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The author of this paper provides a synthetic discussion of the image of the Warsaw Ghetto in Polish poetry, prose, and drama. The Warsaw Ghetto is the one with most literary representations among all of the ghettos that have existed in the territories that were part of the Second Polish Republic before the war. The scholar presents the topic in chronological order, discussing the image of the closed Warsaw district during wartime, in the post-war era, the Stalinist period, the time from the 1950s to the 1980s, and after the year 1989. The most notable changes in the ghetto imagery occur after the year 1989, and are associated with the abolishment of censorship, the invasion of pop-cultural reframings of the subject, and the debuts of writers born after the war. In his analysis the author also considers texts that do not take up the topic of the Warsaw Ghetto directly and he points to traces that open up the possibility of classifying those texts as works about the Warsaw city-beyond-the-wall.
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The review of: MARCIN BIELSKI, KRONIKA, TO JEST HISTORYJA ŚWIATA, opracowali: Dariusz Śnieżko, Dorota Kozaryn, przy współudziale Eleny Karczewskiej, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego, Szczecin 2019, t. I–III, ss. 498 + 640 + 586 / Marcin Bielski, A chronicle, that is a history of the world, compiled by: Dariusz Śnieżko, Dorota Kozaryn, in cooperation with Elena Karczewska, Szczecin 2019, Vol. I–III, pp. 498 + 640 + 586
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This article presents several patterns concerning the function of phraseology in contemporary crime novels set in the city of Poznań. Standard Polish phraseologisms make the characters’ speech more colloquial, natural and expressive and are used to convey their emotions. The use of phraseological units typical of the region of Greater Poland adds local colour and makes the novels more realistic by closely relating them to the space where they are set. The use of phraseology also serves to characterise the protagonists. The study analyses four novels: Arcymistrz (Grandmaster) by Piotr Bojarski, Polichromia (Polychromy) by Joanna Jodełka, Upiory spacerują nad Wartą (Ghosts Walking on the Warta) by Ryszard Ćwirlej and Elektryczne perły (Bone Pearls) by Konrad T. Lewandowski.
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In the article, the author analyzes the communication between body and text in the latestnovel published by the Israeli writer Amir Gutfreund, Agadat Bruno ve Adela, in whichthe body and the text stand in its center, thus related to the texts of Schulz’s short storiesfrom the Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass. The paper refers to the essayisticconsiderations of Daniela Hodrová who approaches the text as a fabric and a tissue, anopen work with germinal places and an ability to attract other texts. The author graduallyexamines the context of a murder series committed in contemporary Israel, whose victimsare linked with one another not only by the rare killing weapon originating from thetime of the British Palestinian Mandate, but also by graffiti from The Sanatorium underthe Sign of the Hourglass and old secrets. The writing of text is defined as weaving anddeep dreaming, while the behind-text, inter-text, and over-text are examined to weavethe thread of the story into a meaningful pattern of fabric.
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The easiest option would be to ask the author of The Cinnamon Shops whether it was him who many years ago wrote in German and published in the Montenegro periodical Cetinjer Zeitung two stories: “Du bist Staub” and “Pfennig mit dem Auge.” Had he said “yes,” these two unusual narratives would be included in the oeuvre of Bruno Schulz. His literary identity would have been upheld (enhanced) and confirmed. But what is the literary identity? We know full well that the foundation of an individual identity is memory which selects and integrates the particles of a particular existence. There is no identity without memory. This, however, does not apply to the literary identity, deprived of that natural basis of each identity, both individual and collective. Its foundation is congruence, i.e. the coherence, harmony, and appropriateness of its components. Trouble begins when all of a sudden we come across a text signed with a name that already exists in the literary space, and this is exactly what happened when after one hundred years two German language stories from the Cetinjer Zeitung have been retrieved. An automatic inclusion of the stories in the literary identity signed “Bruno Schulz” seems risky for many reasons. First of all, because some stranger may invade the space occupied by the son of a Drogobych cloth merchant, the actual author of The Cinnamon Shops. Let us then defend the Schulz of Drogobych from the Schulzes who come from different parts of the world, and they are many. In the first three decades of the 20th century those were, e.g., Karl Richard Bruno Schulz (1865-1932, professor of architecture), Bruno Claus Heinrich Schulz (1888-1944, oceanographer), Bruno Schulz (engineer, fleet officer),Bruno Schulz (1890-1958, psychiatrist, genetician), Bruno Kurt Schultz (1901-1997, anthropologist, in the Third Reich an SS “race” expert), and Bruno Schultz (1894-1987, economist).
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The cause of this investigation were two unknown drawings by Bruno Schulz (ink, two4x7 cm, two 6x7 cm, each with the artist’s signature) found in the newspaper Chwila, a Polish language Zionist daily published in Lviv in 1919-1939. Chwila paid much attention to Schulz: 43 articles, reviews, and notes on his life and work were published throughout the paper’s history. Few texts published in the Chwila were illustrated, and book illustrations were also rare in the artistic career of the writer: next to illustrating his own books, he designed covers and illustrations only for Juliusz Witt and Witold Gombrowicz. Searching for information about the author of an illustrated story “Z dworuślepej bogini,” Oskar Alexandrowicz (1885-1939?), a resident of Drogobych, painter, art critic, and lawyer, added to the knowledge about the circle of Schulz’s friends. For instance, an interesting character was Oskar’s brother, Roman Alexandrowicz (1882-1940), a well-known lawyer and collector of Schulz’s works which he used to show to the public in his apartment on the corner of Akademicki Square and Fredry Street in Lviv. The literary critic Ostap Ortwin (1876-1942), who was a regular patron of a famous café in the same building, most likely supported Schulz’s participation in the Spring Salon of 1922. Just opposite, on 7 Fredry Street, there was a studio of Kazimierz Sichulski, painter and professor of the Lviv State Industrial School, and Wanda Diamand’s photo studio “Światłocień.” The author also succeeded in establishing the identity and biographical data of another Alexandrowicz, Marek (1890-?), managerof one of the biggest oil companies in Europe, “Gazy Ziemne,” who was a close friend of Izydor Schulz.
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The article is a review of and a discussion with the recent monograph by Anna Juraschek, Die Rettung des Bildes im Wort. Bruno Schulz’ Bild-Idee in seinem prosaischen und bildnerischen Werk, Göttingen 2016. Juraschek has put forward the following thesis: alongside his own specific philosophy of language expressed in his narrative works and essays, Bruno Schulz also suggests a particular philosophy of image/picture, which he develops in his visual art. This “program” is not specified and may be reconstructed only by interpreting his graphic works; it is, however, corroborated by the poetics of Schulz’ stories. Juraschek regards the “word” and the “image” in Schulz as artistic entities, and emphasizes the visual nature of his fiction and the narrative qualities of his graphic works. She points at Schulz’s crossing of the boundaries between different arts and claims that the writer criticizes the very notion of mimesis (a statement that, according to the reviewer, may be questioned). Juraschek tries to reconstruct the main sources inspiring Schulz’s idea of image/picture: the classic European painting, German literature (i.e. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Joseph von Eichendorff), as well as German philosophers and cultural critics such as Walter Benjamin. According to the reviewer, there are three points that Juraschek’s study can contribute to Schulz studies. First, the German scholar succeeds in systematizing different kinds of verbo-visual relations and interactions in Schulz’s oeuvre. Second, she fully appreciates his graphic work which thus far seems to have been undervalued, especially by Polish scholars. Last but not least, Juraschek brings to the fore some striking affinities between the ideas of Schulz and those of Walter Benjamin. As a possible background of interpreting Schulz, the philosophical writings of Benjamin are a context which certainly deserves more investigation.
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This article analyses the stories of Andrey Fiedarenko and Michas Androsiuk, in which the problems of alienation, isolation and loneliness of representatives of a large part of Belarusian society were raised. They resulted from the migration of country dwellers to the city and their failure to adapt to new living conditions and civilization requirements. The writers show the reality of the world through the inner experiences of an ordinary man and constant forced choices, which only deepen the isolation of people from social life, increasing marginalization, loneliness in the crowd, the environment, the surrounding and even in the family. In the story The Chain (1994), A. Fiedarenko shows the illusory creation of life’s priorities of his heroes. The colourful and complex family relations, differences in the characters of the heroes of the story The White Horse (2006) became the basis for M. Androsiuk’s reflective and lyrical discussions on the passing world of the old social system. Both writers, through their heroes, confirm the reader in the belief that the problem of alienating man in rapidly developing societies is becoming a dramatically increasing issue and brings dramatic or even tragic solutions – escaping into illness, into the world of dreams / illusion / fantasy and finally into suicide.
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This article analyses the phenomenon of the Belarusian Literature Association “Belavezha” in Poland. The organisation was founded in 1958 on the wave of Belarusian revival processes in the Białystok region. The works of Belarusian writers, Polish citizens, in which the themes of Belarusian and Polish reality, culture and history are reflected, make analyses difficult for Polish and Belarusian literary scholars. The research perspective is an important factor in the classification of the works of “Białowieża people”, which is included in the Kresy (regional or borderland) literature. The article notes that the research perspective is an important factor in the classification of the work of “Białowieża people”.It is emphasized that discrepancies between the Polish and Belarusian understanding of the nature of the work of BLA “Belavezha” members are natural, although the works of the inhabitants of the Białystok region cannot be depleted by comparison with only one national literature and inscribed in the literature of the Borderlands or the region. Heterogeneous and borderland “Białowieża” literature originates from Belarusian roots and to a large extent belongs to the Belarusian context and heritage, and is generally a natural phase in the development of Belarusian literature.
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Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski was one of the greatest Polish scriptwriters, who in addition to numerous films based on his texts, left behind a trove of abandoned scripts. This article introduces Ścibor-Rylski as a highly versatile author, as exemplified by three scripts he wrote: Wczasy pod lipą [Lime Tree Holiday], Zaułek św. Sebastiana [Saint Sebastian Alley] and Stara baśń [An Ancient Tale]. Each of these scripts was written in a different convention and each was ordered by a different director, hence the title of this article – Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski in tandem with Kawalerowicz, Kutz and Hoffman. Apart from an analysis of the three scripts, the article describes the way they evolved, Ścibor-Rylski’s favourite stylistic clues and the reasons they remained unfinished.
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The article presents the complicated story of a script, originally titled “ID Card”, was written in mid-1948 by Adam Ważyk. Had the script been approved for production, it would have been one of the first Polish post-war feature films. However, this did not happen. Apart from Adam Ważyk, Aleksander Ford, Jan Fethke and Ludwik Starski also worked on subsequent versions of the script. Due to complex political circumstances, none of the versions presented was approved by decision-makers. The author presents subsequent versions of the script which change along with social and political changes in Poland. The last version entitled “False Papers”, written by Ludwik Starski in 1968, contains clear elements of an action film. However, this was not a good time for this type of production. Over a period of 20 years, the script of “False Papers” underwent a peculiar metamorphosis: from a political pamphlet, to a didactic story, and finally, an action film with an unexplained mystery and war in the background. None of these versions became a film.
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The article concerns a comparative analysis of the vocabulary reflecting the internal world of characters in Saxon novels by J.I. Kraszewski and their Russian translations. In the paper some linguistic means used by the novels’ author and translators in order to create the characters’ language portrait have been discussed.
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The article develops the analysis of recurrent kitschy motifs in poetry and prose by Justyna Bargielska. This authoress consciously and intensively takes advantage of pop-cultural kitsch, kitsch connected to maternity and femininity, sacrokitsch and consolatory kitsch used in mourning practices. She derives many fetishized objects from these areas and transforms them into private talismans; she also borrows many established pop-cultural visions that serve her heroines to create their identity, but sometimes these patterns become a costume for individual fears and phantasies. The term ‘kitschism’ was invented by Bargielska herself and it suggests intellectual distance towards the figures and requisites used. The writer’s attitude towards kitschy cliches is developed as a dialectical movement of attraction and repulsion, and is not meant to overthrow dominant stereotypes; this approach is often similar to camp strategies, yet it extends beyond ludic or ironic games. Bargielska is interested mainly in the anthropological aspect of kitsch, which is situated between the individual and the community. The writer tests the usefulness of cliches while confronting her heroines with the most serious subjects, like death, love or loss.
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Karol Hubert Rostworowski’s drama (1913) was the subject of research by many researchers (Sławińska, Pigoń, Starnawski, Popiel, Kaczmarek). This is an original work, with the brilliant acting of LudwikSolski, in which the author seeks the truth about the apostle of the traitor. Rostworowski does not follow the path of his predecessors, according to which Judas betrays Jesus, because he wants to force him to take up a political struggle, or betray him because he sees in him a competitor in the heart of Mary Magdalene. Rostworowski’s version is a story about a man who was weak and small, and his cowardly heart was unable to raise the message of Jesus of Nazareth. This does not mean that Rostworowski, in spite of the biblical version, rehabilitates Judas. Witnesses against Iskariot are Rachel – his wife, and John the Apostle, who endeavors to save him from the crime. The drama of betrayal closes with the scene of Judas meeting with the apostles in the Cenacle, and therefore Rostworowski has left the events of the Gospel: the kiss of Judas, the donation of silver to priests, the suicide of death. Such “suspension” of the act of betrayal places the reader/viewer in a particular state of waiting in which the question is hidden: And what kind of traitor are you?
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This article explores the literary writing of ethnographers, a genre that has not yet been systematically researched in Polish sociocultural anthropology. The theoretical framework of the article is built on the concepts of reflexivity and auto-ethnography. Its main goal was to trace these issues in three texts of female Polish ethnographers in the first half of the twentieth century. These authors represent three different structural situations in the field: a European researcher in a colonial context (Maria Czaplicka), a member of the intelligentsia studying peasants (Kazimiera Zawistowicz-Adamska), and an amateur “native ethnographer” in her own community (Maria Pilchówna). One of the results of the analysis is inventing the concept of “emphatic hegemony” grasping the situation when an empathic and sympathetic observer can be also a dominant and patronizing writer, even if she is a woman. Another feature of the analyzed texts lies in their patriotic subtext.
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The author offers to use the creative activities of blackout poetry and found poetry to interpret works dealing with the subject of the Holocaust. She presents a detailed scheme of applying this form of work during lessons with students. She argues that such a solution can be an enrichment of traditional interpretation, it also allows to stimulate the creativity of students and engage them in the didactic process.
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The article discusses the contribution of native language teachers to scientific research and educational activities in the 60 years of existence of the Chair of Linguistic Didactics and Polish Literature. Circles of research work are presented, which have been constantly expanded with new issues in connection with cultural, civilization and educational transformations. The results of the research are synthetically discussed — the theories and linguistic methodologies used by the researchers are taken into account. Also, the theoretical and practical significance of publications in the field of language skills, spelling competence of students, word culture and didactic communication as well as the function and language of school textbooks have been outlined. The achievements of educators, which are directly applicable in education, have not been omitted either, e.g. sets of exercises for students, tutorials for teachers.
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Precursors and forerunners, when they seek for novelty, establish some norms and frameworks which, in turn, become defining for poetical genres and currents. So, what is the right of an imitator to search for new paths? The subject of the article are meta-poetic declarations of creators, who willingly and consciously follow in the footsteps of their great predecessors. The author points to the metaphors by means of which the poets defend their “space of freedoms” or concede to their powerlessness. The cases of the following poets are considered: Józef Bartłomiej Zimorowic in relation to Szymon Szymonowicz, Albert Ines and Andrzej Kanon in relation to Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski. Especially close attention was given to problematics and contexts of Albert Ines’s words prefacing a collection of poems that are quoted and translated in the article.
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