У статті проаналізовано три книжки Зємовіта Щерека: «Прийде Мордор і нас з'їсть» (2013), «Татуювання з тризубом» (2015) та «Міжмор'я»
(2017). Ці праці, з огляду на присутність у них тем, пов'язаних зі східним
сусідом Польщі, дослідник умовно поєднує в «українську трилогію». Висвітлено жанрові особливості доробку З. Щерека, наслідки писання репортажів
про країну з багатолітнім досвідом колоніальних стосунків із Польщею, погляд на українську ситуацію з понадрегіональної перспективи.
The aim of this paper is an analysis of the three books by the Polish journalist, writer, and
traveler Ziemowit Szczerek: “Mordor will come and eat us” (2013), “Tattoo with Trident”
(2015), and “Intermarium” (2017). Due to the presence of themes related to Poland’s eastern
neighbor the author of the paper conventionally groups them as “Ukrainian trilogy”.
In particular, the paper focuses on the genealogical status of Szczerek’s work, highlights the
consequences of writing books about the country with a long and complex history of colonial
relations with Poland, and considers an attempt to look at the Ukrainian situation from
a supra-regional perspective.
In the case of “Mordor…” the author of the present paper is interested in the still dubious
genealogical status of the novel, which, apart from its purely formal role, is also important
for determining the writer’s position in relation to the described country. In the collection
of reportages “Tattoo with Trident”, the writer gives up the easy strategy of exoticizing
Ukraine and proposes his own strategy of domestication, which consists of three principles:
a) rationalizing the attitudes of the people described; b) looking for analogies between the
Polish and Ukrainian situation; c) introducing autobiographical threads. “Intermarium” is a
literary guide to the countries that make up the pseudo-community, because they have a national
idea that separates them. The comparison of dreams concerning power in the style of
“Let’s make Poland (Hungary, Slovakia, Macedonia, etc.) great again” reveals the illusiveness
of such thinking and the hidden imitative character of these fantasies, just like the slogan
itself. Szczerek claims that escape from the West taking place in Central Europe resembles
a “run of lemmings”, which will end with either a renewed victory of Western ideas in these
lands or their gradual falling into the Russian sphere of influence.
