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Relations between the Vilnius censor, historian and poet Pavel Kukolnik (1795–1884) and the Polish-speaking poets of Lithuania were considered in the biographical and scientific literature, but the topic was not exhausted. The rapprochement between Kukolnik and some historians and writers of Vilnius (Adam Honory Kirkor, Teodor Narbutt, Ignacy Chodźko and others) began in the late 1840s and early 1850s. Friendly relations and business ties were strengthened during the conditions of the liberalization of the regime under Governor-General Vladimir Nazimov (1855–1863). Key factors in the building the relations with Polish scientists and writers were their joint activities in the Vilnius Archaeological Commission and the post of censor, which was held by Kukolnik. He authorized the printing of books written by Władysław Syrokomla (Ludwik Kondratowicz), Antoni Edward Odyniec, Wincenty Korotyński, Karolina Proniewska and other Polish-speaking authors. Kukolnik held their works in high regard, especially espousing the religious motives that were close to him. In turn, Proniewska devoted a poem to him; at least seven Kukolnik’s poetic texts became the source of eight translations into Polish by Syrokomla, Korotyński, Odynieci (one poem was translated twice by Korotyński and Odyniec, one translation was published without a signature).
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The article describes the use of metaphorical terms of plants in the nature calendars designed for children and young people of school age: Głos przyrody [Voice of Nature] by M. Kownacka and M. Kowalewska (vol. 1–2, 1963) and Razem ze słonkiem [Together with the Sun] by M. Kowalewska (vol. 1–6, 1975–1978). The role of metaphores in three areas is presented: 1) using “child’s cognition”, that is explaining natural phenomena with means referring to children’s imagination, 2) applying elements of humour and fun, 3) using poetic metaphors whose task was to build atmosphere and sublimity in the description of flora. The described stylistic treatments were to make the popular science texts more attractive to young readers, and they were to become the incentive for them to observe nature in parallel with reading adapted to the perception and needs – not only cognitive, but also emotional.
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The article is devoted to Józef Wittlin’s text “Ogródek” i historia [“The Garden” and History] (1938), which has not been discussed so far and which was intended as a review of the translation of Walafrid Strabus’s poem Hortulus. In the analysis of this text, the author not only indicates the features characteristic of Wittlin’s works, but also puts his considerations into the broad context of philosophical and botanical findings concerning the life of plants, their functioning in relation to man and historical significance. Thus, the article is an attempt to reconstruct Wittlin’s plant history, which is a precursor to the latest research in biology, as well as ecocritical and posthumanist movements in philosophy and literary studies.
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The article attempts to interpret Ryszard Schubert’s works of in the light of performance and archive theory as well as Julia Kristeva’s theory of abject. The author analyses the language of Schubert’s novel and indicates an important problem for the writer, that is conveying the truth about the event in literature. While examining Schubert’s writing strategies, particular attention is paid to innovative language and formal solutions, due to which the writer reinterprets the traditional model of novel and literature.
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The article is devoted to the identification of two storage units in the Lviv National Vasyl Stefanyk Scientific Library of Ukraine, which are parts of the once-single Ruthenian Didactic Gospel and, thus, originate from the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The identification is made on the basis of the text, the handwriting of the scribe, the number of lines per sheet, and the time of the manuscript creation (1635).
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The list of sources used in the research of the oldest period of development of the Polish language is very short. Only Bulla Gnieźnieńska exists in the common consciousness. Meanwhile, the foundation document issued in 1153 by knight Zbylut for the Cistercians in Łekno, called the Zbylut’s document, may be of value to historians of language for at least three reasons: first, it contains onomastic material from the mid-12th century; second, it is available in several versions (including two parallel originals from the mid-12th century and one copy from the end of the same century), which are fully legible and perfectly preserved; and third, it has been carefully studied by a few generations of historians who have carefully considered and resolved many issues related to the circumstances of creating the originals and the copies. The results of their research constitute an invaluable and basic context for historical and linguistic analyses. The aim of the article (the first one in a series) is to introduce the Zbylut’s document (its originals and copies) into the Polish historical-linguistic research, to verify and supplement the existing transliterations, to show the document as an object of studies, and to select historical information that may prove to be important from the historical-linguistic perspective. Further work is aimed at conducting historical-linguistic research on Polish language material, providing transcription (with linguistic justifications) of Polish words and formulating research perspectives. Further works are aimed at carrying out historical and linguistic analyses of Polish language materials, preparing transcriptions of Polish words with their justifications, and formulating research perspectives.
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This paper focuses on the illustrations appearing in the Polish edition of the Kućni duhovi by Dubravka Ugrešić. Hardly anyone remembers that this world-famous Croatian writer made her debut as a writer for children (Mali plamen, 1971; Filip i srećica, 1976). Unfortunately, these texts are almost unknown outside of Croatia. Only the collection of stories Kućni duhovi from 1988 has been translated into foreign languages. The author of the Polish translation is Dorota Jovanka Ćirlić, while the graphic design was created by Iwona Chmielewska, one of the most titled and recognizable Polish illustrators in the world. In her works, Chmielewska used many elements evoking socialist Yugoslavia. The Yugoslavian banknotes and coins, logos and labels, posters of musical bands and characters associated with this geographical area appearing in the illustrations were combined with Dutch and North European painting. Thanks to this, the pictures created by Chmielewska not only illustrate the content of the work, but they can also be read as a separate story – a kind of visual biography of Ugrešić, which consists of images from before the break-up of Yugoslavia and life in exile in the Netherlands. In this paper, I show that we are also dealing with a change of the ontological status of the book in the Polish edition of Kućni duhovi. Both the Croatian and Serbian editions are examples of illustrated books where basic communication code is text, while the image is only an illustration of the content. On the other hand, a picture book has been given to Polish readers, in which the text and image play an equal role.
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Review of: Maciej Mycielski - Piotr Głuszkowski, Barwy polskości, czyli życie burzliwe Tadeusza Bułharyna [Colours of Polish Character, or Turbulent Life of Tadeusz Bułharyn] Cracow: Towarzystwo Autorów i Wydawców Prac Naukowych Universitas, 2018, 445 pp., Biblioteka Literatury Pogranicza, vol. 26
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Krzysztof Uniłowski passed away earlier this December. For the last twenty years, he has been crucial to Polish literary studies. Writing on a broad range of topics – from reviews of contemporary Polish novels to essays on the idea of modernity, from class-oriented analyses of sci-fi books and TV shows to comments on the politics and ethics of literary criticism – he developed an impressive and highly unique critical perspective, or indeed: a unique language of criticism, one that has managed and will undoubtedly still manage to inspire countless critics of all generations. Throughout his work, Uniłowski drew heavily on historical materialism, constantly balancing his instinctive focus on the political – and, specifically, on class – with his equally instinctive conviction as to the irreplaceability of literary form. While we might not have agreed on every single issue – as is always the case on the Left – we in “Praktyka Teoretyczna” are proud to have called him not just an inspiration, but a comrade. Uniłowski passed away while putting finishing touches to the essay we’re presenting below. Unfortunately, he never managed to send us the finished abstract/summary for this article, so it falls to us to try and summarise its main theses. The issues raised in this erudite and formally complex piece include such fundamental questions as: in what sense do the fictional worlds resemble the non-fictional one, and how do we inhabit them? What’s the relationship between immersion and interpretation? What real-life figures can help us imagine or visualise our intimate yet inherently social relationship with the fictional (are we guests, dwellers, passersby...)? Uniłowski looks for answers in contemporary Marxist criticism (Eagleton, Jameson, Berardi), sci-fi and fantasy writing (Lem, Sapkowski, Martin), as well as modern continental philosophy (Gadamer, Heidegger) and – in the last part of the essay – contemporary game studies. We’re happy to be able to present Uniłowski’s piece in two versions, the original Polish as well as its English translation (by Jakob Ziguras). In order to preserve the unmistakable flow of Uniłowski’s thought in English, small changes were introduced – with the author’s full approval – in the English version. We trust that our Polish-speaking readers will find the comparison of the two versions interesting and instructive, as they seem to give a unique insight into Uniłowski’s writing process.
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Krzysztof Uniłowski passed away earlier this December. For the last twenty years, he has been crucial to Polish literary studies. Writing on a broad range of topics – from reviews of contemporary Polish novels to essays on the idea of modernity, from class-oriented analyses of sci-fi books and TV shows to comments on the politics and ethics of literary criticism – he developed an impressive and highly unique critical perspective, or indeed: a unique language of criticism, one that has managed and will undoubtedly still manage to inspire countless critics of all generations. Throughout his work, Uniłowski drew heavily on historical materialism, constantly balancing his instinctive focus on the political – and, specifically, on class – with his equally instinctive conviction as to the irreplaceability of literary form. While we might not have agreed on every single issue – as is always the case on the Left – we in “Praktyka Teoretyczna” are proud to have called him not just an inspiration, but a comrade. Uniłowski passed away while putting finishing touches to the essay we’re presenting below. Unfortunately, he never managed to send us the finished abstract/summary for this article, so it falls to us to try and summarise its main theses. The issues raised in this erudite and formally complex piece include such fundamental questions as: in what sense do the fictional worlds resemble the non-fictional one, and how do we inhabit them? What’s the relationship between immersion and interpretation? What real-life figures can help us imagine or visualise our intimate yet inherently social relationship with the fictional (are we guests, dwellers, passersby...)? Uniłowski looks for answers in contemporary Marxist criticism (Eagleton, Jameson, Berardi), sci-fi and fantasy writing (Lem, Sapkowski, Martin), as well as modern continental philosophy (Gadamer, Heidegger) and – in the last part of the essay – contemporary game studies. We’re happy to be able to present Uniłowski’s piece in two versions, the original Polish as well as its English translation (by Jakob Ziguras). In order to preserve the unmistakable flow of Uniłowski’s thought in English, small changes were introduced – with the author’s full approval – in the English version. We trust that our Polish-speaking readers will find the comparison of the two versions interesting and instructive, as they seem to give a unique insight into Uniłowski’s writing process.
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The article constitutes an attempt at analysing futurist pronatalist discourse, on the basis of the manifestos and artistic praxis of the Futurists. The reproduction postulates, prevalent in the works of the Polish Futurists and usually placed in the context of vitalism, characteristic of the 1920s, are shown from a biopolitical perspective, emphasizing the intersection of the biological with the political and social horizons. The author attempts to trace especially the political entanglements of the “population project” of the Polish Futurists, which turns out be marked by numerous paradoxes, situating itself between the pronatalist rhetoric typical of nationalist discourse (on the one hand, the discourse promoted by F.T. Marinetti, and on the other, the one formulated in Poland directly after regaining independence) and thinking in terms of a community which starts from the material functions of the body. In this second context, the reproduction postulates are not only an attack on bourgeois morality, but are closely connected with the futurist critique of all social institutions and the state apparatus with its biopolitical dispositions.
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This article elaborates on a conception of poetic form derived from the work of the contemporary Polish poet Andrzej Sosnowski, in order to further our understanding of form as something material and dynamic rather than static and purely “textual”. Sosnowski often comments on the materiality of poetry as a useful metaphor that allows us to grasp its peculiar semi-autonomous condition; hence his eagerness to employ the metaphors of poetry as choreography, bodily gesture or action. By putting Sosnowski’s comments in the context of contemporary debates on form and matter in literature—from historical materialism and its traditionally complicated relationship to formalism to a more traditional philological approach to the so-called “new materialisms”—I attempt to point out a possibility of transcending the usual tensions and divisions organising these debates. Here, I find particularly useful the notion of “affordances,” as used by Caroline Levine, as well as the techno-poetic approach of Nathan Brown, and certain conceptual tools offered by the “new formalist” movement. Finally, I reference the work of Adam Ważyk, Sosnowski’s predecessor and one of his main inspirations, in order to show the poetic form as a way of protecting/preserving certain forms of life. Ważyk’s idea of form as a means of resisting entropy provides a unique insight into the more practical aspects of the politics of poetic form.
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In this article the author analyses Stefan Żeromski’s and Isaac Bashevis Singer’s fiction in search of contrasts and similarities in their images of 19th and early 20th century Jewish Warsaw. Singer portrayed it repeatedly in many of his works, such as In My Father’s Court (1966), Shosha (1978), Love and Exile (1984) and The Certificate (1992). Żeromski depicted it in two of his novels: Ludzie bezdomni [Homeless People] (1899) and Przedwiośnie [The Coming Spring] (1924). One would expect the differences to be huge and numerous and the resemblances rare and superficial. Singer memorialized a world that is no more, which was his own universe and heritage, while Żeromski was an outsider exploring an area that is mysterious, afflicted with severe poverty and in some ways out of bounds. Nevertheless, there are some intriguing analogies, particularly when Singer showed his streets, shops and houses through the eyes of a complete stranger or an incomer who perfectly remembers his childhood spent on Krochmalna Street but revisits to find it profoundly transformed—full of new thoughts, ideas and experiences.
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The subject of the article is Adam Zagajewski’s Dwa miasta and Dom, sen i gry dziecięce. Opowieść sentymentalna by Julian Kornhauser. These autobiographical texts were written in the 1990s. Both Zagajewski and Kornhauser grew up in Gliwice because their family members settled in Upper Silesia as a result of World War II and later migrations. The author of the article claims that both books can be considered as examples of a literary attempt to overcome collective trauma—trauma understood as a multi-faceted entanglement in the consequences of World War II and experienced by people growing up in Upper Silesia. The two writers expressed their opposition to oppression, which in the times of the Polish People’s Republic meant top-down, governmental attempts to make the state homogeneous by, for example, universalising people’s experience or using slogans and myths for ideological and political purposes. In both books, literary opposition manifests itself in the way in which the narrators perceive specific elements of Gliwice. The city becomes both a participant and an observer of the changes taking place in the world. The history of individuals and entire generations turns out to be readable, for example, from the architecture and special places in the city.
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The article studies similarities and differences in Adam Mitskevich’s and Jan Barshchevski’s methods and creative approaches. Special attention is paid to folklorism in the writers’ works. The author of the article conducts a comparative analysis of Jan Barshchevski’s poem Sierota (The Orphan) and the collection of stories Szlachcic Zawalnia, czyli Białoruś w fantastycznych opowiadaniach (Nobleman Zawalnia, or Belarus in Fantastic Stories) to the poem Dziady (Forefathers) by Adam Mickiewicz. An undoubtedly successful innovation of Jan Barshchevski was the transfer of romantic folklorism into prose. This allowed the writer to create vivid and exciting pictures of life and moral world of Belarusians. The article is devoted to the 170th anniversary of Jan Barshchevski’s farewell ceremony.
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This article is devoted to the bibliotherapeutic analysis of the novel Jak ziarnka piasku [Like Grains of Sand] by Joanna Jagiełło (2018). The reflections made in the article are accompanied by theoretical assumptions of Irena Borecka and Danuta Gostyńska, and an actualisation of the term ‘Nobody Generation,’ proposed by Grzegorz Leszczyński in reference to the generation of the end of the 20th century. The author of the paper demonstrates that reading the book might be helpful for a teenager who experienced the death of a loved one – it allows the reader to empathise with the story’s narrator (who is also its protagonist) and offers ways to deal with tough situations. The author also points out that the book deals with the therapeutic role of art – she carries out the analysis based on Ewelina J. Konieczna’s assumptions about art therapy – and shows how important it is to get used to death and to breake the death taboo through young adult literature.
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The history of the term the Balkans and stigmatising images of the Balkan area, created by travellers and writers from Western Europe, have been described in works by Maria Todorova and Božidar Jezernik, which can already be considered classical. After 1989, the image of the countries of Southeast Europe in Poland was shaped under the influence of the Western discourse, but it also had distinguishing features. These included the positioning of the Balkans against of the myth of Central Europe and, to an extent, against the common experience of communism. The most interesting (and influential) narratives of Polish writers about the countries of this part of Europe are related to the literary works by Andrzej Stasiuk and Małgorzata Rejmer. They also fit into the discussion about the boundaries of reportage that took place in Poland in the 21st century after the death of Ryszard Kapuściński.
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The article discusses the methods of translating Stanisław Jerzy Lec’s Unkempt Thoughts into Russian in which neologisms constitute the basis of the wordplay. There are a lot of language innovations in Lec’s aphorisms, but the article analyses only one-word neologisms, mainly blend words. The study of the series of translations presents various translators’ choices, which often result from different ways of interpreting the original text by translators.
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The article deals with dramaturgy in the broad sense of the term – as a written creative work and the characteristic feature of human activities: artistic and social. The starting point for these discussions is the publication of an anthology of Paweł Demirski’s theatrical texts commissioned by the National Stary Theatre in Krakow. The book is an excellent testimony to stage creativity because it contains conversations with the author and actors about the stages of work in the performance. The article presents reflections on the dramaturgy of the process of creating a text and a theatrical performance, the characteristics of Paweł Demirski’s writing and the content arrangement in the anthology. Reading this book is a peculiar aesthetic experience and a challenge for the reader. The dramaturgy of the message leads to the dramaturgy of its reception: the reader updates and co-creates meanings of theatrical texts, according to individual knowledge and sensitivity. Aesthetic experience is shaped by combining different mental spaces: it is reading a text / seeing a performance.
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