Cultural representation of children's paedocracy in the pedagogical and literary discourse on Janusz Korczak's King Matthew the First Cover Image

Kulturowa reprezentacja pajdokracji dziecięcej w dyskursie pedagogiczno-literackim na temat Króla Maciusia Janusza Korczaka
Cultural representation of children's paedocracy in the pedagogical and literary discourse on Janusz Korczak's King Matthew the First

Author(s): Marta Krasuska-Betiuk
Subject(s): Polish Literature, History of Education, Sociology of Culture
Published by: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
Keywords: King Matt the First; Korczakian hero; children's paedocracy;

Summary/Abstract: The text presents testimonies of the reception of Janusz Korczak's most popular novel, King Matt the First (1922), on the basis of which Iwona Chmielewska prepared an original artistic project in the form of a visual story (iconotext) entitled How Hard It Is to Be a King (2018). The content of scholarly discourse on the original work and its intersemiotic translation was analysed. Testimonies of the work's reception, recorded in publications published or produced by academics after 2000, i.e. in the 21st century, were selected. Hitherto, these two cultural texts were considered from the paedocentric, philosophical, didactic, critical or literary perspective. In the first part, the main lines of the pedagogical literary interpretation are recapitulated. Emblematic images and motifs from both works - the original novel and the picture book - are scrutinised in the article as examples of the cultural representation of the child and childhood, and more specifically, the concept of paedocracy as a symbolic representation of children's agency and subjectivity.

  • Issue Year: 5/2025
  • Issue No: 10
  • Page Range: 75-103
  • Page Count: 29
  • Language: Polish
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