Panoptical defragmentation of the Stalinist microcosm in post-war Poland

The paper is a critical hermeneutics of space during the period of Stalinism in Poland (1949–1953). It utilizes qualitative research to analyze spatial relations in Stalinist-era press propaganda through a paradigm based on Michel Foucault’s oeuvre on space and power, as well as Marcel Danesi’s work on the ontology of metaphor. The analysis traces the manipulation of space by Stalinist propaganda, which I propose becomes circular and broken into a plethora of ‘sphericules’ – a strategy called here panoptical defragmentation. In this way, the discussion engages the spatial turn in media studies. The database for the research was a representative selection of texts extracted from a leading journal and a leading periodical of the time: Trybuna Ludu and Przekrój. The concepts of struggle and competition are proposed to be ontological categories involving fictitious forces and entailing a discursive reification effectuated by Communist apparatchiks.