NEW POLISH WRITING
495
Seemingly, the generals and their accomplices behaved from the
very beginning of the crackdown as if they understood perfectly the
danger of an independent culture. December 1981 was a prelude to
the ruthless suppression of the latter as well as of the independent
unionist movement. TV and radio have been completely militar–
ized. Journalists who decided not
to
sign a loyalty oath have been
purged from editorial boards. The cultural associations have been
suspended or disbanded. The universities and schools are under
control of military commissars. Censorship, previously limited by
the new law passed by the Parliament in September 1981, now
enjoys its full powers due to the decree proclaiming the "state of
war." What is even more ominous, numerous writers, artists, jour–
nalists, scholars, etc. either went through or still are held in prisons
and internment camps. While I am writing these words, Wiktor
Woroszylski and Andrzej Zagozda, two of the authors presented
below, are in all probability still interned; virtually no one among
the other writers can be sure of his fate.
Despite all this, the latest phase of Polish literary history repro–
duces, faithfully and amazingly, the old pattern: a catastrophe again
breeds literature's prosperity. This is a very relative prosperity,
though: the uncensored writing and publishing are both difficult and
dangerous now. Nevertheless, in terms of both quantity and quality
they flourish as never before, not even in Solidarity times. The latest
reports from Poland quote a bewildering number of at least 1200 dif–
ferent uncensored periodicals and newsletters appearing all over the
country. Several radio stations broadcast their programs from
underground. As far as literature, as such, is concerned, there is a
multitude of new-sometimes excellent-poems, short stories,
essays, even plays, some part of which manage to leak to the West.
The selection published here consists of only a few examples of what
is now being written in Poland.
However, these examples seem quite representative. All the
authors presented here are in the first ranks of contemporary Polish
literature. At the same time, they represent different generations.
Wiktor Woroszylski, a prominent poet, prose writer, ar.d translator
born in 1927, belongs to a group of writers who made their literary
debuts in the first postwar years and who went from communist rad–
icalism through bitter disillusionment around 1956, to a more and
more dissident stance in the sixties and seventies. Marek
Nowakowski, born in 1935, is certainly one of the most popular
