On duty of idea – Tu jest Polska by Herminia Naglerowa

Abstract

The article discusses the drama by Herminia Naglerowa entitled Tu jest Polska. The author of the article is concerned with extraordinary circumstances of origin of the text that was written between 1942 and 1943, that is during the ongoing Second World War, soon after the writer left gulag and joined the Women's Auxiliary Service in the army commanded by Gen. Władysław Anders. Although the article proposes an interpretation of the drama mainly as a literary text, additional supportive information used is related to the performance of Tu jest Polska by the Drama Theatre of Polish Army in the East.

The article stresses biased and propaganda character of the play that results from both political and ideological implications and from the fact that it addressed an audience consisting of soldiers of the Polish II Corps: usually ex-prisoners and former laborers of gulags. The play by Naglerowa can be classified as a representative of the emigration drama mainstream described by Dobrochna Ratajczakowa as ‘servient’. The topics of conspiracy and uprising that can be found in the play are considered a continuation of the tradition of Polish Romanticism in which any fight for independence and civil service receive the top priority.

The author of the article focuses her attention on these passages of the play that discuss problems developed also in several further works by Naglerowa and related to the subject matter of war. Among these problems one should mention the motif of heroism contrasted with romantic models as well as the subject of women’s way of experiencing history .