Reviewed by Marcel Radosław Garboś
Foucault in Warsaw
by Remigiusz Ryziński
translated by Sean Gasper Bye
Open Letter Books, 220pp., $15.95
Harvard Review
Since Poland’s state socialist system collapsed in 1989, the records of its police agencies and security services have gone to a government commission entrusted with the “prosecution of crimes against the Polish nation,” today part of the Institute of National Remembrance. Remigiusz Ryziński credits the Institute and its holdings for enabling his work, yet his use of this archive also challenges prevailing Polish narratives of collective suffering under surveillance and repression. Trained in gender studies, queer theory, and feminist thought, Ryziński belongs to the milieu of pioneering Polish intellectuals who investigate the experiences of people persecuted and ostracized because of their sexuality. He has authored four books, three of them reconstructing the inner lives of LGBTQ+ communities across Poland’s traumatic twentieth century while tracing how illiberal regimes have constructed sexual deviance as a problem to be monitored, contained, and excised since World War II. [Read more…]