Miejsca, związki międzyludzkie, trauma. Dom, sen i gry dziecięce Juliana Kornhausera oraz Dwa miasta Adama Zagajewskiego

The subject of the article is Adam Zagajewski’s Dwa miasta and Dom, sen i gry dziecięce. Opowieść sentymentalna by Julian Kornhauser. These autobiographical texts were written in the 1990s. Both Zagajewski and Kornhauser grew up in Gliwice because their family members settled in Upper Silesia as a result of World War II and later migrations. The author of the article claims that both books can be considered as examples of a literary attempt to overcome collective trauma—trauma understood as a multi-faceted entanglement in the consequences of World War II and experienced by people growing up in Upper Silesia. The two writers expressed their opposition to oppression, which in the times of the Polish People’s Republic meant top-down, governmental attempts to make the state homogeneous by, for example, universalising people’s experience or using slogans and myths for ideological and political purposes. In both books, literary opposition manifests itself in the way in which the narrators perceive specific elements of Gliwice. The city becomes both a participant and an observer of the changes taking place in the world. The history of individuals and entire generations turns out to be readable, for example, from the architecture and special places in the city.