Travel Writing, Literature, and Romance: Polixéna Wesselényi’s Travels in Italy and Switzerland

Author(s): Márta Pellérdi / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

Polixéna Wesselényi’s Travels in Italy and Switzerland, the first travel narrative that was written by a woman in Hungary and Transylvania, is a work little known to the wider international public, as it was published in Hungarian in 1842, seven years after her tour. There are few travel narratives written by East-Central European women in the first half of the nineteenth century. This essay attempts to reflect upon Wesselényi’s personal motives, her intellect and literary craftsmanship, as well as the cultural constraints she had to encounter. The romantic nature of the relationship between Wesselényi, a married woman, and the fellow travel writer John Paget, is also mirrored by the text. Travels in Italy and Switzerland not only offers an insight into the relatively favourable situation of Transylvanian women of the aristocracy in the 1830s but also shows that it had the power to inspire the works of celebrated Hungarian novelists after its publication. Although Wesselényi’s style conforms to the picturesque and sentimental travel writing published by European women in the period, it justly demands a place for itself on the list of distinguished nineteenth-century European travel writing by women.

„Mindannyian egy különnyelvvel bírunk”. Interjú Beszédes István költővel

Author(s): Zoltán Sándor / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 854/2022

Interview With Poet István Beszédes.

Cechy definicyjne gwar w języku mieszkańców wsi

Author(s): Jerzy Sierociuk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2020

The article presents a presumption that contemporary rural areas are witnesses not only to intense transformations of the inhabitants’ living conditions but also very rapid changes to the language spoken by the local communities where the traditionally defined dialects are less and less frequently the major means of communication. 3) The presented research proposal highlights the need for taking into account several premises: collecting in the field lexical material mainly by focusing attention on a specific subject area;2) taking into account various social and linguistic parameters at the stage of collecting the material;for the research, select informants who represent various generations as indicated by the informants’ years of birth; for the purpose of clarity, five generation intervals have been identified;3) the material, subjected to computer processing, should be accompanied by particulars including a few basic parameters that allow to characterise each element in detail

L. N. TOLSTOY’UN DÜNYASINDA KÖYLÜ OLMAK: POLİKUŞKA (ПОЛИКУШКА)

Author(s): Ersin Çetinkaya / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 77/2023

The Russian Empire has been a nation of many social classes since day one. Despite its ancient past, its people have faced many problems in terms of the living conditions and wars abroad. Peasants/land slaves make up the majority of its demagogic structure, and pose the biggest issue – one so important that This issue, it was widely handled and criticized by 19th century Russian writers. Moreover, the abolition of land slavery in 1861 still did not resolve it either. Moreover, reforms made to the tsarist manifesto did not improve people’s lives. According to one source, slaves in the village have the right to buy land. However, in reality the conditions offered were heavy and the prices high, thus forcing many to migrate to major cities for work, and in turn shifting slavery from the village to the city, where the same vicious cycle continued. Tolstoy penned a novella in 1863 on the developments of that era. His keen observation skills enabled him to accurately portray and reveal what villagers in cities were up against in the period, their living conditions, lack of education, and consequently the moral corruption in Russian society. In this study, we shall examine L. N. Tolstoy’s book in depth structurally and thematically. Markedly, he very much defended their (i.e. peasants) rights and freedoms for most of his life.

Textfiguren als linguistischer Analysegegenstand der Ratgeberforschung

Author(s): Robert Niemann / Language(s): German Issue: 16/2022

This paper seeks to apply the concepts of authorship and the authorial figure, as used in scholarship on academic writing, to the investigation of self-help literature. It reflects on advantages and disadvantages of these concepts in terms of methodology. In doing so, previous research will be challenged by offering an approach focusing on the textual analysis of figures in self-help texts.

Inny – obcy – gorszy? Literackie obrazy Niemca

Author(s): Justyna Szumańska,Justyna Zając / Language(s): Polish Issue: 17/2022

The main aim of the paper is to analyse the literary representations of meetings of children’s characters with Germans. The revision of the image of a German, who has been perceived as strange and dangerous for centuries, is carried out based on the example of selected contemporary books for young readers as well as literature for adults. There is a tendency to perpetuate a negative stereotype in contemporary Polish literature on the one hand and an attempt to overturn it on the other. The latter is achieved by presenting individual and often tragic German lives that so far have been marginalised in narratives about the past.

ЕТНООБРАЗИ ЯК РЕПРЕЗЕНТАНТИ РЕЛІГІЙНОГО КОДУ В РОМАНІ ВАСИЛЯ МАХНА ВІЧНИЙ КАЛЕНДАР

Author(s): Olha Demchuk / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 02/2022

The article deals with the ethnoimages in Vasyl Makhno`s novel The Eternal Calendarwith the help of the dominant imagological method. The study focuses on issues relevant in the era of globalization of the interaction between own and other within the limits of the topos presented in the text. The article investigates the religious images that form a certain archetypal code in the representation of each ethnic image. The study also analyzes the religious code role and functions in the author`s image creation process. It considers the context of the ethnocultural borderland as the space in which different other nations function, where their cultural boundaries were set in the light of the historical and political background of events developed in the novel The Eternal Calendar. The research examines the interaction between Ukrainians’ self-image and the heteroimages of Armenians, Jews, Poles and Ottomans in its religious aspects and does so within the polyphony of borderlands. The article proves that the leitmotif of Vasyl Makhno`s novel is an invisible ideological confrontation between representatives of certain faiths, which is most vividly represented in the apocalyptic codes of the epic about the Messiah.

„ВСЯ ІНАКШІСТЬ – УСЕРЕДИНІ”: ПРОБЛЕМА НЕНОРМАТИВНОЇ ТІЛЕСНОСТІ У РОМАНІ (НЕ)ПОМІТНІ ІВАНА БАЙДАКА

Author(s): Switłana Hajduk / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 02/2022

The article is devoted to the theme of people with disabilities in modern Ukrainian literature. The purpose of the article is to analyze the issues which a person with Tourette’s syndrome has in modern society, as described in the novel (In)visible by Ivan Baidak. Based on the interpretation, it can be concluded that in the novel, the presence of characters with disabilities is marked by the physical condition of the author himself. With their help, he seeks not only to declare his own values and guidelines, but also to persuade people to accept the Other as a part of society. The desire for understanding, love and support fails due to the prevailing stereotypes in society, in which there is often no place for the protagonist Adam, because for people he remains the Other, a Stranger, or, as the author says at the beginning of the novel, the “Unlike”. In addition, the novel aims to help people with disabilities understand themselves and, most importantly, accept their uniqueness and learn to love themselves.

Личные записи как надежда на жизнь (Блокадная книга Алеся Адамовича и Даниила Гранина)

Author(s): Ludmiła Szewczenko / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2022

In recent years there has been a rise in interest in documentary works based on personal memories of participants and witnesses of different events. A book of the blockade by Ales Adamovich and Daniil Granin is based on the recollections and diaries of Leningrad residents who survived the blockade. It carries great emotional, philosophical and moral weight, and gives an understanding to what the residents of the city believed in and hoped for. Using the materials of A book of the blockade the author of the article aims to analyze how documents and the writers’ side notes affect a reader, and pinpoint the ways of presenting the notion of hope in the authentic diaries of Leningrad residents. As a result of the analysis of the mentioned text, the author reaches a conclusion that in the diaries the feeling and the emotion of hope is continuously updated in the course of creation of personal diaries by Leningrad residents. The concept of hope reflected on in A book of the blockade has a complex content, which can be associated with the triune concept of faith-hope-love. In the discourse of the authors, the concept preserves its Christian meaning – the spiritual salvation of a person. Yet its specifics is that the religious component is initially missing, and is subsequently gained through considerable changes that happen within and without those whose testimonies are collected in the book, and within and without the authors of the text, Adamovich and Granin.

Trauma, pamięć, afekt: echa terroru w powieści graficznej Сурвило Olgi Ławrientiewej

Author(s): Beata Pawletko / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2022

The article analyzes Olga Lavrenteva’s graphic novel Survilo, which echoes the terror, especially the Stalinist repression and the blockade of Leningrad. Lavrenteva is a graphic artist, author of comic books, representative of the third generation, who presents the story of her grandmother, Valentina Survilo, and her relatives in an unconventional form. Translated into the language of comic books, this family story focuses on the fate of many inhabitants of the Soviet Union. At the same time, as if on the sidelines, Lavrenteva raises an important issue – the coexistence of memory and affect, which is the result of long-term silence. Survilo is not only a record of the past but also of the emotional states of her grandmother, the paralyzing fear that accompanied her, i.e. the physical and psychological costs that the survivors had to bear. Lavrenteva’s graphic novel successfully fits into the new practices of commemoration and witnessing, which are still a novelty in Russia, carrying a great potential for critical revision of the dark past, and – above all – for building a community of memory based on the foundations of intergenerational dialogue.

A relook into the life of Hendrick Hamel and various editions of “Hamel’s Journal”

Author(s): Cleo Goh / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

It is undisputed that Hamel is known in Korea’s history as a historical character who first introduced Joseon to the West in the 17th century. Prior to the release of Hamel’s Journal, the West had never heard of a country named Joseon. Furthermore, Hamel’s Journal also was significant as one of the only sources of information the West had of Joseon up till the 19th century. However, there are still misunderstandings surrounding the historical significance of Hamel in Korea’s history, and additionally, the impact of Hamel’s Journal in the West is not as well-studied despite having played such an important role. Therefore, this paper aims to first look into the historical significance of Hamel within Korea’s history and resolve the misunderstandings surrounding it. Also, the impact of Hamel’s Journal in the West will be discussed and what its role was in shaping the West’s perspective of Joseon from the 17th century.

Traumatic memory and the abuse of child rights in Things Fall Apart

Author(s): Onyekachi Peter Onuoha / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

Neglect is a form of child abuse it is the failure of parents to redeem their obligation towards their children. In the novel titled: Things Fall Apart (henceforth TFA) written by Chinua Achebe, the protago- nist called Okonkwo suffers parental neglect, which of course led to his ultimate downfall. Okonkwo’s father, Unoka failed to give adequate parental care to his son as portrayed by Achebe in the novel and that parental gap acted as an inertia in Okonkwo’s tragic end. Through the application of trauma theory, this study examines childhood trauma and how it conditions the character in adulthood in African novel. The study adopts the discursive approach to textual analysis and observes that toxic masculinity is a product of poor parenting resulting in childhood traumatic experiences that culminate into the use of force, exploitation and victimization cum abuse of children and women as depicted in TFA. The study submits that Okonkwo’s childhood trauma in TFA is an unexplored fear that influences and conditions him even unto adulthood. This study opines that Okonkwo’s trauma is a site for extended traumatization of kin and that Okonkwo’s unhealed trauma finds expression in his survival antics. The study concludes that Okonkwo is a trauma patient and his success and failure in Umuofia is a product of trauma.

Przy sublokatorskim oknie. O Oknie na tamtą stronę Władysława Szlengla

Author(s): Piotr Kilanowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 13/2021

The aim of this article is to remind the figure of the Polish-Jewish poet of the Warsaw Ghetto, Władysław Szlengel, and to show his complex identity. Considering the problem of the poet’s marginal presence in the canon of Polish culture, I attempt to reread his poem Okno na tamtą stronę, situating him within the context of romantic influences and other contemporary texts. The purpose of the reading is to better understand the identity of Szlengel as a representative of the Polish-Jewish intelligentsia, one of the generation of Jewish Kolumbowie, who suffered because of their marginalization and rejection in the culture they considered their own. I refer to this self-awareness, following Hanna Krall, as subtenant’s identity.

Pomoc wykluczonych, czyli o daremności – Zagłada w Śladach Ludwika Heringa

Author(s): Beata Przymuszała / Language(s): Polish Issue: 13/2021

The article shows the manner of presenting the Holocaust in Ludwik Hering’s stories. It focuses on the construction of the narrator and the protagonist, analyzing their attitude to the situation of Jews. In the context of the anti-Semitism mentioned in the texts, the protagonists not only distance themselves from it, but they try to help the Jews. However, they are also aware of the limited nature of this help for Jews and reveal its realities. A helping Pole, who is socially excluded , is aware of the power of social rules which destroy the help itself.

Wizualizacja lektury w dobie kryzysu czytelnictwa jako amalgamat wyobraźni twórczej

Author(s): Elżbieta Kotarba / Language(s): Polish Issue: 16/2022

Mimowolne rezerwaty. Literatura niefikcjonalna wobec krajobrazów stref nuklearnych

Author(s): Kamila Gieba / Language(s): Polish Issue: 31/2022

Bruce Sterling called involuntary reserves such places that were “recovered” by nature as a result of a catastrophe, contamination or war. This type of reserve is the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, almost completely uninhabited by people for over 30 years. On its Belarusian side, the Polessian State Radiation-Ecological Reserve was established. The abandoned villages have been consumed by nature, and endan-gered animal species find their refuge in the zone. At the same time, the zone is still irradiated, its landscape is filled with radioactivity stamps, vehicle cemeteries and mounds-burials where contaminated houses, objects, trees were buried. The article will present the representation of the Chernobyl ecosystem present in non-fictional literature ( including texts by Svetlana Aleksijewicz, Mary Mycio, Kate Brown, Igor Kostin and others ) and the problematization of the status of this environment, which Adam Higginbotham calls “contaminated Eden.”

Ekoliteratura w kontekście animal studies i zwrotu etycznego

Author(s): Katarzyna Szalewska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 31/2022

The article is an attempt to read various types of journalism that deal with human-animal relations (“Wolves” by Adam Wajrak and “Un chien mort après lui” by Jean Rolin). Each of these texts covers a different category in which we classify animals (wild, companion), but the authors deconstruct these categories. Thanks to this, the interpretation of the aforementioned books has also contributed to the development of such issues as “wildness,” empathy in human-animal relations, cultural conditions of treating certain animal species, species chauvinism, etc. These considerations were obviously included in the spirit of posthumanism, but most of all the ethical turn. The introduction includes, in turn, reflections on the particular genre, which is nature writing, and its evolution in the context of changes that took place in humanistic thought (e.g. negating the division into nature and culture).

Ekoprofetyzm Diuny Franka Herberta

Author(s): Mikołaj Smykowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 31/2022

The article is an attempt to read Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel “Dune” from the perspective of ecocriticism. The starting point for the discussion on the desert planet Arrakis and its specific waterless ecosystem created by the author on the level of the ecological fiction is to seek the ecomimetic analogies to the anthropocenic condition of the mid 20th century Earth. “Dune” as an ecoprophetic witness was hugely inspired by Herbert’s ecological and anthropological observations concerned with the native societies well adapted to lead a life on desert; it projects also the potential future scenarios of world deprived of water. Speculative character of Herbert’s “Dune” shows how thinking about the end of the anthropocene stimulates the anthropological imagination, which instead of the vision of planetary omnicide, may be helpful in projecting nonapocalyptic scenarios of the new beginning.

O (nie)konieczności powrotu. Dyskurs reemigracji w najnowszej polskiej prozie między polityką a metafizyką

Author(s): Dariusz Skórczewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 32/2022

With its assertive title, Wojciech Kudyba’s 2018 novel Emigranci wracają do domu (‘Emigrants are returning home’) suggests the possibility of considering it a voice in the current political debate on the return of Polish economic migrants to their homeland. However, the literary convention applied therein (‘spoken monologue’), along with the protagonist’s metaphysical perspective, make such immediate, instrumentalizing interpretations questionable. Placing the novel within the context of contemporary postsecular cosmopolitan society, I propose that the protagonist be seen as a peregrine to accentuate the ambivalence of his un/belonging: a subject who acknowledges the mortality and transiency of his existence, while on the other hand, immersed in earthly realities, discovers the need for a reintegrating narrative to restore for himself the feeling of intersubjective identification with his own nation. I prove that by incorporating a metaphysical perspective into migrant experience, Kudyba’s novel offers an innovative approach to re-emigration discourse in contemporary Polish narrative writing, one rooted in Cyprian Norwid’s universalism.

Reakcja polskich wydawców dla dzieci na kryzys azylowy (2015–2022)

Author(s): Magdalena Bednarek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 32/2022

Since 2016, Polish publishers have released 26 children’s books concerning refugees, victims of the crisis of migration policy, which started in Europe in 2015. Since then, the refugee question has become more direct and more important for Poland. Due to the crisis at the Belarussian border in 2021 and the war in Ukraine in 2022, refugees started to appear in the Polish territory, first in groups, later in masses. The aim of the article is to examine the correlation between dominant discourse on migration policy, geographical distance to crisis and cultural gap between Polish people and the refugees on the one hand, and the size of publishing houses and publishing policy of small, medium and large publishers on the other hand. The author describes the reactions of Polish children’s publishers in each phase of the crisis in Poland and the changing political attitudes towards refugees. A study on 51 publishers and 32 children’s books leads to the conclusion that the reaction to the refugee crisis depends on the size of a publishing house. Small and medium publishers are eager to engage in conflict with the dominant policy, whereas large publishers support refugees’ cause only if this cause is accepted by the dominant discourse.