Polish Studies of Kyiv: works of International scientific conference, Kyiv, 23-25 of May, 2018. / chief editor R. Radyshevskyi. – vol. XXXV. – Kyiv: Talkom, 2019. – P. 259-266.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/psk.2019.35.259-266

Nakhlik O.

MAN-CITIZEN-INTELLECTUAL IN THE INTERPRETATION OF UKRAINIAN AND POLISH EMIGRATION ON THE PAGES OF “CULTURE” BY J. GIEDROYC

Abstract. The article is devoted to the elucidation of the points of view, considerations and discussions of Ukrainian and Polish emigrants from the circles united around the Parisian magazine “Culture” by J. Giedroyc on the deformation of a human-intellect- citizen in the Soviet totalitarian society. Immediately after its foundation, the well-known Polish emigration magazine “Culture” designated his pages as a place for the intellectual meetings of the authors describing the essence of Soviet totalitarianism, the importance of exposing illusions about the absence of the threat of sovietism to the countries of Western Europe, realizing that com- munism is in the same degree dangerous for European culture, as there was dangerous German Nazism before. First of all Polish and later Ukrainian intellectuals (writers, historians, publicists, journalists) focused their attention on reflections on the deforma- tion of the human-intellectualist-citizen in the totalitarian world. Articles by J. Ławrinenko, Julian Kardosz (E. Małaniuk), J. Sze- rech-Szewelow, Cz. Miłosz, G. Herling-Grudziński, J. Czapski and many other dissidents living in Western democracies, hold the necessary distance to look carefully at the methods of the Soviet repressive system and the effects of total propaganda. The research material consists of the texts of these authors from the post-war decade. Despite the fact that this is a relatively short moment in the decades-long dominance of the Soviet regime in a large part of European territories, even it reveals the scale of crimes committed against a man forced to live in the Soviet regime in the countries behind the Iron Curtain. Published in “Culture” texts belonging to various literary and non-literary genres show us the essence of totalitarianism existing in the homelands of their authors – it is total power over every citizen, manifesting from physical destruction (unjustified arrests, abductions, exiles to camps, shootings) to the spiritual humiliation by torture with the atmosphere of fear, terror, informing, uncertainty, indoctrination. The level of merciless means of maintaining this total power in Poland was somewhat weaker in comparison to Ukraine, but at the same time did not change its basic striving to suppress and eliminate any individual or collective opposition of the communist ideology. That is why it is particularly important to consider points of view, meditation and discussion of the Polish and Ukrainian perspectives on Soviet totalitarianism, its ideology, which has entered all aspects of human existence.

Key words: totalitarianism, man, artist, literature.

Information about author: Nakhlik Olesya, PhD, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.