Children „write down” martial law, adults „rework” traumas. Martial law memory in light of Dominick LaCapra’s theory

Abstract

The article is an attempt to understand the trauma of martial law. Using the conceptual apparatus developed by Dominick LaCapra, two works of contemporary Polish literature – Wilczek by K. Ryrych and Wroniec by J. Dukaj – are analyzed. Although the thought of the American researcher focuses primarily on the traumatic content associated with World War II and the Holocaust, his theory also befits other difficult historical events. The author of the article seeks to revise the way in which the memory of martial law has been operationalized by the writers, and to look at their texts through the prism of their personal strategies for taming the trauma. The analyzed works show that martial law is not a „nobody’s experience”, that is, it is actually present-absent, affecting everyone and no one; on the contrary, it is an important problem of Polish society, but one that needs to be reframed and looked at in a new, perhaps also creative way.