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ISSN 2084–1418
The paper edition of the Anthropology of History Yearbook is the definitive version

2016, No. (9), Cultural Heritage

Krzysztof Gajewski
On the poetics of a peasant’s letter to the authorities: from stalinism to ‘little stabilisation’

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Keywords: epistolography, orality, communism, Stalinism, collectivization, the Little Stabilization

Abstract:
Researchers' interest in the poetics of letter writing is growing in recent years. However, it is mainly devoted to particular, historical periods. However, a letter as a speech genre is investigated as a kind of ego-document, which recently becomes an object of numerous publications. The term speech genre was adapted from the theory of Michail Bakchtin. According to him a single speech genre contains three elements, whose coexistence constitutes its identity. These are: style, composition, and topic. Next, a narratology by Vladimir Propp is invoked as an inspiration for a method of analysis of letters from peasants to the authorities. After presentation of general approach and methodology of the paper the examination of the research data and the interpretation follows. The research data consists of 84 letters written by Polish peasants in the 50s. and in the 70s. As for the topics of the texts analyzed, the first period brings letters, whose content is dominated by the subject of the division of agricultural land, on the one hand, and collectivization on the other. Collectivization was carried out under the banner of the creation of cooperatives, which were sometimes conducted in a very harsh and brutal way. The letters from the 70s suggest a more optimistic mood, yet still full of everyday problems. The stylistics analysis of the research data was performed and the strong influence of the oral style was found in the form of oral residua. The composition of letters turned out to be a hybrid one, since it incorporates elements both of an official petition and an oral skaz.

About Author:
KRZYSZTOF GAJEWSKI - literature specialist, philosopher, Assistant Professor in the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. E-mail: krzysztofgajewski[at]gmail.com

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