| Polish Theatre Studies from 1945-1975 |
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About the book – fragments from the introduction and final section: This book is the first attempt to encompass the whole range of developments in the field of Theatre Studies in the thirty years following the Second World War. It provides a precise and systematic review of all academic achievements (works) on the subject of theatre of each period and what was connected with it that were published between 1945 and 1975. It charts the development of the discipline and the methodological concerns that arose within Theatre Studies. It also shows how the attempts to investigate theatre history provided very precious results: proper, documented, competent, reliable knowledge about the past of Polish theatre. Over one thousand titles appear in the bibliography – the majority of which are accompanied by annotations – demonstrating the scale of this review. There are books, dissertations, essays, articles on theatre from subsequent periods, texts about the theory of theatre and drama, and also various play editions and the most important publications that discuss them. The majority are cited, or at least mentioned, within the book. Amongst the many titles and names, I focused on the most significant or investigative – those that discuss new problems in an innovative way. This hierarchy allowed me to identify the most important achievements of Polish Theatre Studies from 1945–1975. However, it is not intended to cover the work of everyone who helped to establish post-war Theatre Studies as a university discipline. Research in Theatre Studies and its outcomes, have filled many ‘gaps’ in Polish theatre history. To address the blanks that remained after 1945 – when, to make matters worse, it turned out that many archive materials had first to be reconstructed – was difficult as well as necessary. However, this is why – thirty years after the war – there were no areas of Polish theatre history that had been left completely untouched: all areas had been acknowledged, though obviously not to the same extent. I hope that the conclusions of this work will facilitate a greater understanding of the journey that Theatre Studies in Poland had to make before becoming a fully fledged university discipline. There is also one fact that is fundamental for theatre historians and that must be stressed in particular: due to the particular subject of research – performance, which exists only as an ephemeral form – this volume also indicates the need to acknowledge the great efforts made to gather together theatrical documentation, even at a small scale. Thanks to this, synchronic as well as diachronic theatre research becomes possible. |