Всекидневието в полските брачни обяви – размисли на един фолклорист и културен антрополог
Everyday Life in Polish Lonely Hearts Advertisements – Folklorist’s and Cultural Anthropologist’s Reflections

Summary/Abstract: The author presents new research possibilities regarding contemporary folklore in connection with cultural anthropology. She analyses contemporary forms of folklore visible in everyday life. She locates lonely hearts advertisements on the periphery of folklore creation. The author presents the advantages of the syncretic, multidimensional approach to folklore studies. She emphasizes the fact that the verbal folklore’s message reveals its complete meaning only in relation to the general social and cultural situation of the folklore communication. The lonely hearts advertisements as texts which exist in the context of social circulation separate themselves from their authors, becoming a peculiar form of collective creativity. This kind of advertisements also has their individual poetics and characteristic means of expression. What is more, as specific cultural texts, they preserve values and aims that are important for modern society, retaining the strong relationship with the social and cultural reality which co-creates them. The author notices that the laconic lonely hearts advertisements could be treated as an evidence documenting the specificity of the Polish modern culture. She attempts to demonstrate how in advertisements one could find the problems, needs, and desires of the modern man, who struggles with life confronted with current economic problems. Her analysis reveals the crisis of the traditional family concept, the gender situation in Poland, local everyday customs and important social issues.

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