THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF POLAND IN THE LITERATURE OF THE 1990S: A SURVEY OF CRITICISM (LITERATURA LAT DZIEWIECDZIESIATYCH O PRL - W OCZACH KRYTYKI)

The article looks at the critical approaches to the thematizations of the period of the People's Republic of Poland (1945-1989) in the novels of the 1990s and examines the ways in which the critics tried to conceptualize the representations of the communist period. The critical appraisals, which combine personal, artistic and political judgments, differ so much that there is no room for compromise. Consequently, the best way of mapping the critical literature dedicated to the reception of the Poland's postwar decades is by using a set of polar opposites: the political right, demanding an outright condemnation of communism versus the political left which chooses to focus on the non-political aspects of the period; a moralistic approach versus a more balanced and nuanced criticism; an ideology-driven view of the past versus a preoccupation with private history; the communal experience versus individual experience; strategies of remembrance in opposition to the process of gradual fade away and forgetting of the communist past.