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Dariusz Tolczyk

Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Office Address

PO Box 400783
271 New Cabell Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4783

Education

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Warsaw University
Master of Arts (MA), Harvard University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Harvard University

Research Interests

  • Russian literature and culture of the 20th century
  • Polish literature and culture of various periods
  • Literature, ideology, and history
  • Soviet communism
  • The Gulag: Its history, literature, and propaganda

Selected Awards

  • ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowship
  • Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars/ Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies: Short-Term Visiting Scholarship (3 times) 
  • NEH Fellowship for University Teachers
  • American Philosophical Society Fellowship (declined)
  • Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship

Selected Publications

Books Authored

Gułag w oczach Zachodu, Warsaw: Prószyński, 2009.

See No Evil: Literary Cover-Ups and Discoveries of the Soviet Camp Experience, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999.

Books and Collections Edited

Bolesław Prus, The Doll, trans. from Polish into English by David Welsh, revised and annotated by Dariusz Tolczyk and Anna Zaranko, intro. by Stanislaw Baranczak [Central and Eastern European Classics Series, Timothy Garton Ash, ed.] Central European University Press with Oxford University Press,1996.

Poland's Transformation: A Work in Progress, Charlottesville: Leopolis Press, 2003 (2nd edition: Transactions Publishers, 2006) [co-editor and contributor].

[With Piotr H. Kosicki] guest co-editor and contributor for Special Section: Katyń, 75 Years On in Eastern European Politics and Societies, vol. 29 (2015), no. 4.

Other Selected Publications

"Why Solzhenitsyn? The Belated Discovery of the Gulag in the West," Gulag Studies, vol. 7-8 (2015). Published also in Polish as "Dlaczego Sołżenicyn? Spóźnione odkrycie Gułagu na Zachodzie," Arcana, no. 125 (5/2015).

“Katyn: An Inconvenient Truth,” introduction to Special Section: Katyń, 75 Years On, edited by Piotr H. Kosicki and Dariusz Tołczyk in Eastern European Politics and Societies, vol. 29 (2015), no. 4.  

"Powiedzieć Zachodowi," Tygodnik Powszechny, 18-19, 2012.

"Katyn: The Long Cover-Up," The New Criterion, May 2010.  Published also in Portuguese as "Katyn: o longo segredo," Dicta & Contradicta, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 5, 2010.

[With Paweł Głogowski] "Największe kłamstwo XX wieku," Magazyn Literacki -Książki 155 (2009).

[With Michał Karnowski] "Komunizm to wyrzut sumienia Zachodu," Dziennik, 18 August 2009.

"Farsa na Kołymie,” Rzeczpospolita (Plus-Minus)13 June 2009.

[With Łukasz Michalski] "Żyjemy tu nie czując pod stopami ziemi," Biuletyn IPN 4, 2009.

"The Katyn Massacre and the Western Myth of World War II," in David M. Bethea, ed. American Contributions to the Fourteenth International Congress of Slavists, Ohrid, 2008. Vol. 2: Literature (Bloomington: Slavica Publishers, 2008).

"Fenomen Sołżenicyna," Znak 10, 2008.

"Znieczulony umysł: Gułag w świadomości Zachodu," Znak 9, 2008.

Published also in Ukrainian as «Мистецтво небачення» Критика 9-10, 2010.

"Gra w ciemno,” Tygodnik Powszechny 40, 2008.

"Zamiast wstępu” [introductory chapter from Gułag w oczach Zachodu] on Teologia Polityczna website www.teologiapolityczna.pl. Republished on Jozef Tischner Institute of Thought website: www.tischner.org.pl.

"Bolesław Prus,” “Gustaw Herling-Grudziński,” biographical articles in The Literary Encyclopedia online www.litencyc.com.

"Polski inteligent w niewoli stada," Rzeczpospolita 24 April 2007.

"Bejsbolówki i moherowe berety," Rzeczpospolita (Plus-Minus) 31 December 2005-1 January 2006.

"The Uses of Vulnerability: Literature and Ideology in Evgeniia Ginzburg's Memoir of the Gulag," Literature and History, Spring 2005.

"Niewolnicy w krainie wolności: Jak Kościuszko Jeffersona do rewolucji namawiał" Więź 2, 2005.

"The Politics of Resurrection: Evgeniia Ginzburg, the Romantic Prison, and the Soviet Rhetoric of the Gulag," Canadian-American Slavic Studies (Special Issue: Evgeniia Ginzburg: A Centennial Celebration) Spring 2005. Republished on Jozef Tischner Institute of Thought website: www.tischner.org.pl.

Biographical dictionary articles about Czesław Miłosz, Zbigniew Herbert, Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, and Joseph Conrad (Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski), in Wojciech Roszkowski, Jan Kofman (red.), Słownik biograficzny Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej XX wieku, Warsaw: Rytm, 2005.  In English: Wojciech Roszkowski, Jan Kofman (eds.), Biographical Dictionary of Eastern and Central Europe in the Twentieth Century (Armonk: Sharpe, 2007).

"Polish Literature in Transition," in Poland's Transformation: A Work in Progress, Charlottesville: Leopolis Press, 2003.

"Literature of the Gulag in the Context of Nazi Camp Literature: Towards a Poetics of Testimony," in Robert Maguire, ed. American Contributions to the Thirteenth International Congress of Slavists, Ljubljana 2003, Bloomington: Slavica, 2003.

"Hunger of the Imagination: Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski, Tadeusz Borowski, and the Twentieth-Century House of the Dead," Literary Imagination 3, 2001. Republished in Polish as "Głód wyobraźni: Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Tadeusz Borowski i dwudziestowieczny Martwy Dom," in Halina Filipowicz, Andrzej Karcz, and Tamara Trojanowska, eds. Polonistyka po amerykańsku: Badania nad literaturą polską w Ameryce Północnej (1990-2005), Warsaw: Instytut Badań Literackich PAN, 2005.

"Gułag i inżynierowie dusz," Przegląd Wschodni 20 (2000).

"Coming to Terms: Ideology and Experience in Camp Literature," in Karen L. Ryan and Barry Scherr, eds. Twentieth-Century Russian Literature: Selected Papers from the Fifth World Congress of Central and Eastern European Studies, London: Macmillan, 2000.

"The Anxiety of a Witness: Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle and the Rhetoric of Initiation," The Transactions of the Association of Russian-American Scholars, vol. XXIX (1999), pp. 227-24.

Published also in Russian as «Обеспокоенность свидетеля: Роман В круге первом и риторика инициации» в: Солженицын: Мыслитель, историк, художник. Западная критика 1974-2008 (Москва: Русский путь, 2010).

"Who Is Ivan Denisovich? Ethical Challenge and Narrative Ambiguity in Solzhenitsyn's Text," in Alexis Klimoff, ed. Critical Companion to Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, AATSEEL Critical Companions to Russian Literature, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1998.

"Od Łubianki do Internetu (O literaturze pamięci)," Gazeta Wyborcza 12 August1997.

"Poetics and Politics," Partisan Review, Spring 1992. Republished in Twentieth Century Literature Crtitcism 136 (2004).

[With Richard Pipes] "Rosja jest krajem bardzo chorym: Z Richardem Pipesem rozmawia Dariusz Tołczyk," Życie Warszawy, 22 August 1991. Republished as "Rosja na rozdrożu," Obóz, Spring 1992.

[With Stanisław Barańczak] "Przekraczanie granic," Życie Warszawy, 7 April 1991. Republished in Stanisław Barańczak, Zaufać nieufności (Osiem rozmów o sensie poezji), ed. Krzysztof Biedrzycki (Cracow: Wydawnictwo M, 1993).

"Crossing into Poland: On Cultural Stereotypes in the Narration of Isaak Babel's 'The Church at Novograd'" The Polish Review 3, 1990.

"On Linguistic Devices in Jan Andrzej Morsztyn's 'O sobie'," in Olga Yokoyama, ed. Harvard Studies in Slavic Linguistics, Cambridge: Harvard Slavic Linguistics Colloquia, 1990, v.1.

"Trucizna Czechowa: O 'Sali nr. 6'," Miesięcznik Literacki 7, 1989.

Translations

Vladimir Nabokov, "Krąg" [trans. from Russian into Polish] Potop 2-3,1991.

Evgeny Zamyatin, "Iwany," "Murzyni," "Cerkiew Boża" [trans. from Russian into Polish] Potop 24, 1991.

Radio and TV

Interviews about the book Gułag w oczach Zachodu, including

TV Republika, Poland, (August 13, 2014): 20-minute interview with Katarzyna Gójska-Hejke

Radio Wnet (May 19, 2012): 35-minute interview with Wojciech Jankowski.

Polskie Radio Dwójka: Klub ludzi ciekawych wszystkiego (July 11, 2009): One-hour conversation with Hanna Maria Giza.

The Ukrainian Broadcast of Polskie Radio: Interview with Nazar Oliynyk.

Radio Euro (July 10, 2009): Conversation with Tomasz Kosiorek.

Polskie Radio Trójka: Klub Trójki (June 25, 2009): 45-minute conversation with Jerzy Sosnowski.

Radio TOK FM (June 19, 2009): 40-minute conversation with Hanna Zielińska.

Polskie Radio Jedynka: Kulturalna Jedynka (June 18, 2009): Conversation with Petar Petrović.

Fronda TV (23 June 2009): Conversation with Petar Petrović.