Remarks about Central Europe in Polish Contemporary Prose

Abstract

The topic of Central Europe is one of the key problems for contemporary Polish literature, as it defines the issues of social identity as well as both individual and collective self-identification. As a “middle country” chocked in between two major spheres of influence: Russia and Germany; the East and the West, Poland has been voided of its statehood ever since the second half of the 18th century and has been the place where these two spheres of influence kept clashing. The perception of Poland as the boundary between the influences, a historical bulwark of the West, the interwar bastion of western culture or a country from behind the Iron Curtain did not strengthen the bonds between its culture and Central Europe. The Iron Curtain bolstered the polarization of Central Europe after World War II and Polish literature observes this crack on two facets – chronological and spatial.