Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk

On May 26, Prof. Katarzyna Czeczot will argue that the language of Dorota Masłowska's Snow White and Russian Red (Wojna polsko-ruska pod flagą biało-czerwoną) has been shaped by the history of Poland as a Russian province in the 19th century and as a satellite country of the Soviet Union. The talk will explore the cultural game of inferiority and superiority, seen as inseparable from empire and province’s geography.

The second edition of Dorota Masłowska's debut novel Snow White and Russian Red (Wojna polsko-ruska pod flagą biało-czerwoną) comes up with the cover of Maciej Sieńczyk, cartoonist, illustrator, comic book creator. His drawing transforms two images crucial for Polish visual culture. The first one would be a nineteenth-century allegory of Poland as a woman trampled by a horse on which a Cossack with a saber sits. The second one depicts a Polish nurse providing care for an insurgent, probably during the Warsaw Uprising (1944). Both scenes outlined by Sieńczyk, referring to Polish martyrdom iconography, reveal the paradoxes of relations between Poland and Russia, relations to which the title of Masłowska's novel also refers. Snow White and Russian Red's language is the product of a post-dependent imagination, shaped by the history of Poland as a Russian province in the 19th century and as a satellite country of the USSR in the 20th century. The author of this novel excellently manages to recreate the cultural game of inferiority and superiority, inseparable from empire and provinces' geography.

Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 2 PM EDT