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CHATER FOURThis “re-examining” of the most recent past was therefore a method used by writers to identify the post-transformational condition of Poles. Such identifications took various shapes in different books. Different issues would come to the fore depending on the author, her background, engagement in the political movement or place of residence (Poland or abroad). However, without much exception, at the beginning of the 1990s, authors were depicting the communist past as oppressive and ensnarled in everything pertaining to “socialist” reality (greyness, boredom, shortage of products, poverty and censorship). In opposition to that bleak reality, the author would describe the present, which held the potential for a better future (while “better” was uncritically associated with the West, which was seen as the realm of opportunity, challenge, colour, choice and free voice). These images underpinned the first works of the aforementioned generation of then thirty-something-year-old writers, erupting at a time of faith in capitalist culture, postmodernity and globalization.
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CHAPTER FIVE |
CHAPTER SIX |