“I believe in the power of narrative”
A conversation on historical remembrance, Polish reportage and a teaspoon in reverse
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The writer, publicist and translator Martin Pollack explains his choice to study Slavonic Studies as being an infantile reaction to his grandmother, sees the spirit of Europe as being the centuries-old cohabitation of people with different languages and religions, before it was destroyed by nationalism, conflicts between nations and National Socialism. His purpose is to remind us of this past, by describing what was there, what happened, and who the perpetrators and victims were. Literary, historical remembrance requires a special tone: calm, instead of pathos, distance instead of dramatisation are the linguistic means of doing justice to the monstrosity of the crimes that still contaminate the eastern regions of Europe today.
(Osteuropa 9-10/2017, pp. 17–29)