4. “LITERATURE OF FACT”

4. “LITERATURE OF FACT”

(DEVELOPMENT)

“When you read ‘literature of fact’, you are reading about something that truly took place - it is not an invented story.” 19

“Literature of fact” as an expression or direction in literature was introduced in Europe in the 1930s and reached its apogee after the Second World War in works that were primarily dedicated to the period following the Second World War.

“Literature of fact” during this period was mostly present in the contemporary literature originating in: Poland, Russia, Greece, Great Britain, France, USA.

The expression was introduced between the two world wars by literary critics as a substitute for the narrative prose of the 1930s, whose main purpose was to provide credible representation of authentic events using reporting or memoir expression characteristics for the contemporary novel.

The Dictionary of literary terms (Słоwnik terminów literackich), edited by Janusz Slavinski, defines “literature of fact” as:

“Contemporary narrative literature that is based on the document and contains literary genres, such as: novel, reportage, autobiography, biography, memoirs.” (...)

At the heart of “literature of fact” lies: the novel-reportage, which is defined as “a novel that through the creation of novelist fiction seeks to create a so-called documentary relation of events, phenomena, experiences, in a particular environment or historical process.” 20

19 www.misshannigan.com/Genre/nonfiction/nonfictionnotes.html 20 Janusz Sławiński, M. Głowiński, T. Kostkiewiczowa: Słоwnik terminów literackich. - Warsaw; Kraków: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich -Wydaw, 2008

In the novel-reportage the dominant role belongs to a verified (authentic) description of a certain event which typifies or corresponds to a usually great, significant societal, political, or military issue. In this sense, “literature of fact” is part of literacy (literature) which is dominated by current social, political, military, sociological and psychological issues.

In “literature of fact”, the most important points are the truth, the historical fact, the authentic event.

In other words, authors use original stories and in those cases they usually use:

“Reports, essays, conversations, biographical novels, belletrist journals, memoirs, which are “very useful and often make a very important contribution to history, and of course their contribution depends on the personalities and their role in historical events.” 21

These works have major social and cultural worth. Namely, they can serve as a source of social, historical and political research, of life realities, of knowledge about people and their behavioural motivation, of the psyche, of current reality assessment.

Reports, diaries, journals, biographies are classic types of “literature of fact”.

The most important component in “literature of fact” is the truth, i.e. the historical fact grounded in the document, the authentic event transferred in a novel -report, essay, conversation. The outcome of such literary works is socially and culturally very important.

“Literature of fact” is writing prose that portrays and explains ideas, that talks about real people, places, objects and events. It is a description or interpretation of a subject that is presented as fact.

According to Croatian literary theorists Zdenko Shkreb and Ante Stamac, “… ‘literature of fact’ is based on authentic experiences and insists on nurturing authenticity. (...) Prose is based on documentary facts, so by this Danilo Kish, in his prose “Grobishta za Boris Davidovich” (Tomb for Boris Davidovich), has offered us fictional facts that the author had collected from documentary records at concentration camps during Stalin’s rule.” 22

According to these critics, “...this literature puts forward specific events and is based on historical documents and documentary literature. These kinds of works achieve greater success worldwide.” 23

21 Lindon Baines Jonson: Pogled unatrag 1963-1969. - Zagreb: Globus, 1974, p. 8 22 Zdenko Skreb, Ante Stamac: Uvod u knjizevnost. - Zagreb: Globus, 1986, p. 337 23 Ibid., p. 548

According to numerous authors, “literature of fact” is a document of time.

Among others, the most prominent literary achievements of this kind are: “Medalioni” (Medallions) by Zofija Nalkovska, “Da se stigne pred Gospod Bog” (To arrive before God) by Hanna Kralj, “Razgovori so Dzhelatot” (Conversations with the executioner) by K. Mocharski, “Raskazi” (Stories) by T. Borovski, “Imperatorot” (The Emperor) by R. Kapuszczynski (Poland); “Doctor Faust” by Thomas Mann, “Opera za tri groshevi” (Opera for three pennies) by Bertol Brecht and others (Germany); “Memoari 1963-1969” (Memoirs 1963-1969) by L.B. Johnson (America); “Eden den na Ivan Denisovich” (A day of Ivan Denisovich), “Arhipelagot Gulak” (The Gulag Archipelago) by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “Majstorot I Margarita” (The craftsman and Margarita) by Mikhail Bulgakov.

Melchior Vankowicz (1892-1974) was a Polish author who was viewed as a classic “literature of fact” writer in the 1960s. His writing activities were primarily limited to the World War II period. Other authors whose works are characteristic as Polish “literature of fact” are: Stanislaw Cat-Mackiewicz, Kazimierz Dzhevanowski, Richard Kapuszczynski, Jan Juzef Shchepanski and others. 24

Janusz Slavinski and Michal Glovinski, editors of the Glossary of literary terms (Słоwnik terminów literackich), point out that “the handbook dictionary of literary terms defines ‘literature of fact’ as a documentary novel or a large narrative work whose content or plot marked as a novel is a reconstruction of events that have taken place in the life of authentic contemporary or historical figures. It relies on documentary knowledge taken from archival, media sources, historiography, or material collected by the author.

The narrative technique that is closest to the reportage freely uses many traditional types of novels, especially from the socially ordinary biographical sphere.” 25

The genesis of “literature of fact” is found in the war period, at the time when references were made to narrative works written in prose, primarily those that had a documentary and biographical makeup and as such was repositioned to the body of contemporary literature.

24 Ryszard Matuszewski: Literatura polska 1939-1991. - Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, 1996, p. 137 25 wspolczesnosc.klp.pl/a-9339.html