„Chcą urządzić masakrę, od której oślepłyby wieki...” – bomba atomowa a kultura Zachodu w polskiej poezji socrealistycznej

Abstract

The atomic bomb used in 1945 by the United States disturbed the military and symbolic balance of the world then. It became a sign of the Western power. The communist propaganda sought to neutralize the meaning of a new weapon. The text reconstructs the attempts of this neutralization and indicates the ways of presentation of nuclear weapons in the Polish poetry of socialist realism. Several motifs can be mentioned here: juxtaposition of the atomic bomb with apocalyptic motifs, highlighting the lack of intellectual and moral qualifications for possessing it, and emphasizing that it is a dangerous by-product of the Western desire for profit. Above all, however, the poetry of socialist realism underlined that Western culture is an incomprehensible and inhuman evil.