Figures of Borderland Women: Between “Maranta” by Birutė Jonuškaitė and “Gorzko, gorzko” by Joanna Bator

Abstract

This article offers a comparative analysis of two contemporary novels, Maranta by Birutė Jonuškaitė and Gorzko, gorzko by Joanna Bator, from a herstorical and memory-studies perspective. The interpretative category of the “figures of borderland women” is introduced and understood as characters functioning between linguistic, cultural, and historical orders, serving as carriers of collective memory. The analysis focuses on multigenerational female sagas in which the experience of the borderland (Polish-Lithuanian in Jonuškaitė’s novel and Polish-German-Czech in Bator’s) intertwines with inherited trauma, violence, and the process of reclaiming subjectivity.