Stanisław Baczyński's theory of criminal novels

Stanisław Baczyński (1890-1939), was the first Polish (and one of the first in Europe) literary critics to reflect on the popular genre of the criminal novel, and to look for the genesis and role of its transformation in social development. In the book Criminal Novel (1932), he points directly to the possibility of the novel's influence on construction of ahero in social views and moods. There is alink between the development of ademocratic state and acriminal novel. Apopular novel can help acitizen adapt to anew reality, aless classy and more democratic one. Moreover, in amodern society it performs acatharsisfunction, "it is acure and, at the same time, an entertainment". Baczyński's attitude towards the criminal novel was not Marxist, but it was the result of anavant-gardeway of thinking, the result of the belief that amodern reality can be expressed in art only if the form of the artistic creation is changed. He believed that the artist who creates art of anew style fulfils asocially important task. Criminal fiction having afast-paced plot, not very elaborate psychologism, and presenting the structures of amodern, democratic country, should make life eas-ier for its readers who live in the 20th century.