Solastalgia. O konsekwencjach transformacji ustrojowo-gospodarczej 1989 roku w najnowszym reportażu polskim

This article discusses the experience of the 1989 political and economic transformation as described in contemporary Polish reportage, using the specifically defined concept of solastalgia. Typically referred to environmental issues, solastalgia can also be understood as pain associated with the feeling of losing the place one inhabits and the character it used to have which ensured the social and existential security in all possible forms. Its loss is a consequence of dramatic changes such as the climate catastrophe. The presence of solastalgia is traced in two books by Magdalena Okraska (Ziemia jałowa [‘Waste Land’] and Nie ma i nie będzie [‘There Isn’t and There Won’t Be’]), Piotr Witwicki’s Znikająca Polska [‘The Vanishing Poland’], Marek Szymaniak’s Zapaść. Reportaże z mniejszych miast [‘The Collapse. Reportages from Medium-Sized Cities’] and Filip Springer’s Miasto Archipelag [‘The Archipelago City’]. The analysis is determined by the structure of the eponymous concept. The experience of the present ‘collapse’ of larger constructs is presented and is juxtaposed with the contrasting memory of the past.