Data di Pubblicazione:
2020
Citazione:
Può esistere una polonistica "postcoloniale"? / L. Bernardini. - In: EUROPA ORIENTALIS. - ISSN 0392-4580. - 39:(2020), pp. 153-167.
Abstract:
Can a ‘postcolonial’ Polonistics exist?
In 2006 Dariusz Skórczewski considered it an axiom that Polish literature
was not (yet) recognized as postcolonial. Clare Cavanagh (2003) had in fact
previously recognized in the Marxist origins of postcolonial studies the main
obstacle to their rooting among those who had suffered the effects of Soviet
Marxism. On the other hand, Aleksander Fiut (2003) was afraid that the request
to include Poland in the field of investigation of postcolonial studies
could rekindle a victim image of the country. For Bogusław Bakuła (2006)
“it is said nowhere that a colonized community cannot show colonial symptoms”.
It is therefore possible to outline two currents of Polish postcolonial
studies that at first do not seem to interact with each other: one linked to the
traditional ‘martyrological’ connotation of national history, and one attentive
to the events attesting to the role of Poland as a colonial and cultural
hegemon. Both sides seem to offer interesting proposals for reinterpreting
the canon of Polish literature. Ewa Thompson in 2007 proposed a reinterpretation
of this canon in the light of a ‘poetics of resentments’ unknown to
Sarmatic culture but rooted in Poland after the XVIII Century partitions. For
Grażyna Borkowska, on the other hand, the influence exerted by Polish literature
on readers in Russia ruled out any hypothesis of colonial subordination.
Since 2011 the postcolonial paradigm has begun to be replaced – not
without resistance – by a post-dependency orientation. Already in 2010 for
Dorota Kołodziejczyk the category of postcolonialism was not suitable for
defining the role of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe from a historical
perspective and had to be replaced with that of a “post-dependency
condition”. Emilia Kledzik in 2015 explained what was hidden behind the resistance to move from the postcolonial to the post-dependency paradigm:
“In Central Europe [...] we often see ourselves as excluded from Western
civilization, and at the same time we consider ourselves exempt from reflecting
about our own subalterns”. A post-dependency perspective solves (setting
them aside) the questions of definition of what is meant by ‘colony’ and highlights
the ambivalent nature of the Polish colonial discourse, not only in the
context of the colonized / colonizing dialectic but also in that of the problem
of national identity and geopolitical location.
Tipologia IRIS:
01 - Articolo su periodico
Keywords:
Poland; Polish Literature; Postcolonial; Post-dependency; Colonialism
Elenco autori:
L. Bernardini
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