Letters from Death Row – a Linguistic Picture of the Prison Trauma of Convicts under the Communist Apparatus of Repression

Abstract

Those fighting for a free Poland, who did not accept the surrender of their country, liberated from German occupation in 1945, to the next invader – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the new Polish communist regime – became victims of the new political system. Arrested, tortured, and accused of activities against the new government, they were sentenced to many years in prison or to death. While awaiting the executions, they wrote official, censored letters to their families, and secret messages if possible. The first were never sent, the second sometimes reached the recipients. The language of these letters forms the basis of this research. In their letters, convicts wrote requests, thanks, and farewells, shared their reflections on God, faith, and death, family values and their dramatic future. They gave vent to their emotions and feelings, which, thanks to the efforts of their families and historians, spoke out years later. The article interprets these texts using the methodology of the ‘linguistic image of the world’ developed by the Lublin Ethnolinguistic School.