Politics of queer life writing in contemporary Poland

Tosiek, Antonina and Warkocki, Błażej and Marzec, Lucyna (2024) Politics of queer life writing in contemporary Poland. INTERSECTIONS: EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOCIETY AND POLITICS, 10 (3). pp. 74-89. ISSN 2416-089X

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Abstract

The article presents the analysis of the first comprehensive volume of memoirs Cała siła, jaką czerpię na życie. Świadectwa, relacje, pamiętniki osób LGBTQ+ [All the Power I Draw for Life. Testimonies, Accounts, Memoirs of LGBTQ+ People in Poland] (2022). It is a landmark volume in many respects. It is the first of its kind, a comprehensive (nearly 1,000 pages) selection of memoirs that were sent to a competition announced in 2020 by the LGBT+ History and Identities Research Laboratory at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Warsaw. Therefore, they have become part of the long Polish tradition of diaries written for a competition announced by state institutions, a tradition dating back to the interwar period (diaries of peasants, Jewish youth, the unemployed, etc.). At the same time, the diaries were published at a very politically sensitive moment, when homophobia became an element of global politics, including the construction of East/West European distinctions. The published collection of diaries thus becomes a unique, autonomous and empowered voice of the LGBTQ+ community from Central and Eastern Europe in a contemporary, hostile, geopolitical context.

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