “Small Homeland”. The expression “black sunset” is related to the tendencies, observed in the current discourse, to replace the “black” narration (glorifying exploitation) with the “green” narration and to diverge from images showing ethnic orphan hood to images depicting an autonomous community, conscious of its purposes.

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