Reportage family biography as a polemic against cultural ethos. On the problems of Kashubian religiosity in Welewetka by Stasia Budzisz

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse the image of Kashubian Catholicism in the reportage by Stasia Budzisz titled Welewetka. Jak znikają Kaszuby [Welwetka. How the Kashubian Region Disappears]. In the book, which takes the form of a reportage family biography, the author offers a new look at Kashubian cultural heritage and identity. The story of the reporter’s uneasy process of assimilating Kashubian traditions becomes an opportunity for her to take a critical look at the condition of the region and its cultural heritage. For this reason, Welewetka can be treated as a reporter’s polemic against the regional cultural ethos. Budzisz is particularly explicit in his criticism of Kashubian Catholicism. On the pages of the book it appears as internally inconsistent, negatively affecting local social relations and weakening the cultural specificity of Kashubia. Seen through the prism of reportage, Catholicism can be understood as a factor that obscures the image of regional culture. The reportage narrative, moreover, makes it possible to claim that its excessive social ennoblement contributes to the creation of an idealised, and therefore somewhat fictitious, image of the region’s inhabitants.