A still ‘missing link’? About reading of ‘Dog Years’

Abstract

Małgorzata Baranowska linked the completely destruction of Warsaw in 1944 to the destruction of Carthage. In the atmosphere of calamity brought about by the martial law in Poland (introduced in 1981), the circle of Maria Janion’s disciples and colleagues came up with the idea to show Günter Grass Warsaw and Poland from this perspective. The idea failed, since Grass did not manage to reach our Carthage. The Free City of Danzig, annihilated by the Nazis, has remained his Carthage. Yet Maria Janion’s old idea to read Grass as ‘the missing link of Polish literature’ has not become obsolete. Grass’s way of narration still opens up a possibility, important for us, of a civil – private and existential perception of history.