Self-portrait of Generation ’68 — a Self-fulfilling Prediction?

Abstract

On the Application of Oral History and the Category of the Generation in Historical Studies Despite the passage of time controversies about the “March events” in Poland have not ceased. The development of the humanities provides new instruments useful for analysing successive dimensions of the events of March 1968. The most recent publication by Piotr Osęka (My, ludzie z Marca. Autoportret pokolenia ’68, Wołowiec 2015) attempts to expand our knowledge about the events in question from the viewpoint of oral history and research into the generation phenomenon. The author collected several score interviews with participants of student protests in Polish schools of higher learning, and subsequently analysed them in a cross-examination so as to discover the most important similarities and differences in the biographical narrations of his interlocutors. The amassed interviews created a sui generis self-portrait of the Polish generation ’68, whose rhythm was delineated by consecutive stages in the life of its members — childhood, adolescence, revolt, repressions, and existence after March 1968. The capably written attractive book gives, at the same time, rise to certain doubts about its theoretical and source foundations. Within this context it becomes crucial to ask: how is one to understand the generation category, of key rank for the publication, and to what extent does the convention, accepted by the author, of making use of the instrumentarium of oral history pass the test in searches for a self-portrait of the protagonists of March ’68?