The Borderlands in the Methodological Perspective Cover Image

Kresy w perspektywie metodologii
The Borderlands in the Methodological Perspective

Author(s): Edward Kasperski
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydział Polonistyki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: literatura polska; badania literackie; Kresy; Polish literature; literary research; Kresy (the Eastern Borderlands)

Summary/Abstract: The article examines methodological problems of Polish-language Borderlands literature and the difficulties encountered in studying the Polish Borderlands, their past diverse population of mixed ethnic groups (Pols, Ukrainians, Jews, Belorussian, and other minor ethnic groups). The author discusses both the external determinants of the Borderlands literature (the considerable territory, the complicated ethnic structure, significant differences in language, religion, social and cultural discrepancies) as the immanent determining factors shaped by the convention or literary genres dominating in a given time and a literary tradition. He points out the need for developing a multiperspective approach to the borderlands literature. He focuses on the cognitive advantages of a comparative confrontation of various ethnic approaches to the Borderlands, which may be encountered in the literature of the neighbouring countries. He analyzes the methodology used in the research on the Borderlands, in particular, he examines the geographically-regional, biographical, autobiographical and dialogic methods. The paper draws attention to the phenomena of deternitorialization and universalisation of the problematics of the Borderlands in Polish literature, noticeable after 1945.

  • Issue Year: 2008
  • Issue No: 55
  • Page Range: 49-76
  • Page Count: 28
  • Language: Polish