Gawęda (autobiograficzna)
Gaweda: Polish oral short story (as an autobiographical practice)

Summary/Abstract: In the article/dictionary entry “Gaweda” (a culture-specific literary term for a short story mimicking an oral tale) the Author notices the ambiguous and versatile status the term is nowadays characterized by. Having briefly discussed the history of the genre she focuses on its autobiographical uses. She underlines the genre-specific communicative situation in which neither the reader nor the author of an autobiographical gaweda, if fully aware of the agreed upon rules of the genre, will not find themselves lost in the peculiar juxtaposition of the literary (“fictional”) and the non-literary (“factual”) reality one gaweda inevitably forces upon both of them. The above considerations are exemplified by two cases of an autobiographical gaweda: Sto lat. Gawęda o kulturze środowiska [One hundred years. Gaweda about certain milieu’s culture] by Zofia Kozarynowa and Tędy i owędy [Here and there] by Melchior Wańkowicz.

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