Dzieło Tadeusza Kantora jako sylwa

The article is a general summary of a prepared doctoral thesis, which bears on works of Tadeusz Kantor - The ouevre of Tadeusz Kantor as silva. The most significant of his entire artistic activity is the "Theatre of Death”, phase started with "Umarła Klasa" ("The Dead Class”) in 1975 and ended alongside with artist's death in 1990. The primary motifs in it are death, transcendence, memory and the history inscribed in memory. In these performances Kantor made reference to his own biography, reaching into the private archive of his memory. After the success of "The Dead Class” Kantor started to rewrite his private and artistic autobiography to prove his ouevre as coherent and consistent, moreover became an author of own mithology. Drawing the background of cultural and social changes in the second half of 20th century in the West (postmodern art, performative turn) will help to show that Kantor works can be compare with modern sylwa, form of postmodern literature, appeared in Poland after World War II and tightly connected with reality of those days.