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Hemingway and Erskine Caldwell. Some observers view this type of literature as a reaction against the rosy optimism that socialist realism calls for. The first of the Polish "angry young men" was Murek Hlasko (1934-1969), whose Osmy dsien tygodnia (The Eighth Day of the Week), a short story published in November 1956, won international fame. Hlasko's successors include Ireneusz Iredynski and M. Nowakowski. Another member of the younger generation though not a follower of "black" literature, Slawomir Mrozek (1939- ), has distinguished himself in several genres, especially drama. "Whatever form he chooses," states a non-Communist critic, "Mrozek's consistent aim is to lay life bare with a scalpel of virulent satire within a surrealist context." His best known play produced in English as The Police, premiered in 1958 and later produced in various Western countries, probes with irony into the police system of an imaginary totalitarian state. As a playwright, Mrozek appears to owe something to Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, and others of the "theater of the absurd."
As with other artistic forms, the painting produced under the socialist realism dieta of the Stalinist era was characterized by monotony, banality, and sentimentality. Of the younger generation of painters using the socialist realism approach, only one, Andrzej Wroblewski (1927-57), achieved works of artistic distinction. With the lifting of cultural restrictions in the mid-1950's, artists renewed contact with the prewar traditions of Polish avant-garde painting and almost overnight found themselves in the mainstream of contemporary Western art. Some artists have continued prewar postimpressionist trends, but the most dynamic groups appear to be those following various abstractionist styles, including abstract expressionism. Others, by contrast, are experimenting with a blend of abstractionist and traditional styles, such as the Neo-Byzantine religious art shown in Figure 48. Polish abstract art has been acclaimed at international exhibitions and has been received with particular enthusiasm in the United States and Canada, where it has been purchased in some quantity.
A particularly significant aspect of Poland's graphic art in the past two decades is its highly developed industrial graphics and poster design (Figure 49). Many Polish graphic artists turned to these forms for livelihood during periods when abstract painting was actively suppressed by the regime, and they have since developed a variety of innovative methods sought after by many other European countries, both East and West.
Postwar architecture was dominated until 1956 by the Soviet neoclassical style, exemplified by the towering—and property resented—(Stalin) Palace of Science and Culture in Warsaw (Figure 50), a "gift" from the Soviet Union. Post-1956 Polish architecture, however, has won international recognition for its functionalism and originality. The physical devastation of World War II generally contributed to the national awareness of the material aspects of the country's cultural heritage, of which, it is estimated, some 40% to 60% was destroyed during the war. In the process of reconstruction, much attention was given to duplicating in minute detail numerous monuments and even entire sections of cities, such as the Old Town of Warsaw (Figure 51), that were deemed to be vital components of national culture.
b. Theater, music, and folk art
The theater, both professional and amateur, has always been a popular form of entertainment as well as a vehicle for the perpetration of national traditions and values. Despite a shortage of outstanding native playwrights, contemporary Polish theater is flourishing. Since 1956, when the 1949 ban on plays of Western or "bourgeois" origin was lifted, the repertoire of Polish theaters has been among the richest in Europe, ranging from Greek tragedy to French and English avant-garde. In some seasons the percentage of plays translated from Western languages has run as high of 90% of the total repertoire.
Postwar developments in music have also been characterized by a rejection of socialist realism and an intense interest since the mid-1950's in extreme avant-garde styles. In the Stalinist era, composers were encouraged to emulate Soviet achievements, rid themselves of Western influences, and make greater use of folk motifs. The esthetics of socialist realism, however, found no active followers among the leading composers and made no imprint among the style and character of Polish music. Rather, composers of both the older and younger generations continued to write in the Bartok-Stravinsky "modernist" idiom adopted in prewar Poland. Since about 1954, however, the most dynamic musical language has been the 12-tone style of the Schoenberg Viennese school and its pointilliste interpretation, fathered by Anton von Webern. Younger musicians have also embraced electronic music and progressive jazz. Although critical of the extreme avant-garde Western trends in Polish music, the regime's cultural officials have not acted to suppress them. Such trends have become an increasingly prominent feature of the International Festival of Contemporary Music, informally called
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