Agent 007 za żelazną kurtyną. Fenomen Jamesa Bonda w piśmiennictwie kulturalnym Polski Ludowej

Abstract

Agent 007 behind the Iron Curtain: The phenomenon of James Bond in the cultural writings of the Polish People’s Republic

The topic of the article is the reception of the phenomenon of James Bond in cultural writings from the times of the Polish People’s Republic. Though an average member of the Polish audience could not be directly familiar with the character neither in literature nor in film, the scale of the popularity of the brand in the West meant that the echoes of the so-called Bondomania started to reach countries behind the Iron Curtain. Polish critics and journalists tried to acquaint their readers with the issue and explain it using various interpretative categories.
The article attempts to reconstruct these categories and their hierarchy of values. Based on theses formulated by Janet Staiger Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema, the author analyses the changes to Polish interpretations and opinions on the Bond phenomenon in subsequent decades and indicates the historical conditions that influenced those changes. The text focuses primarily on two periods: 1964–1971 and the latter half of the 1980s, because it was in those times that the interest of Polish critics in James Bond was particularly strong.