Sławomir Mrożek: Exile and the Loss of Mission

Abstract

The role of a satirist under a repressive regime cannot be overestimated. Satirical works are not only outlets for socio-political criticism, they are also a means of psychological adjustment for the author and the audience alike. They serve as a vent for the writer’s pent-up negative emotions and, simultaneously, allow for the expression of repressed emotions by the audiences, whether readers or spectators. In countries such as Poland until not long ago, specifically until the emergence of the independent presses (wolny obieg) in the mid-1970s, a message conveyed obliquely, indirectly, through humorous innuendo has often been the refuge of freedom. And laughter, or parodies of existing reality, or those in power, have been the ultimate and frequently the only weapons of opposition, as well as a powerful mechanism of psychological relaxation. Aesopian language was quite often the artist’s and the intellectual’s vindication. Audiences also derived a sense of intellectual alertness — or even superiority — through close observation of the manipulation of language or the satirical distortion of conventional situations on stage. Satirical works provided an opportunity for intellectual stimulation as well as comic catharsis. Satire was tantamount to a kind of medicine of the mind.