Literatura rosyjska wobec zagłady sowieckich jeńców wojennych

The article concerns the motif and theme of Soviet prisoners of war in Russian literature. It presents the most important historical facts, which are the sources of literary approaches, concerning the complicated fate of Soviet POWs during the German-Soviet war (1941‒1945) and after its end. It also shows the political and ideological determinants of the literary image of a prisoner (as a traitor and coward, a resistance fighter in camps and a partisan, victim). The subjects of the analysis are both fictive works and memoirs, among others Mikhail Sholokhov’s The Fate of a Man (Судьба человека), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich (Один день Ивана Денисовича), Vasily Grossman’s Life and fate (Жизнь и судьба), Andrey Pogozhev’s Escape from Auschwitz (Смерть стояла у нас за спиной).