REWRITING ROZEWICZ ( IN THE MID-1950S)

The paper juxtaposes Borem, lasem... (Through Forest and Woods..., 1945) and Ciezar (Burden, 1955), two Tadeusz Rozewicz's prose publications that recollect his experience as a member of a partisan unit of Armia Krajowa (Home Army) at the time of World War II. Formally, the pieces are variants of the same text reedited in the year 1955 in connection with book publication (in the collection Opadly liscie z drzewThe Leafs Have Fallen from Trees), but the changes are so profound and meaningful in the semantic sphere that the versions ultimately give a dissimilar image of the war. In the mid-1950s liter- ary critics of Rozewicz express the opinion that the poet reedited his piece in a way that harmonises with the then changes-linked to post-Stalinist thaw-in perceiving World War II and in appraising its literary accounts. Rozewicz supported the changes and co-created them with the then literary choices of his, including the crucial one: "rewriting" his own pieces composed shortly after the war.