Opowieści "wesołych uchodźców", czyli nieco inaczej o wojennych losach polskich Żydów w ZSRR

Yiddish refugee literature, while usually poignantly realistic, does include some rare satirical content, jokes, and humorous comments. The author of this article analyzes three texts written in the tone of irreverent humor, cheerful or derisive satire, and grotesque: the memoirs of Yitzkhok Perlov, Shimen Dzhigan, and Kalman Segal. In doing so, she asks whether their authors sought to accomplish anything more besides documenting the suffering of themselves and others. By analyzing the forms of comedy present in the texts, she attempts to pinpoint its functions, while by identifying the autobiographical attitudes of the authors and their chosen types of narration, she seeks to uncover their intentions. The humorous and light-hearted way in which Perlov described the "adventures" of refugees allowed the author to indirectly express his ambivalence towards the Soviet reality. His memoirs, describing solely the vicissitudes of refugees, are free from martyrological sentiment as their protagonist is shown as a victim of general circumstances, rather than Stalinist repression. And although the words are steeped in irony, they do not seek to call for punishment or vengeance. The dominant attitude is that of a witness who only rarely gives voice to personal reflection or confession. The challenge of decoding the text's ambiguity is left solely to the reader. In turn, Dzhigan sees himself as Stalin's victim, and although the experience of Soviet Russia constitutes only a part of his memoirs, it is clearly prominent due to the strong emotional undertone of the writing. The text stands as a testament to an era, it also conveys certain personal confessions, but the primary tone of the autobiographical work is that of a challenge posed to the reader whose task is to discern the trauma hidden under the jester's mask. And while the overarching goal of the entire autobiography is to propagate the author's legend as a comedic actor, the Soviet part also clearly seeks to exert satirical revenge on his oppressors. Segal describes the fate of Polish Jews in Soviet forced labor-camps alongside accounts of the prewar Galician shtetl, the Holocaust, the lives of Jews in the author's contemporary Poland and Israel, Polish antisemitism, the vicissitudes of his own life, and the fate of Jews in general. In that, the account of the camps is shown as one of the aspects inherent in the lives of Polish Jews in the twentieth century, a subtheme in the overarching story of martyrdom and endless appetite for life. And while the description of camp life predominantly takes the form of a testimony, the rest of his work oscillates between two distinct autobiographical formulas: an account (also indirect) and a confession inspired by the author’s artistic sensibility. Cheerful irony, laughter through tears, and grotesque are among the tools he uses to shape his tale of the Jewish fate. All three authors criticize and challenge the corruption and evil inherent in Soviet reality. The humor they utilize is universal, reflecting the shared comedic sensitivities of the West that naturally condemn all forms of totalitarian oppression. From the perspective of individual goals and writing strategies, the role of the humor is primarily defensive (in describing traumatic experiences and accounting for the oppressive reality of Stalinist Russia), but at times also offensive (in exerting symbolic vengeance on the oppressors). Moreover, it provides the authors with adequate tools suited to exposing the absurdity and corruption of the communist regime and documenting the cruelty of that particular time and place.