Excluding tradition. Censoring the interwar women’s writing in the 1940s and 1950 (the case of Zofia Nałkowska’s literary production)

Abstract

The article raises the subject of censorship referring to Zofia Nałkowska’s pre-war works published in 1945–1956, against the background of considerations on women’s writing of that period in the communist reality. The bases of the article are censorial views concerning texts submitted by the most prominent Polish publishing companies specialising in fiction in the 1940s and 1950s, materials from “PIW”, “Książka i Wiedza”, “Iskry”, “Czytelnik”, “Nasza Księgarnia”.

Literary and cultural traditions of the interwar period in 1940s and 1950s, particularly during Stalinism, were questioned due to historically obvious reasons, pushing into oblivion not only political or social achievements of the Second Polish Republic, but also aesthetic ideas. In the years 1918–1939, women’s writing flourished, following European and international trends. It was created by such distinguished authors as Zofia Nałkowska, Maria Kuncewiczowa, Irena Krzywicka, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, but also by an elite of less influential penmen. After the Second World War, the wave of women’s writing became significantly weakened; it even withered for a moment. Many reasons contributed to that situation: the death of some artists, writers’ emigration, tragic war experiences, which dominated their works and caused the change of matters raised by them, but also deliberate action of authorities who influenced the literary life in the Polish People’s Republic, including censorship.

Nałkowska was a prolific writer who became crucial for the history of Polish literature and who even after the war period created works at the highest level. She received sufficient recognition in the literary milieu of her time, which was extremely difficult to achieve as penmen fought for its approval. In 1953, when Stalin reached the apogee of his power, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the writer’s creative work, a collective edition of her works was prepared. The article describes the complicated editorial history of “female” novels: Niedobra miłość, Granica, but also Pisma wybrane (two different editions: 1954 and 1956). On the grounds of their reconstruction, several conclusions were presented. Nałkowska was such a prominent figure that it was her status, not works, that influenced the activity of GUKPPiW. “Female” novels and short stories written by Nałkowska are marginalized in the 1940s and 1950s at the cost of post-war texts, which appears to be an element of a broad-based plan of “cultural assault”. In propagandistic images of reality there is no place for a description of the individuality of female condition as any social disparities cannot be depicted.