The Memory Politics about Bruno Schulz: Affect, Transculturality, Potentiality

• In Event: Memory and Non-Memory in Polish 20th Century Literature

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to present the relationship between affect and the historical and current memory politics surrounding Bruno Schulz (1892-1942). His legacy and artistic heritage are simultaneously tied to Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish cultures. I will investigate how the Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish memories of Schulz manifest in the affective dimension, creating communities with either converging or conflicting interests in various sociopolitical contexts, particularly the “potentializing” of history in the context of Ariella Azoulay's theory. One such case is the political disputes over Schulz’s frescoes that were smuggled from Ukraine to Israel in 2001, another the intercultural cooperation at the Bruno Schulz Festival and "Second Autumn" Festival in Drohobycz in 2022 and 2024, despite the ongoing Russian invasion.

Author

• Aleksandra Naróg, Jagiellonian U (Poland)