Powieść historyczna pod czujnym okiem cenzora – analiza tekstów

Author(s): Thibault Deleixhe / Language(s): Polish Issue: 06/2015

This article focuses on the relation that Jacek Bochenski’s historical novel entitled The poet Naso published in 1969 presents towards the concept of censorship. In the article the author aims at proving that the understanding of censorship by Bochenski is similar to the observations of the Hungarian essayist Mikos Haraszti. Tracking the allegoric references scattered through the novel, the author of the article reconstructs Bochenski’s reflection about this internalized censorship and checks its convergence with Haraszti’s remarks. From this exercise emerges a definition of the role of the artist that seems to be inherited from the romantic period: an artist as a person that subordinates himself unconditionally to art, and not to the temporal power. The author of the article then interrogates the respect which Bochenski has been showing to his definition in his literary work. It appears that the writer has been prone to make bigger concessions in order to soften the reception of his book by the censors than he advises his writing colleagues. However, the literary strategies deployed by Bochenski operate on two levels: creating an overall ambiguity about the guilt of its main protagonist, they tend to soften its reception by the censorship; while at the same time, rendering this overall atmosphere of ambiguity, they give a literary form to the spectral character of the guilt of the artist, who – as in Ovidius’ case – is permanently accountable for what he has not yet done in the building of communism.

Varia: Co było przed geopoetyką? Kategoria przestrzeni w literaturoznawstwie polskim – rekonesans

Author(s): Tomasz Gęsina / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2016

The article presents Polish research on the category of ‘space’, which influenced the shaping of the concept of geopoetics in Polish literary studies. Geopoetics is understood, according to Elżbieta Rybicka’s guidelines, as ‘concept-in-action’. The author of the article begins with theoretical considerations, then presents contemporary foreign theories and finally analyses theoretical works of Michał Głowiński, Henryk Markiewicz, and Janusz Sławiński. He also discusses the concept of ‘new regional studies’ in the context of the spatial turn. Using Stefania Skwarczyńska’s works, the author of the article claims ‘new regional studies’ to be one of the crucial elements of geopoetics.

Wina bez prawa. Struktura nowej iluzji

Author(s): Andrzej Leder / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2 (7)/2015

Basing his argumentation on Freud’s essay “Civilisation and Its Discontents”, the author poses a question about the essence of suffering which appears when the Law of the Father is suspended and no longer protects against the death drive. The author formulates a thesis that in the contemporary social space, abandoned by the Law of the Father, it is disciplinary practices that play a key regulative role, pretending to form the relations based on the law. These practices transform the drive energy of Thanatos, which then finds its embodiment in the everyday lifelessness of bureaucracy, the coolness of rules and the excess hidden beneath them. The answer to this situation is Eros, which drives people to community – yet not so much in the form of a family as of an infinite and noneconomic continuum of local games of love and death.

Ojciec po śmierci ojca – (post)lacanowski ateizm w spojrzeniu z Odradka

Author(s): Przemysław Tacik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2 (7)/2015

The paper calls into question the status of (post)Lacanian atheism as can be inferred from writings of Lacan himself (mainly seminaries XI, XVIII, XX and XXIII) and Slavoj Žižek. Such atheism is based on the inexistence of “the Other of the Other”, which, however, cannot be merely stated, but must take the form of an injunction. In this postlacanian logic, true atheists are not those who deny the existence of God – even in its symbolic functions – but those who – actively relying on the absence of “the Other of the Other” – are able to carry out fundamental shifts within the symbolic structure of the Other. Yet, this atheism, which might be viewed as one of the strongest forms of denying the divine, is based itself on the monotheistic grid. Drawing upon some remarks from the late writings of Freud, the paper aims to reveal the inner, self-referential logic of the Father, whose position is preserved and strengthened after the actual death of the Father. Postlacanian atheism might be conceived of as the latest form of fatherly self-grounding, in which divine position perpetuates itself under the cover of injunctions to radical atheism. Finally, the paper propounds an interpretation of Kafka’s short story “The Cares of a Family Man” (“Die Sorge des Hausvaters”), in which the enigmatic figure of “Odradek” – a deathless half-object, half-creature – stands for the final material embodiment of the futile injunction to renounce the divine. Thus Odradek epitomises the Law, which is nothing but an insoluble rattle, emptied from the tension of desire, in front of which Kafka’s characters are forced to wait.

Amicitia a tyranobójstwo

Author(s): Piotr Graczyk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2 (7)/2015

The text considers the relations between friendship and revolution. The author seeks inspiration for the understanding of these relations in St. Thomas’s opusculum, “On Kingship”, Negri’s and Hardt’s books and Jadwiga Staniszkis “Samoograniczająca się rewolucja” [“Self-limiting Revolution”]. Friendship helps to rebel against tyranny but the overpowering rebellion hinders the maintenance of friendship – St. Thomas suggests. The solution is a difficult art of the self-limiting of revolution, inspired by the Christian love of a neighbour and Mao Tse-Tung’s cultural revolution (within limits, of course).

Ucieczka od psychoanalizy

Author(s): Didier Eribon / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2 (7)/2015

The author offers a critical judgment of Lacanian psychoanalysis, pointing out its normativizing aspect. He acknowledges the impossibility of reconciliation of psychoanalytic thought with the theory of radical difference, the example of which is queer, which has been postulated by such scholars as Judith Butler, Lee Edelman or Leo Bersani. As Eribon claims, queer theory constitutes a continuation of (anti-psychoanalytic) philosophy of Michel Foucault, and it would be theoretically much more inspiring – Eribon further argues – to try to juxtapose Foucault’s thought with Sartre rather than with Freud or Lacan.

Recenzje i omówienia: Herbert i świat Rzymu [dot. J.M. Ruszar: „Słońce republiki”]

Author(s): Marian Kisiel / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2 (7)/2015

The review of Józef Maria Ruszar’s book “Słońce republiki. Cywilizacja rzymska w twórczości Zbigniewa Herberta” (2014) [„Sun of the republic. Roman civilisation in Zbigniew Herbert’s work”]. The author of the review emphasises that Ruszar convincingly inscribed Herbert’s fascination with antiquity (especially Roman antiquity) in the whole historiosophical reflection of the poet. The conviction about the progressive disintegration of the structures of civilization and society was closely related in Herbert’s writing with the sustained defence of Roman virtus. However, the thesis that in his poetic work Herbert was disputing with the programme and ideology of the literary modernism is perceived by the reviewer as questionable.

Les contes folkloriques dans la dramaturgie symboliste francophone et slave

Author(s): Dina Mantcheva / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2015

The paper examines the selection, structuring and dramatic rendition of the fairy tale plots in the Francophone and the Slavic symbolist dramas, to point out their typological resemblances and inner richness. The study finds out that rewriting the magic stories and their syncretic approach characterize both theatres and mark out their similitudes. However, the Francophone symbolists attempt to intensify the universal and mystical meaning of the folktales. On the other hand, the Slavic authors insert some national and parodic trends in their plays, strengthen the art synthesis and anticipate, in that way, the dramatic experiments in the European vanguards.

„Dosyć nie umiem pisać” Dzienniczek Faustyny Kowalskiej jako wydarzenie piśmienne i tekstowe

Author(s): Piotr Kubkowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The Little Diary of Faustyna Kowalska, a mystic and saint of the Catholic Church, is a frequently translated Polish book, and yet until now its study and scholarly editing has only been undertaken specialists from the Vatican. Kubkowski presents the Little Diary not only as a ‘text,’ but as a testimony of several layers of creative performance, editorial and publishing efforts. Subjected to more or less systematic reworking, copy editing, and supplied with a critical apparatus consisting of introductions, postscripts, chronologies and footnotes, the manuscript becomes a book, emancipating itself, so to say, from the shape given to it by the author. What is more, the very act of creating the entries, rooted as it is in mystical experience, evolves from a ‘struggle’ with the medium towards refined writing forms, constituting what Kubkowski reads as a chain of handwritten ‘events’.

Kolce Grünewalda. „Róża” i Ołtarz z Isenheim

Author(s): Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

In this article Szewczyk-Haake contextualizes Tadeusz Różewicz’s poem “Róża” [“Rose”], from his collected poems [Poezje zebrane] of 1971, with the German Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece. The retable in Różewicz’s poem is read in two ways. On the one hand, being characteristic of German art, the poem is interpreted in a broadly German context. On the other hand, Różewicz’s return in “Róża” to the “German thread” – a major theme in his oeuvre – does not cancel out the existential significance of his confrontation with the medieval masterpiece. Szewczyk-Haake consequently suggests that Różewicz juxtaposes two ways of understanding the relationship between the work of art and its audience. According to the first, interpretation hinges on a range of key reception experiences; according to the second, interpretation is based on aesthetic experience, beyond time.

OBRAZ NOWEJ HUTY W NAJNOWSZEJ PROZIE FABULARNEJ: KOBIETY, ROMANTYZM I PRAGNIENIE NOWEGO POCZĄTKU

Author(s): Anna Wojciechowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The text undertakes an analysis of representation of Nowa Huta in contemporary ction, in attempt to discover whether a new ways of description have been invented (in the context of strong and in uential myths dating back do 1950’s). It focuses on three texts: Hanna Sokołowska’s thriller Kosa, Jewgienij T. Olejniczak’s fantasy novella Tajemna historia Nowej Huty and Adam Miklasz’s Ostatni mecz, a story of Nowa Huta football team and its fans. A couple of common problems in the discussed texts are observed and examined, such as: rep- resentation of feminity (attribution of creative force to women), romantic paradigm, relation between private and public and rewriting of Nowa Huta genesis.What seems to be a major problem is crisis of community, distrust of common values and shift towards indi- vidualism (in Miklasz’s book the case is more complicated).

Rozmowa jako aproksymacja

Author(s): Kinga Piotrowiak-Junkiert / Language(s): Polish Issue: 06/2014

The text is devoted to an analysis of the phenomenon of conversation. The author analyzes two volumes of interviews: Anka Grupińska’s "Still in a Circle", and "Izraeli szellem ma" by János Kőbányai, both of which explore the significance of talking about the Holocaust and the manner in which it can be done. The positions of the two writers demonstrate that on the map of post-Holocaust genres, one of the most important is the interview/conversation, which allows one to view another’s untouchable history and experience it without disturbing it.

В памет на Свен Густавсон (1938–2013)

Author(s): Daniela Assenova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 26/2013

Głośna poezja. Uważne słuchanie w badaniach literackich

Author(s): Aleksandra Kremer / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2015

Kremer raises the problem of voice in poetry. Engaging with research on the poet’s voice as it is encoded in texts, she discusses traditional studies of recitation, treated as an art that is separate from poetry. She also presents more recent scholarship on performance poetry and analyses well-known recordings of twentieth-century poetry performed by its authors. Drawing on instances of phonetic, sound, and performance poetry together with poetry readings, Kremer points to hitherto overlooked spoken versions of Polish poems. Finally, she examines the category of voice as an object of research and proposes a method of close listening.

Próbowanie poematu prozą, czyli dylematy i roszczenia badacza genologii

Author(s): Agata Stankowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2015

Review: Agnieszka Kluba, Poemat prozą w Polsce [The Prose Poem in Poland], Warszawa–Toruń 2014

Trauma i epifania w Piotrusiu Leo Lipskiego i Tłach Stanisława Czycza

Author(s): Radosław Pulkowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 6/2015

Artykuł zawiera analizę (mini)powieści Piotruś Leo Lipskiego oraz tomu poetyckiego Tła Stanisława Czycza. Ma na celu wykazanie, że głównym celem obu utworów jest próba wyrażania niewyrażalnego, które jest tożsame z traumą oraz zaczerpniętym z myśli Jacquesa Lacana Realnym. Obaj autorzy próbują robić to za pomocą epifanicznego ukształtowania tekstów, wyraźnie wykorzystując zjawisko kontrastu i tym samym poetykę afektywną. Ze stosunku do niewyrażalności Czycza i Lipskiego można wnioskować o konieczności rozpatrywania ich twórczości raczej w kategoriach myśli ponowoczesnej niż nowoczesnej.

O potrzebie humanistyki we współczesnej szkole – kilka refleksji

Author(s): Małgorzata Gajak-Toczek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 33/2024

The article points to the need for humanities education in a world dominated by technology. Recalling the dispute between Charles Percy Snow and Frank Raymond Leavis, the author emphasizes that technological development should be responsible for civilization progress while humanities should provide technical achievements with human face with. In the 21st century, with the help of great narratives, people are expected, on the one hand, to attempt to root themselves in the world of the past, interiorize timeless values, give sense to their existence, receive teachings and cautions, and, on the other, a great challenge they face appears to be taming the future, technological spaces and interfaces leading to deeper immersion in virtual environments. In the context of the two visions of the world of tomorrow, that is techno-optimists and techno-pessimists, the author refers to the findings of technoanthropology. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner serves as an exemplary material for reflections on the future, with particular emphasis on the relationship between humans and replicants. The final reflections constitute conclusions to the considerations being made.

Na tropie Sąpierza… – lekcje myślenia Naturą z Katarzyną Puzyńską i Julią Hartwig

Author(s): Kacper Mika / Language(s): Polish Issue: 33/2024

The subject of the article is the interpretation of Katarzyna Puzyńska’s novel Sąpierz with the application of the instruments of ecocriticism. The author explores the transgressive nature of fantasy, focusing on genre syncretism, linguistic stereotyping, linguistic ecology, and the degradation and reinterpretation of the Magna Mater topos (eco-feminism). The basic issue is how to approach humanistic reflection on the place of man in nature and its impact on the ecosystem. The text signals the relationship between the narrative and the construction of the world presented and consumerism, the Anthropocene and global warming. The specificity of the Slavic fantasy leads us to think about the role of the Slavic mythology in the creation of a literary vision of Nature. It seems indispensable to recall the mythological criticism and phenomenological writings of Gaston Bachelard. The author postulates the use of the discussed text in school practice in clash with Julia Hartwig’s poems. The proposed teaching aids include: a work sheet – a scheme of a magic fairy tale, a task devoted to stereotyping and Slavic pseudo(etymologies) and the text of an ecological song. The assignments combine literary tradition with the formation of competences related to critical reading of pop culture texts in the service of building an attitude of empathy and respect for the non-human world.

Campus Life in Contemporary Polish, Slovak, and Ukrainian Fiction

Author(s): Oksana Blashkiv / Language(s): English Issue: 46 (51)/2024

The article focuses on the image of campus life as presented in a selection of novels written in Polish, Slovak, and Ukrainian after 1989. The author presents generic peculiarities of Slavic campus fiction and analyses the theme of (academic) coming-of-age in Slavic campus fiction. The maturation of student characters in Maryna Hrymych’s Yura and Pavol Parkov’s The Legend About the Language occurred in Soviet Ukraine and Czechoslovakia, respectively, around 1968. In contrast, the protagonists of Jagoda Grudzień’s Erasmopeja and Tania Kalytenko’s Antero undergo academic identity formation in contemporary Scandinavian countries as participants in academic exchange programs. While Hrymych and Rankov portray characters navigating totalitarian societies of the past, Grudzień and Kalytenko situate their students within the anxieties of the globalised world, where remembering the past remains crucial. The author concludes that contemporary campus fiction written in Slavic languages addresses the issues significant for the cultural memory of the particular nation. Collectively, these novels contribute to a sense of continuity in academic culture within East-Central Europe.

Longing for Home: Nostalgia and Anti-nostalgia in Inter-war Polish-Jewish Literature

Author(s): Eugenia Prokop-Janiec / Language(s): English Issue: 54/2024

This article discusses the significance and enduring presence of nostalgic narrations in works by Polish-Jewish authors that are often accompanied by motifs of anti-nostalgia. They derive from complex relations with spaces categorized as familiar and alien, close and remote, as well as complex, ambivalent experiences of bonds, distance, and loss. The intersection of nostalgia and anti-nostalgia brings together and intertwines Polish and Jewish traditions and discourses of nostalgia. The sources of the article are writings by the outstanding inter-war Polish-Jewish writers Roman Brandstaetter, Anda Eker, Stefan Pomer, and Maurycy Szymel.