HOMO SOVIETICUS SEX – NA PODSTAWIE BUDUJEMY KANAŁ

This paper is an exploratory studium about the category of human sexual identity, based on We are building a canal by Witold Olszewski/Rościsław Kępiński. By analys-ing this scarcely known novel from the totalitarian empiric stream, I would like to show how the sexual urge of a human being resurfaces in traumatic situations and oppressive conditions. I intend to do it by analysing the fragments of prose from two complemen-tary perspectives – a male and a female. The elements of masculinity and femininity are shown in Olszewski’s prose as acting like a sinusoid: at one time the first, at other – the latter is given dominating part. In de-scriptions of sexual behaviour of free Soviets, a self-conscious, sexually liberated wom-an plays the leading role. In the case of descriptions pertinent to intimate life of the ar-rested or the prisoners, the proportion between emphasizing the strong, masculine and feminine idiom is being balanced. In the case of the gulag workers, however, it is the men who represent the strong and oppressive element of masculinity. In the plot, the author has performed a deep, humanistic examination of Soviet reality. His view, which reveals itself in the process of interpretation, indicates that in the descriptions of Soviets’ sexual behaviours, Olszewski used anthropologic categories. That means that he presented the intimate sphere of Sovietici in oppressive situations with clearly highlighted physiologic side, as well as in psychological context.