ABSTRACT
As is well known, Hayden White was particularly interested in the historical imagination as an object of study. After all, he tested his theory of historical narrative on texts written by historians, philosophers, and writers alike. Therefore, he would probably particularly enjoy a study of the historical imagination in 21st-century Central and Eastern Europe, of which the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Polish historical novelist Olga Tokarczuk, is the “bearer”. Her reading of the world is rooted in Central and Eastern Europe. It grows out of that culture. In the third and final study, Professor Pomorski will delve into Tokarczuk’s world of historical imagination. This is the world of a cognising culture of history from the perspective of a man of the Anthropocene epoch, reflecting on the fate that his contemporaries have inflicted on the world, aware that she herself – Olga Tokarczuk – is a link in a long chain of predecessors and successors, who on their pilgrimage – this category has an epistemic significance for the Nobel laureate, which is elaborated in this chapter – reflect on the world, history, and human nature, searching for meanings. Tokarczuk treats literature as a method of cognition, and as a tool of communication, creating a story about what she herself – while cognitively wandering through different times and cultures – has experienced. The author shows us what is her innovative contribution to the contemporary theory of historical narrative and metahistory.
