The Remnants of Modernity: Two Essays on Sarmatism and Utopia in Polish Contemporary Literature (Modernity in Question)

Polish culture after 1989 has been defined by conflicts surrounding the remnants of modernity, phenomena marginalised during communism. The book considers two such phenomena: the search for a common tradition and the disappearance of utopia. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, romanticism provided a common tradition. After 1989, its place was assumed by Sarmatism, an elite and xenophobic pre-modern cultural formation, into which contradictory values were introduced, creating an explosive mixture of emancipation and populism. The second remnant, the heritage of utopia, is addressed in works whose critical visions of change are not comprehensive projects, but rather rebellions. They begin with a questioning of authority, and lead to a posthuman definition of humanity and interspecies solidarity. Cover 1 Table of Contents 7 Introduction: Decycling 9 The Remnants of Tradition: Sarmatism, Liberating Bodies, and Late Modernism 15 I. Historiosophical Solitude 20 II. Them? Us? 23 III. Let Them Fuck Off? Is That OK? 29 IV. Dismissal of the Secular Envoys 33 V. Tertium Est Datur 36 VI. Post-Stalinist Vacuum 44 VII. Phenomenology of the Plebeian 46 VIII. The Holy Sin of Patriotism 53 IX. Zagłoba in the PRL 56 X. The Production of Mass Sarmatism 61 XI. Revolt of the Sarmatian Masses 65 XII. Plebeian Sarmatism 69 XIII. Sarmatians and the People of Modernity 71 XIV. Resentment and Normality 76 XV. Semi-postcolonialism and Rebellion 80 XVI. The Camp Sarmation Body 88 XVII. Sarmatism as a Medium 97 XVIII. The End of Modernity 100 Remnants of the Future: Literature and the Creation of Utopia 103 I. The Momentary End of History 104 II. Twilight of the Gods of Modernity 107 III. The Orphaned Children of Prometheus 112 IV. Sub-utopia 116 V. Defending the Centre 120 VI. Conservative Anti-utopia 124 VII. A New (H)ero(s) 130 VIII. The Third End of History 134 IX. Impossible Anti-utopia 138 X. The Faustian Simulator 142 XI. The Opening of History 145 XII. The Future Present 149 XIII. The Growth of Utopia 157 XIV. Tactics of Resistance 164 XV. Biocriticism 174 XVI. Articulating Existence 184 Conclusion: An Uncertain Whole 191 Post-communist Polish culture faced a problem: how to reconcile a growing demand for individual autonomy with a growing need for interpersonal and interspecies solidarity. The author argues that writers sought a solution in the processing of remnants - in the productive destruction of two leftovers of modernity: Sarmatian and utopia.