Fantazmat Julii Brystiger
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Date
2017
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Wydawnictwo Naukowe WNPiD UAM w Poznaniu
Title alternative
Julia Brystiger’s Phantasm
Abstract
The ‘Kike Communism’ cliché holds a special position in Polish antisemitic discourse, where it has different functions. Having been replicated over time, it has been
reinforced and become a social platitude, a matrix of popular thinking about history,
a descriptive category applied by journalist and academic discourses and a keyword
in discussions on Polish-Jewish relations. “Kike Communism” is a cultural topos and
a condensation of meanings and interpretations that have been adopted and familiarized so well that it is difficult to see, let alone undermine its roots. Apart from the
narration about the harm suffered by Polish patriots at the hands of Jewish Communist
torturers the names of those torturers hold an important place in the structure of this
topos. It is actually difficult to imagine its content without the symbolic figures such
as Jakub Berman, Anatol Fejgin, Roman Romkowski, Stefan Michnik, Helena Wolińska-Brus, Julia Brystiger and Józef Różański. For years they have played the iconic
roles assigned to them in the Polish antisemitic discourse. Julia Brystiger, or rather her
mythologized image, deserves particular attention in this group. Nicknamed ‘Bloody
Luna’ she surely is among the most demonized female Communists in Poland. The
objective of the considerations in this paper is to try to demonstrate the construction
of the phantasm surrounding her on the basis of a thorough analysis of different texts
in Polish culture, ranging from literature to film.
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Keywords
Antisemitism, ‘Kike Communism’, phantasm, stereotype, myth, discourse, film, communism, Julia Brystiger
Citation
Środkowoeuropejskie Studia Polityczne, 2017, nr 1 s. 47-69.