The Red Vampires: Cultural Discourse of Lustmörd in the People’s Republic of Poland

The article discusses the genesis of the cultural discourse of sexual murders perpetuated by perpetrators called “lust murderers,” or colloquially “vampires.” These characters were portrayed—in accordance with the format shaped by criminology and the press of the beginning of the twentieth century—as emanations of the highly anthropogenically changed “woundscape” (M. Seltzer). The process of constructing the figure of the “vampire” through othering thus came into conflict with the dynamics of modernization. After the political breakthroughs, the stories of the “vampires” were revised, and today the narratives about their deeds became part of the hauntological trend of “communist Gothic.”

Article Title	Type	Size
Porownania 31 19 KAMINSKA	[pdf]	[216 KB]