Każdy może być mordercą. Zbrodnie i zbrodniarze w wybranych powieściach dokumentalnych

Abstract Everyone can be a murderer. Crime and criminals in selected documentary fiction Magdalena Rumińska in the paper Everyonecan be a murderer. Crime and criminals in selected documentary fictions is conducting ananalysis of three novels, which are part of “Na F/Aktach” publishing series: Preparator by Hubert Klimko-Dobrzaniecki (2015), Inna dusza by Łukasz Orbitowski (2015) and Czarna by Wojciech Kuczok (2017). These works were inspired by true events, and they present notorious crimes, which were committed in Poland over the past few decades, in fictionalized form. Despite the fact that authors of the aforementioned novels had access to court records, newspaper articles or television programs devoted to crimes, it is worth noting that these works are fictional in nature, and cannot be treated as reliable sources of authentic events and characters.The problem which is indicated by the title of the chapter was discussed on the basis of the chronological order of the crimes committed, rather than in the order of novels publication. Each novel is separately analysed in this chapter, which stems not only from the fact that the crimes described were committed at a different time and place but primarily because of various circumstances surrounding these murders. Furthermore, the proposed selection of novels aimed at presenting the literary portraits of the murderers, both in terms of their psychological diversity, and the criteria of their age, gender or background (teenager, female, male).The paper’s goal is to create a psychological profile of future murderers, based on the mentioned literary texts and, most importantly, the answer to the question of the source of negative emotions that can lead a person to commit murder. In this context, two issues were specified: the characteristics of the prospective murderers in terms of their psychopathic traits or those indicative of other personality disorders, and the issue of the criminals relationships with their closest family, and the influence of the environment on their behaviour. The view of the events shown in the aforementioned novels does not present a pattern characteristic of non-literary reality: crime – trial – punishment but focuses on the diverse and complex causes that resulted in the release of extremely negative emotions, which are leading the characters to commit brutal murders.