Abstract
“Necroperformance' is what Dorota Sajewska calls the cultural spectacle of Polishness based on revitalizing historical remnants. She begins her investigation of the presence of this practice in Polish culture by describing the movements of the wounded soldier's body in Stefan Żeromski's The Faithful River. Sajewska locates metaphors of the chopping and decaying of the body in Polish literature, and investigates how national liberation uprisings and the Great War are present in Poland's collective memory and cultural texts. She raises a subject that is sidestepped in the Polish cultural discourse – the figure of the hysterical soldier – and analyzes the political function of melodramatic forms in literature and film. She then compares the premiere of the film version of The Faithful River (1922) and the crisis that was underway in the institutional theaters of the day, including the National Theater.
Sajewska, Dorota