SOURCE: “Różewicz at Seventy: Rebirth of a Survivor,” in Polish Review, Vol. XXXIX, No. 2, 1994, pp. 195–211.

In the following essay, Sokoloski reassesses Różewicz's work as the writer enters a new phase in his career upon turning seventy.

The year 1991 marked Tadeusz Różewicz's seventieth birthday. In retrospect, it is clear that the occasion not only inaugurated an important renewal of interest in his works but, more significantly, may well have inspired a new phase in his writing. In May of that year, the University of Ottawa staged an international symposium devoted to Slavic Drama, a substantial portion of which dealt with problems of Różewicz's dramaturgy.¹ In November, another major conference, devoted exclusively to Różewicz's art, was held at the University of Poznań.² A month earlier, Różewicz received an honorary doctorate from the University of Wrocław.³ Literary periodicals, both in Poland and abroad, among...