Rzeka jako znak pamięci w kulturze. Akwatyczna lektura „Baśni i legend kaliskich” Eligiusza Kor-Walczaka
The River as a Symbol of Memory in Culture: An Aquatic Reading of Eligiusz Kor-Walczak’s „Baśnie i legendy kaliskie”

Summary/Abstract: The article proposes an “aquatic” and “fluvial” reading of Baśnie i legendy kaliskie by Eligiusz Kor-Walczak, treating the river as a vehicle of cultural memory and local identity. The analyses focus on the Prosna River and its catchment. Descriptions of flowing and standing waters (rivers, springs, wetlands) and their biotopes serve to interpret human–hydrosystem relations from historical, symbolic, and educational perspectives. The study combines literary scholarship with hydrological terminology and hydraulic engineering, identifying the river’s principal functions: natural (the biodiversity of the river valley), civilizational (fluvial transport, including timber rafting), utilitarian (water supply and hygiene), and cultural-mnemonic (the river as a witness to history and as the genius loci of a fantastical imaginary and Slavic demonology). The analysis also considers multisensory experiences (sounds, smells), references to extreme events (droughts, floods), and traces of the Anthropocene. The proposed approach has a didactic dimension: it encourages working with a regional text as an impetus for field-based and cross-curricular projects (Polish language – natural sciences – environmental education) that anchor knowledge of the “little homeland” in the real landscape of the river valley. Consequently, the river emerges as a dynamic “site of memory,” and the aquatic reading becomes a tool for integrating the humanities with environmental sciences in school education.

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