4 - Exorcising Mother-Demons: The Myth of the PolishMother Revisited

Summary

The following quotation from Izabela Filipak's novel Absolutna amnezja containing one of Marianna's bitter realizations about her mother's selfishness captures the essence of the mother-child dynamic in post-1989 Polish initiation novels:“The Bereaved has obviously decided to become a national heroine. Of course, without me. As it turned out, the pedestal was too narrow for the two of us. Besides, someone has to stay at home and look after the house.” The quotation illuminates a nonsymbiotic relationship in which the mother earns her high social status at the expense of her own child. But it also reveals the frustration of the younger generation caused by the lack of opportunities to prove their loyalty to the nation and deserve an honorable place in the national pantheon. The interrelated virtues of maternal martyrdom and filial self-sacrifice for the nation's well-being are highly valued in Polish culture, but whereas in the past, sacrificed sons died as heroes and were honored with monuments, the last communist generation felt left out of the democratic revolution and neglected and victimized by their mothers’ fulfillment of civic duties. The mother-child-nation dynamic is part of a tradition that has been perpetuating itself for more than two centuries. This chapter opens with a survey of the historical developments of the Romantic myth of the Polish Mother aimed at providing a larger context for the subsequent analysis of the subversive interpretations of socialist motherhood in post-1989 initiation novels.

The Origins and Historical Appropriations of the Myth

The cult of the Virgin Mary, the mother of God, and the myth of the Polish Mother are compensatory symbolic constructs produced by the collective imagination during critical times for the Polish people, when the nation's existence was threatened by external political forces. The purpose of these cults was to sustain the high spirit of the Poles, to consecrate individual self-sacrifice, and to promote hope in the independent future of the nation. The politicization of the Marian cult naturally predated the myth of the Polish Mother and provided a productive model for the latter.

Historians ascribe the elevation of the Virgin Mary to a national symbol to King Jan Kazimierz (1648–68).