Zapisy kryzysu. Pamiętniki konkursowe z lat 80. pomiędzy obiegami

Narratives of Crisis – Polish Competition Memoirs of the 1980s in Search of the Language This article is based on an analysis of competition memoirs from the early 1980s concerning the experience of the crisis and social change that began in August 1980. It focuses on showing the inadequacy of the old language embedded in the official discourse of the PRL to describe the historically significant events witnessed by the diarists, and on the process of searching for a new way of storytelling. It shows how driven by a sense of the exceptional nature of the period, these diarists drew on familiar patterns of sublimity, using elements from Romantic imagination along with patriotic and religious symbolism and how this approach helped shape the envisioned community of the Polish nation. Keywords: crisis, competition memoirs, significance, history, symbolism