Spory o Grossa

Overview & Synopsis

It is worth noting and praising that, among the existing studies of the topic, Paweł Dobrosielski chooses a separate path and proposes his own, original problematisation. His main aim is not necessarily torecreate what has been said in public debates on Gross, but rather to study the ability to speak and the rules of building discourse (which lie at its foundation). The epistemic value of Paweł Dobrosielski’s book, as well as its heuristic dimension and its power of persuasion do not depend solely on collating and ordering of a vast bank of sources, but most importantly on its pertinent, convincing and novel problematisation. Paweł Dobrosielski carried out a pioneering (in terms of the range of source material and the methodology used) and entirely original study of the reception of the writings by Jan Tomasz Gross. The meaning of the resulting book is not exhausted merely with a description of certain discursive practices, but it reveals mechanisms of the creation of a social imaginarium of the Polish people and of the profiling of national identity, for which the experience of the Holocaust often proves an unwanted, rejected legacy, made familiar in different ways, and yet: a necessary one. (Prof. Jacek Leociak)