Szkoła totalna i karnawał żakowski. O "Syzyfowych pracach" jeszcze inaczej

This paper is an attempt at an untraditional reading of one of Stefan Żeromski’s widely known novels, Syzyfowe prace. In most cases this work is interpreted as a representation of cruel trials which boys and young men in 19th century Poland had to experience inside a tsarist highschool, where they were not permitted to use their mother tongue and fell prey to severe persecution due to their nationality. However, in this article a Russian highschool in a provincial Polish town, so eloquently and vividly portrayed by Żeromski, is recognized as a form of a total institution, one of those described by Erving Goffman. Permanent supervision and systemic violence is simply inherent to that place, any national issues notwithstanding. Despite being so objectified and oppressed, students find some strategies of rebellion that enables them to live through this degrading experience. To analyze these forms of subversive protest, I use Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of carnival and the culture of laughter.