| dc.description.abstract | A search for identity by ‘the uprooted’, people forced into exile as a result of post-World
War II changes in Europe, is a very frequent theme in the 20th century literature. An exile
is a perennial wanderer, with no place of his own. The article focuses on the issues of exile,
uprooting and a search for new identity, analysing selected works of a German writer Herta
Müller; Polish writers: Inga Iwasiów, Stefan Chwin, Tadeusz Konwicki, Czesław Miłosz,
Zbigniew Żakiewicz and poets from Vilnius: Romuald Mieczkowski and Henryk Mażul.
In her works, Herta Müller deals with a totalitarian state, showing a man trapped in the
repressive system. Her protagonists are usually weak and lose against their oppressors.
Confronting the past risks bringing back old demons, dangerous emotions and distressing
events.
The brutality of Müller’s prose lies not only in the depiction of how individuals are uprooted
but also how they ‘uproot themselves’. Their lives are a struggle for survival, the latter
frequently at the expense of renouncing on their identity, friendship and love.
Polish writers (Iwasiów, Chwin, Konwicki, Miłosz, Żakiewicz) present the lot and different
life stories of people uprooted after the World War II, without, however, depriving them
of their unique personalities and positive features. Forcefully repatriated, fleeing compulsory
relocations to Siberia, Polish exiles from the Eastern Borderlands, the territory annexed by
the Soviet Union, found a new homeland in Poland, albeit not without initial problems. The
memory of their origins, which they retain, accounts for their dual identity. Such duality
characterises also the poets form Vilnius (Mieczkowski, Mażul) who write in Polish. Polishness
and the Polish culture are constantly present in their works, irrespective of where they live. | en_EN |
