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This paper is an attempt to present the parallels between Słowacki’s and Miciński’s dramatic works, with an emphasis on the domains that have not yet been compared. It juxtaposes the following aspects: spectacularity, theatricality, and the presence and functioning of meta-theatrical gags. The anticipatory character of Słowacki’s works with respect to the paradigms of modernist culture was noticed as early as by the end of the 19th century. In the 21st century, the search for similarities between these two authors’ texts is still justifiable, yet it neither implies abandoning the tropes outlined by the modernists, nor forces polemics with studies developed in the second part of the 20th century. Rather, it leads to a conclusion of blurring the borderline between the 19th century (tradition) and modernity (presentism). The perception of both writers through the prism of their dramatic works and theatrical gags highlights the parallels: the romantic (pre)modernist Słowacki and the modernist Miciński, the poets of the cultural, civilization, and historical turning points.
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The subject of the study is an analysis of two time-based perspectives (past and future) from a particular point of view, outlined in the work of Imre Madách, concerning the order of creation and the reflection on eternity. The drama, and consequently this analysis, focuses on two relationships (Adam – Eve and Adam – people) and two forms of action (self-aimed and aimed towards others). The article determines the degree of fidelity of the story to historical facts. The final conclussion drawn from the analysis is that Adam stands between Eve (representing hope) and Lucifer (personifying doubt). These are the two forces determining his nature. The tension, thus created, turns out to be the cause of ongoing changes in the history of mankind. The eternal is only hope as evidence of pursuit. It is a form of eternity that is available for Adam. Past and future belong to the time, which should remain his dimension, where he can act, instead of seeking a golden era that would last forever.
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This article presents the studies and biographical essays of Konstancja Morawska (mostly from the 1870s and 1880s), a writer who is usually forgotten and who has been unjustly neglected in the studies of women’s writing, and especially women’s history. Locating herself outside the mainstream of emancipatory transformations, Morawska tackled issues regarded today as the most important literary perspective of history, and characteristic of the literary role of “women in the archive” (the term used by Inga Iwasiów). She consciously promoted in her texts a new model of historical narrative based on the respect for biographical materials (and especially autobiographical writings) and the reliance on the fragmented plots and the ambiguity of documentary findings. Moreover, she advocated the need for the recovery of the “female story.” Exposing the difficulty in reaching the historical truth and recovering the diffused image of the past constituted the most important features of her writing. She implemented these theoretical assumptions in her works consistently and with inventiveness. Notably, her female characters are, inter alia, famous women of the Romantic generation, such as Klaudia Potocka, Joanna Grudzińska, or the wife of the Grand Duke Constantine.
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The work concerns the image and symbolism of the Bialowieża Forest in "Ad Astra" by Eliza Orzeszkowa and Tadeusz Garbowski. The description analysis of Bialowieża wildlife, the interpretation of its given meaning and the definition of the functions concerning the Forest legends, make it possible to formulate the thesis of the symbolic nature of the Forest area. The writer uses the theme of the historic Forest to build a great metaphor of the state. Emphasizing the historical relationship of Poland and Lithuania, it defends its inseparability, which is the source of strength to fight against the invaders and of hope for the survival of both nations.
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The writer analyzes the changing perception of the mental and the material world by the main character. As the old man gradually loses his sight, he becomes more and more decrepit and lonely. However, it by no means removes his conviction of his own mission. It forms part of the national historical narrative describing the difficult relations between Poles and the invaders. It is also used to address a veteran’s expectations in relation to his own, individual history. A peculiar outcome of the old man’s mission would be the appearance of a comet in the sky, which would provide a preview of multifaceted changes.
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This paper is devoted to the interpretation of Bolesław Prus’s "Music Echoes". Notably, this has not been analyzed yet in the context of the musical erudition of the writer and aesthetic-teaching goals he set for music or the artists active in this field of art. The interpretative key of "Music Echoes", as hinted by the author’s inspiration, has become the wide, centuries-old cultural context evoked by the mythical figure of Orpheus. Another suggestion came from the composition of the text, which mimics the musical form of variations on a selected theme. The analysis revealed the applicability of motifs drawn from the mythological tradition for the diagnosis of the contemporary artistic and social environment, and for outlining problems faced by the recipients of postmodern art as well as its creators.
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The oneiric motifs in "The Połaniecki Family" are the journey of Połaniecki from the railway station to Krzemień, the night talk with Marynia at the court, and the day at Krzemień – somehow also unreal (dreamed-of). The atmosphere of the night trip is created by the feelings of the main hero, who is day dreaming, as well as the images of the sleep-immersed world. This oneiric atmosphere is peculiar to Krzemień – not only the court seems to be unreal, but also the pair of romantic heroes appears to be sleeping. The “return” of Połaniecki to Krzemień is created apparently as a visit to the oneiric house, as described by Gaston Bachelard. This visit to the childhood house uncovers the deepest, unrealized desires of Połaniecki. That is why the last part of the novel, reproducing night dreams in real life (according to the scheme described by Bachelard), shows the healing power of the roots as well as the experience of the archetypal power of the oneiric home.
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The article is an analysis of the novel "A Man Without Tomorrow" by Jan Zachariasiewicz and focuses primarily on the affinities of the text with popular literature and realistic poetics. The novel is a peculiar “treatise” on the condition of 19th century man, living in the rapidly developing world ruled by money. In the analysis of the text, the issue of narrative space, which is primarily urban, is also an important matter. Zacharasiewicz, arguing against the positivist optimism, shows in "A Man Without Tomorrow" different facets of the crisis affecting the second half of the 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe, such as political chaos and disturbance of the existing social order, and in relation to the traditional division of roles in the family and the feeling of loss in the money-based civilization.
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The article is an analysis of the novel "A Man Without Tomorrow" by Jan Zachariasiewicz and focuses primarily on the affinities of the text with popular literature and realistic poetics. The novel is a peculiar “treatise” on the condition of 19th century man, living in the rapidly developing world ruled by money. In the analysis of the text, the issue of narrative space, which is primarily urban, is also an important matter. Zacharasiewicz, arguing against the positivist optimism, shows in "A Man Without Tomorrow" different facets of the crisis affecting the second half of the 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe, such as political chaos and disturbance of the existing social order, and in relation to the traditional division of roles in the family and the feeling of loss in the money-based civilization.
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The article proposes to look at the correspondence of Zygmunt Krasiński from the perspective of narratology. The starting point for the discussion is Paul Ricoeur’s thesis, according to which the transfer of his own existence can be overcome only by developing the appropriate framework for the story. The poet, therefore, is presented here as homo narrator, who, with the help of cultural codes derived from literature, consciously builds his portraits in his letters. The examination material is excerpts from Krasiński’s correspondence with Delfina Potocka, Henry Reeve, and Adam Soltan – on this basis, the subsequent roles adopted by the narrator are presented. The figure of an old man, bodily ruins, and Werther and Hamlet’s costumes are only exemplary forms of the narrative, created by the poet, talking about himself to correspondents. In the light of the article, the poet appears as 'homo legens', endowed with immense erudition, reaching for specific schemes in order to rationalize his own experience. The conclusions drawn from the text also allow one to distance oneself from the opinions found in literature concerning the correspondence of the poet – treating autocreation already there as a manifestation of romantic dandyism and buffoonery.
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The article relates to the period of the ideological and armed (participation in the Crimean War) struggle for the independence of Poland before the January Uprising. The author reflects on the problem of Krasiński’s evolving attitude towards the activist Czajkowski. This attitude had been evolving for over a dozen years. The evolution of attitudes was moving from admiration, through compassion, followed by disappointment and then contempt and gestures of condemnation. The causes of such diametrically changing opinions about the Cossack poet and leader might be found – according to the author of the article – in the ideological divergence and different world-views of Krasiński and Czajkowski. The author situates Krasiński’s position against the background of the Romantic era and compares his views with those of other contemporary researchers and biographers.
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The paper demonstrates the importance of lilies in Słowacki’s works. The analysis focuses primarily on his mystical texts. Lilies are, for the poet, a symbol of purity, innocence, and virtue. It may be noted that these flowers are sometimes presented next to narcissi and lily of the valley. The colour of the lilies is also significant. They are usually white in Słowacki’s poems and dramas, and occasionally gold and silver. The poet names them “angelical” flowers and “angelic rye.” The article shows the importance of lilies particularly in the construction of Słowacki’s female characters. The poet makes these flowers their floristic attributes. This problem is illustrated using the example of, inter alia, the figure of Dobrawna in "The Spirit King", Salomea in "The Silver Dream of Salomea", and Laura in "Zawisza Czarny". Słowacki links lilies with the figure of the Virgin Mary. For the poet, flowers usually symbolize the sacred and the angelic, but also appear in the context of the image of sin and the serpent. The final part of the essay concerns lilies growing from a tomb. The paper presents the genesis of this painting with reference to the painting by Raphael. It also explores the presence of this theme in the works of Słowacki.
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The article is an analysis of Adam Asnyka’s poem about the 25th anniversary of the 1863 uprising, as well as a specific attempt to place it in the context of current political events concurrent with the anniversary – the turbulent political mood of the late 1880s (tensions between Russia and Germany with the probable threat of the escalation of the conflict and the attitudes (reactions) of Poles accompanying them, which have been widely recorded and commented on in newspapers all over Europe. The author, referring to the abundant newspaper material (eg. “Gazeta Polska,” “Kurier Poznański,” “Nowa Reforma,” “Czas”), on the one hand, traces and reconstructs mechanisms of generating and reproducing so-called “insurgent rumors” in magazines and inciting the insurgency zeal, while on the other hand, he advocates the strategies of joint development of a single, unified, beyond-partitional political advocacy characterized by an attitude of legality and neutrality.
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Thanks to the archival research of Edmund Jankowski and the scholarly biography of the writer, we know that Orzeszkowa was directly involved in preparations to the January Uprising. Following the outburst of the Uprising, she was helping insurgents; she was brave enough to hide, inter alia, Romuald Traugutt. Orzeszkowa saved his life by transporting him in her own carriage to the border of the Kingdom of Poland. The future writer witnessed the terrible supression of Lithuania by the Russians in years 1863–1864. This most tragic experience of her generation had an enormous impact on her. When Orzeszkowa became a writer, she gradually started recalling these events in her writing in order to pay tribute to the heroes of the January Uprising and to commemorate the truth about their sacrifice and heroism. For this purpose, Orzeszkowa used the literary code of the “Aesopian speech.” The extensive correspondence of Orzeszkowa documents her participation in the January Uprising, testifies to her participation in the Uprising, as well as to the presence of insurrectionary topics in her literary works other than "On the Banks of the Niemen" and the collection of short stories entitled "Gloria Victis". Paying homage to the people of 1863, Orzeszkowa confessed in one of her letters – “If not for «he hammer and the chisel» of the Uprising, I would never become a writer.”
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The paper focuses on the techniques of creating the image of the January Uprising, as presented in Maria Jehanne Wielopolska’s "Kryjaki". The analysis begins with the issue of syncretism of literary genres, narration topics and stylistics, defined in the context of the writing strategies of the author of Fauness – especially narcissism and dandyism regarded as an attempt to cross aesthetic borders. In the light of the phenomenon of transformations of aesthetic qualities, it seems crucial to reflect on the vision of the past through the prism of heroism, which reveals also some traits of tragedy. Hence, the analysis includes the examination of the settings and attitudes of the characters, leading to the definition of history as predetermination. Another issue is the concept of a tragic hero, exemplified by Stanislaw Brzóska, or the process of revealing the truth about the rebellion of 1863, as consistent with the destined fate. The study focuses also on the issue of the presence of the sacred and the problems of suffering and death. It is important to draw attention to the method of creating the images of characters’ micronarratives. These observations lead to the redefinition of the vision of the Uprising through the act of narrating a story, as a response to the crisis of representation.
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The paper studies interpretation of philosophical views and poetics of Fyodor Dostoyesky’s novel "Crime and Punishment" in animated cartoons. The Polish director Piotr Dumała creates an enigmatic story full of tragic emotions and looks upon Dostoyesvky as an essentially visual writer. Another film "Dostoevsky Project" (directors Alexander Bakanov and Nariman Skakov) combines computer animation with episodes of acting on the stage. It is a postmodernist interpretation of the novel reflecting shocking and provocative side of Dostoyesky’s writings. The last film studied in the paper is "Raskolninkov: Alternative History" (director Pavel Muntian) is a commercial advertisement of the Kaspersky Antivirus program. This witty parody of the clichés, which are rooted in the Russian culture, presents Dostoevsky as one of the predecessors of contemporary kitsch.
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The article includes an edition of ten selected fragments of unpublished letters from the early 1890s by Zofia Trzeszczkowska (1847–1911, poet and translator hiding under the pseudonym of Adam M-ski) and Antoni Lange (1861–1929, poet, novelist, philosopher and translator) concerning the background of the Polish translation of celebrated French poetry by Baudelaire oraz Leconte de Lisle. The original letters are stored in the National Library of Poland. The edition is preceded by a short introduction.
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The article discusses how the texts by and about Henryk Sienkiewicz were censored in the 19th and 20th centuries. The analysis of source material revealed significant similarities between the systems of censorship in the 19th-century Kingdom of Poland and the 20th-century communist People’s Republic of Poland. The aim of this article is to show the mechanisms used to interfere with Henryk Sienkiewicz’s literary activity and to influence literary criticism of his work (bans on publishing, censors’ interference, manipulating imprint and distribution, preventing the publication of reviews and citations in newspapers, magazines, school textbooks and scholarly analyses). Another objective of the article is to discuss what themes were considered unprintable in the socio-political realities of the 19th and 20th century (e.g. Polish-Russian and Polish Ukrainian relations, social problems, socialism, colonialism).
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The publication presented in the review is an interesting and much-needed research proposal, which combines the discourse of a philologist, an ethnographer, and a cultural anthropologist. This approach is innovative in the literary studies research on this Polish master dramatist; it constitutes a valuable source not only for literary commentators of Mickiewicz’s series but also for Belorussian folklore scholars, or for those investigating the merging of Polish and Belorussian culture. It makes us realize that, among others, by means of his drama, the poet introduced the Belorussian rite of dziady – a pagan festival in honour of ancestral spirits – into Polish culture. The rite is, for the Belorussians, not only a literary picture but still a cultivated, common, and obvious phenomenon. Similarly, the book unravels a fragment of a common cultural sphere; the renewed and repeated dziady rite helps to explain the poet’s masterpiece, though it unravels only one piece of it and fails to place it in wider historical, or, even more importantly, biographical contexts.
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