DOI article:
Cembrzyńska, Patrycja: Ten piekielny autobus, Polska (Przypisy do B.W. Linkego)
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.54670#0099
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SUMMARY
Patrycja Cembrzyńska
THIS HELLISH BUS, POLAND
(FOOTNOTES TO B. W. LINKE)
The paper discusses allegorical representations of Poland
referring to the motif of a red bus. The discussion concen-
trates on the painting Bus (1961) by Bronislaw Wojciech
Linke and references to this work (performances of the
Academy of Movement from the 1970s, the song Bus by
Jacek Kaczmarski from 1981, and the novel March, Polonia
by Jerzy Pilch from 2008). Linkes painting has been inter-
preted as a vote of no confidence to communist world and
at the same time a supplement to the allegorical image of
Poland as a sinking ship, known from the Diet Sermons
by Fr Piotr Skarga. The motif of the bus is watched as re-
vitalized by political actualities. After 1989 the red bus ap-
pears as a phantom of communism (in Pilch’s novel and
in the collage Swietlicki’s Cities by Alicja Biała) and simul-
taneously transforming into the token of “pop-commu-
nism”. The reconstruction of the migration route of the
motif corroborates the theory of Michael Billinge that na-
tional identity is reproduced, in fact, by banal figures.
SUMMARY
Patrycja Cembrzyńska
THIS HELLISH BUS, POLAND
(FOOTNOTES TO B. W. LINKE)
The paper discusses allegorical representations of Poland
referring to the motif of a red bus. The discussion concen-
trates on the painting Bus (1961) by Bronislaw Wojciech
Linke and references to this work (performances of the
Academy of Movement from the 1970s, the song Bus by
Jacek Kaczmarski from 1981, and the novel March, Polonia
by Jerzy Pilch from 2008). Linkes painting has been inter-
preted as a vote of no confidence to communist world and
at the same time a supplement to the allegorical image of
Poland as a sinking ship, known from the Diet Sermons
by Fr Piotr Skarga. The motif of the bus is watched as re-
vitalized by political actualities. After 1989 the red bus ap-
pears as a phantom of communism (in Pilch’s novel and
in the collage Swietlicki’s Cities by Alicja Biała) and simul-
taneously transforming into the token of “pop-commu-
nism”. The reconstruction of the migration route of the
motif corroborates the theory of Michael Billinge that na-
tional identity is reproduced, in fact, by banal figures.