Taming History in a Peasant Tale. About the Novel “Galicyanie” by Stanisław Aleksander Nowak

Abstract

The subject of the article is the problem of the presence of peasants in the national history and their mentality, perception of reality, cognitive categories, presented through the analysis of Stanisław Aleksander Nowak's novel Galicyanie, published in 2016. The methodological context of the reflection is the so-called the peasant turn in cultural research, which assumes the renovation and transformation of Polish identity, shaped by noble narratives by introducing the peasant factor into it, along with the aspects of servant existence that have been eliminated so far – humiliation, pain, and submission. The article shows the ways of adapting the noble culture to the peasant mentality and the possible scope of peasants' presence in the national history, presented in the novel Galicyanie. The author believes that the conflict between the history of the nobility and the peasantry, which is emphasised today, stems from a lack of knowledge of literary and historical representations. She refers to the Polish literary tradition and sociological research on peasant memoirs.