Redrawing the Borders of Polish Identity: Transnationalism in Marek Mosakowski's East Prussian novel Footprints in the Sand
Maria Hanna
Makowiecka
In Footprints in the Sand Marek Mosakowski deals with
an uncomfortable subject of identity in the north of Poland,
converging elements of Polish, German and European cultures. He writes
on the border, since he includes the themes traditionally marginalized
or absent from the central cultural canon. Partly inscribed in the
tradition of Gunter Grass, recently evoked in Pawel Huelle's writing,
Footprints in the Sand goes beyond the discussion of the
German character of Prussia and Polish-German confrontations in the
free Gdansk. In a richly woven structure, the novel deals with the
decline of that paradigm from the point of view of an individual,
Joachim, who sets off on an intellectual and metaphysical journey from
East Prussia to France, Italy, and back to Gdansk and Prussia. The
political liberation of 1945 marks his end, and the end of the
multicultural coexistence in the region. On another level, the novel
explores the borders of emotional attachment as well, as Joachim
vacillates between hetero- and homosexuality.
This paper will explore the ways in which this novel questions the
uniformity of Polish identity in the Gdansk region, postulates a
return to a multicultural identity, and, in a larger sense, attempts
to restore legitimacy to minorities in Poland. Anachronistic in a way,
it belongs to the second wave of modernism, since it seems to reflect
a belief that a fragmented identity can be restored to an image
close to the truth
through the process of meticulous
reconstruction of the disjointed elements. However, the characters
play unexpected roles, beyond a traditional reader's expectations,
unclear to their textual contemporaries, and barely understandable to
the characters themselves.