What is it about?
Konwicki's experience was typical of a whole generation - one brought up on Romantic virtues and traditions of patriotism, freedom and faith, the imperative of fight to the death with honour.
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Why is it important?
After the war this generation was faced with the problem of obeying that imperative, remaining faithful to their oath in the face of a rapidly changing political and military situation, continuing their struggle for Poland's freedom by fighting the communists. For most of them the decision did not lie in their hands, but was made for them by historical events - hence the importance to so many of Konwicki's characters of a persistent sense of guilt and personal defeat that lingered for years,
Perspectives
For Konwicki, as for Lem, Barańczak, Herbert, Brandys and others it became essential to question the language in which the 'reality' of the closed, censored, communist world was presented, to try to restore some part of the faculty of cognition and introspection denied by censorship.
Prof Carl Tighe
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Tadeusz Konwicki's "A Minor Apocalypse", The Modern Language Review, January 1996, JSTOR,
DOI: 10.2307/3734003.
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