Gulag Argot as a Site of Memory in Julija Voznesenskaja’s The Women’s Decameron

Author(s): Valentina Bagozzi / Language(s): English Issue: 12/2021

he present contribution focuses on the presence of Gulag argot in Julija Nikolaevna Voznesenskaja’s The Women’s Decameron, more specifically on the short stories told by Zina, the former Lager prisoner by means of linguistic analysis and the recently published Dictionary of Russian Slang Expressions: The Lexicon of Penal Servitude and Camps in Imperial and Soviet Russia by Leonid Gorodin. The following study aims to describe the aforementioned stylistic strategy from The Women’s Decameron as a form of skaz, but also to underline how language works in this context as lieu de mémoire. It is possible to define the Gulag argot as a site of memory, especially when considering the recent study and exhibition by the Gulag Museum in Moscow, named The Language of Unfreedom. This exhibition called attention to the extent in which the lexicon of Gulags has become part of everyday language, its violent heritage ignored, and this original violence underplayed. The work of the Gulag Museum in Moscow underlines the important role of language in preserving history. The memory of Gulag camps is also a recurring theme in Julija Voznesenskaja’s literary and journalistic work; therefore, the usage of Gulag argot cannot be interpreted only as a literary motif, but also as a way to preserve the tragic memory of concentration camps.

Artistic Conceptualization of Native Land in William Wordsworth’s Poetry

Author(s): Nataliia Romanyshyn / Language(s): English Issue: 12/2021

The paper focuses on revealing linguistic and cognitive mechanisms that underlie the formation and functioning of verbal images of native land in William Wordsworth’s poetic system. The artistic concept of Motherland is subjected to linguistic-poetic interpretation. The national specificity of Wordsworth’s poetics reveals itself in the dominance of ethnographic details and naturalness of description, foregrounding the idea of inseparability of individual personal fate and the processes of ethnic environment transformation. Everyday themes and dramatic effect of personal and intimate events in the life of a poetic persona are ascribed symbolic senses and reflect the universal and national destiny of England at the turn of the century.

Piśmienne przejawy Strajku Kobiet w świetle koncepcji wydarzenia piśmiennego Béatrice Fraenkel

Author(s): Dorota Ucherek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2021

Béatrice Fraenkel proposes her own understanding of the concept of a writing event, in opposition to the approach of New Literacy Studies, which perceives such an event as an element of everyday life, repetitive, routine and not worthy of attention, like reading a bedtime story to a child. The French anthropologist, on the other hand, calls writing events completely different activities: uncommon, subversive acts of performative power, revealing and releasing social energy, the need to contest reality or the desire for expression. According to Fraenkel, such events have a collective and historical meaning; they imply a break with the existing order, a change in the fate of society. As such events, the researcher recognises Zola’s open letter J’accuse, expressions of protest against the occupant appearing on the walls of Warsaw during World War II, especially the Fighting Poland anchor, or altars of remembrance spontaneously built after the attack on the World Trade Center. This is also how the Chilean action “NO+”, analysed by Pedro Araya, can be seen. The aim of the paper is to show in this perspective the written manifestations of the Women’s Strike of autumn 2020 and to examine, from this point of view, the traces it left behind in the urban space and network folklore. The notion of the humanities of protest, proposed by Filip Mazurkiewicz in relation to the protests in Hong Kong, provides the context for the discussion.

Translating the untranslatable: A Yiddish text in Japanese rendering

Author(s): Tomasz Majtczak / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

The paper collects some Yiddish words which do not lend themselves to easy translation and investigates the way they are rendered into Japanese. This is done with the example of the 1999 Japanese translation of Yitskhok Katsenelson’s Song of the murdered Jewish people. Japanese renderings of selected fifteen lexemes reflecting the culture, religion and everyday life of the Yiddish speakers are gathered, analyzed as for their structure and compared with their German, English, Spanish, French, Polish and Russian counterparts.

PERSPECTIVE ALE CĂLĂTORILOR STRĂINI ASUPRA PRINCIPATELOR ROMÂNE ÎN SECOLUL AL XIX-LEA: REPREZENTĂRI SPAȚIALE

Author(s): Lavinia Sabou / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 2/2021

For the Romanian Principalities, which were under the protection of the Allies throughout the Crimean War, the direct consequence of the Peace Treaty of Paris of 1856 was the exit from the Russian protectorate and the abolition of the Organic Regulations. If until then the Romanian countries were an unknown point on the world's map, the multitude of news about the course of the Principalities towards national autonomy and about the management of diplomatic relations with the expansionist Russian and Turkish powers that competed on the political scene of the Romanian space generates the formation of a curious Western public. In this context, the travel writings of foreign diplomats do not only provide some pieces of information, but outline an entire cultural framework that is claimed from the memory of the Orient, one of the very debated topics in the Western tradition.

Асацыятыўна-сэнсавае поле аповесцi Янкi Брыля “Муштук i папка”

Author(s): Tamara Tarasawa / Language(s): Belarusian Issue: 13/2021

The article deals with text associations on the example of the story “Mushtuk I Papka” by Y. Bryl. The study of the mechanism of associative links contributes to an in-depth understanding of ideological and thematic content of the story, its artistic imagery, the writer’s thesaurus, the peculiarities of the author’s style and worldview. The associative and semantic field of the story “Mushtuk I Papka” by Y. Bryl includes vocabulary, intertext, the author’s reminiscences, lyrical tone, plot-compositional structure of the text, and the author’s conceptual sphere. The fundamental role of associativity is to provide comprehensive perception and understanding of the story.

Мастацкая аксiясфера “Палескай хронiкi” Iвана Мележа

Author(s): Wanda Barouka / Language(s): Belarusian Issue: 13/2021

The article examines the artistic axiosphere of “Chronicle of Palesie” by I. Melezh. The artistic axiosphere is a totality of artistic qualities of the work which are recognized as valuable and significant by both the writer and the readers. They include the subject and the perspective of the image, subject matter, life persuasiveness, humanistic orientation, polemic attitude to traditional aesthetic conventions and artistic experiment. The artistic axiosphere of “Chronicle of Palesie” is dynamic and subjective, which ensures the work dialogue with time and with various generations of professional and amateur readers.

Венок сонетов: проблемы генезиса и становления жанровой формы

Author(s): Levon G. Hakobyan / Language(s): Russian Issue: 4/2021

The established, yet unconfirmed, viewpoint states that the crown of sonnets originated in the 13th century, although the first known instances of this genre form belong to the 16th century. These works differ from the modern (canonical) crown by the unregulated number of texts and the absence of the master sonnet. The thematic and stylistic variety of the Baroque crowns suggests that certain sonnet crown sequences did exist before the 16th century, albeit they are still undiscovered. In the absence of relevant texts, the study of the formal poetic preconditions required for the emergence of the crown of sonnets could clarify the time of the appearance of this supertextual form. Two factors determine the structure of the crown: the cohesion of adjacent texts and the ring-like organization of the supertextual unit. The first refers to the repetition of the last verse of the preceding text at the beginning of the following one. This poetic technique originates from the Provençal troubadours, who created a specific form of chained stanzas (coblas capfinidas); the Galician-Portuguese poets discovered another form of strophic concatenation (leixaprén). The second factor is the repetition of the first verse of the initial text at the end of the last one. Despite the verbatim coincidence, these verses are not semantically equal to each other, since the last verse, enriched by the previous context, acquires new semantic characteristics. One of the first poetic forms that combines the beginning and end of the text was the rondel, created in the 15th century. The examination of medieval poetic genres from the point of view of their crown-forming potential led to the conclusion that only the sonnet form meets the requirements for a poetic crown. The studied material suggests that, despite the common opinion, the non-canonical crown of sonnets could not appear in the 13th century, as the entire complex of formal poetic conditions for the emergence of this genre form developed at the end of the 15th century.

Эстэтыка i паэтыка «садысцкiх вершыкаў» у полiсiстэме сучаснай беларускай i замежнай паэзii

Author(s): Lûdmila Sadko / Language(s): Belarusian Issue: 13/2021

The article describes peculiar features of aesthetics and poetics of “sadistic verses” in the creative work of modern Austrian poet E. Yandle, Russian author A. Grygoriev and Belarusian masters of artistic word V. Zhybul and V. Burlak. Using the means of grotesque, carnivalization, illogic and black humour the authors show their protest against an excessive normativity and nihilistic pathos to modern reality with its standards, and create a peculiar lyrical hero – a weirdo, an eccentric person who falls into the chain of catastrophes, crashes and accidents.

Выбранае аб беларускай лiтаратуры дваццатага стагоддзя / Andrzej Moskwin, Literatury białoruskiej rodowody niepokorne, Białystok 2019

Author(s): Halina Twaranowicz / Language(s): Belarusian Issue: 13/2021

Жыццë з унiверсiтэтам: да 90-годдзя Алега Антонавiча Лойкi

Author(s): Uljana Wieryna / Language(s): Belarusian Issue: 13/2021

The article is dedicated to the memory of Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Professor, Doctor of Science in Philology Aleh Antonavich Lojka. Most of the life of the famous scientist and writer was associated with the Belarusian State University. A.A. Lojka entered the university in 1948 and until the end of his life considered himself a “university student”. The book “My BSU”, written in 2005–2006, remained unpublished. It includes memoirs “From my recollections of a university student”, “Memories from the socalled social life”, notes “In search of teaching skills” and “Philological poem”. The article for the first time provides information about the history and composition of this book, using archival material.

Lis, a może lisica?

Author(s): Agnieszka Seweryn / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2021

Niniejszy artykuł poświęcony jest tematyce przekładu na język polski osobowych nazw własnych w powieści Antoine’a de Saint-Exupéry’ego pt. „Mały Książę”. Głównym celem pracy jest pokazanie możliwej interpretacji pochodzenia imion bohaterów pierwszoplanowych książki (nawiązania do funkcjonujących w literaturze i kulturze symboli róży i lisa oraz wykazanie powiązań bohaterów „Małego Księcia” z rzeczywistymi osobami z otoczenia pisarza), a także próba analizy wybranych przez polskich tłumaczy strategii tłumaczeniowych pod kątem zgodności z tekstem oryginalnym. Podstawowy korpus badawczy składa się z oryginalnej francuskiej wersji powieści oraz piętnastu wybranych polskich przekładów wydanych w latach 1947–2021. // The paper focuses on the issues of translating personal proper names in Polish versions of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novel “The Little Prince”. The main intention of this work is to present possible interpretation of the origin of the names of the main characters (referring to the imagery of rose and fox existing in literature and different cultures and also including connections between the characters of “The Little Prince” and real people from the writer’s environment). It is an attempt to analyse translation strategies applied in the texts to explain possible reasons for the translator’s decisions. The basic corpus consists of the original French version of the novel and fifteen selected Polish translations of “The Little Prince”, published in the years 1947–2021.

Once Again on Claudian's Egyptian Origin

Author(s): Tomasz Babnis / Language(s): English Issue: 24/2021

The life of Claudius Claudian (c. 370 – c. 404 AD), the great Latin poet active during the reign of Honorius, is unknown, especially the years before his great debut in 395 AD. Communis opinio holds that he was a pagan Egyptian Greek born in Alexandria c. 370 AD, who having come to Italy in 394 AD started a career of a political poet in the service of the elites of the Western Roman Empire. This view codified by Alan Cameron (1970) was challenged by Peder G. Christiansen (1997), who asserted that Claudian was actually a Westerner. The thesis of the poet’s Egyptian origin was defended by Bret Mulligan (2007) and then again attacked by Christiansen and Christiansen (2009). This article aims to reconsider the scarce textual evidence and to put an emphasis on some points that have been underestimated so far: the possibility of Claudian’s early connections with Constantinople and the ruling circles of the eastern capital.

Zwischen Liebe und Leid: Über den Briefwechsel Anna Teichmüller mit Martha Hauptmann aus den Jahren 1900–1904

Author(s): Marta Filipowska / Language(s): German Issue: 14/2021

This article provides the most important information about the edition of the letters of the German composer Anna Teichmüller (1862-1940) and Martha Hauptmann (1862–1939), first wife of Carl Hauptmann, German writer in Lower Silesia at the turn of the 20th century, who changed his scientific career into the artistic life in the colony of artists in Szklarska Poręba (Schreiberhau). The correspondence between both women is a proof of their mutual relationship full of love and friendship, gradually transformed into jealousy and pain. The analyse of the letters compared with Martha Hauptmann’s memories shows a new until now not described image of Anna Teichmüller in the specialist literature

Eugen Barbu, arcanele recuperării alchimice. De la umbra care și-a pierdut eul, la cogitoul eului visător

Author(s): Lăcrămioara Berechet / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2021

This study aims at analysing the mechanisms of the myth, recovered as a literary method by the Romanian novel of the sixties, under the Communist regime and subjected to censorship. The case study tackles the three novels penned by Eugen Barbu: Groapa, Principele and Săptămâna nebunilor, in which we attempt to mythically reconstitute the rhythmic arcanes of the alchemic ritual: regressus ad inferos (Groapa), conniunctio (Princepele) and redemption through the word, albedo (Săptămâna nebunilor). It will be shown that no matter how hidden the mythical structures are or how degraded in their morphology they might be, they retain their soteriological functions, especially through the characters` life-saving reveries.

On semantic and semiotic multilingualism in earlier and latest works of Sabira Ståhlberg and Tzveta Sofronieva

Author(s): Johanna Domokos / Language(s): English,Romanian Issue: 1/2021

The present study describes the poetics of two contemporary multilingual writers, one born in Finland (Sabira Ståhlberg) and one in Bulgaria (Tzveta Sofronieva). Besides being prolific writers in literary genres such as poetry, prose, drama, both also translate and edit world literature. Early in their career each of them achieved a PhD. Sofronieva and Ståhlberg carry out academic activities through their research studies. After visiting a multitude of places, they have become not only literary figures of both their birth countries’ literature and the literatures of several other countries, but real literary citizens of the ‘new’ world literature (McDougall, 2014). Their philosophical and ecological aestheticism voices the most urgent problems of humanity by incorporating the latest insights of brain studies, quantum physics, psychology, migration and cultural studies. Their oeuvre addresses any reader irrespective of language(s), background(s), and location(s). After looking into the monolingually multilingual (using hidden code-switching) as well as multigraphic and multilingual (using overt code switching) artistic production of Sofronieva and Ståhlberg, this study compares two poems, one by each of them, sharing the common metaphor of the sea horse. The aim of this comparative study is to point out how their highly topical poetries activate the multilinguality of any reader, as well as how the linguistic, alphabetic code-switching and shifts of interpretation paradigms loosen formal and conceptual borders. By their act, the reader is empowered to take part in not only piecing together but creating a better ‘new’ world.

Маската като творба

Author(s): Francheska Zemyarska / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 6/2021

The prose poetry book Fires (1936) by M. Yourcenar can be read through two prisms–through the prism of the theatre of life and through the prism of the scene of death. The last scene of “Patroclus, or, Destiny” gives a kind of negative to the idea of a masquerade ball: the unmasking of Penthesilea reveals another mask–the death mask. The notion of a death mask is introduced in the framework of Belting, Blanchot, Nancy to analyze the death of Penthesilea as her last gift to Achilles. I use the concept of death in “Patroclus, or, Destiny” as an autotextual introduction to Yourcenar’s great novel Memoirs of Hadrian.

„Zupełnie inne miasto”. Obrazy warszawskiego getta w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej XXI wieku

Author(s): Krzysztof Rybak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2021

The paper analyses representations of the Warsaw Ghetto in contemporary Polish children’s literature. The aim of the first part of the article is to interpret literary aspects of selected works, mainly Kotka Brygidy [Brygida’s Kitten] by Joanna Rudniańska (2007), Po drugiej stronie okna. Opowieść o Januszu Korczaku [The Other Side of the Window: A Tale about Janusz Korczak]by Anna Czerwińska-Rydel (2012), and Arka czasu, czyli wielka ucieczka Rafała od kiedyś do wtedy przez teraz i wstecz [The Ark of Time, or Rafał’s Great Escape from Once Through Then Until Now and Back] by Marcin Szczygielski (2013). The second part covers an analysis of the illustrations, maps in particular, as they are part of Pamiętnik Blumki [Blumka’s Diary] by Iwona Chmielewska, two editions of Arka czasu (with illustrations by Daniel de Latour, 2013, and the novel’s author, 2015, respectfully), and Ostatnie przedstawienie panny Esterki. Opowieść z getta warszawskiego [Miss Esterka’s Last Show: A Tale from the Warsaw Ghetto] by Adam Jaromir and Gabriela Cichowska (2014), among others.

Bolek i Lolek na „Dzikim Zachodzie”. Była warszawska dzielnica zachodnia w tekstach kultury dla dzieci i młodzieży okresu małej stabilizacji

Author(s): Igor Piotrowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2021

The so-called ‘Wild West’ in Warsaw, the vast area between Śródmieście, Muranów, and Wola districts, had long remained ruined, neglected, unstructured. Relatively close to the City Centre, visually dominated by the Palace of Culture and Science (which created tensions between old and new urbanities and between prewar and postwar realities), an unusual sanctuary for ruins, prewar buildings, workshops, and tenement houses persisted. This has been problematic for the authorities of the Polish People’s Republic, making this area of the city the place of taboo and shame, but at the same time – a perfect scenography for juvenile adventure fiction. In this article, the author analyses the images of the ‘Wild West’ in the works of famous Polish authors: Edmund Niziurski (Lalu Koncewicz, broda i miłość [Lalu Koncewicz, the Beard, and Love], 1958), Wiktor Woroszylski (I ty zostaniesz Indianinem[You Can be an Indian Too], 1960), and Irena Jurgielewiczowa (Niespokojne godziny [Restless Hours], 1964), as well as in Do przerwy 0:1 [0:1 Until the Break], a TV series by Stanisław Jędryka (1969). As a context to this topographical study, he uses, inter alia, writings of Miron Białoszewski, an admirer and sensitive observer of this part of the city, and the documentary of Danuta Halladin, Moja ulica [My Street] (1965), about children living on one of the streets of the district.

Ocjene i prikazi

Author(s): Vili Radman,Emir O. Filipović,Mato Nedić,Velimir Blažević,Hrvoje Žabić / Language(s): Bosnian,Croatian Issue: 55/2021

Reviews: Anđelko Barun, Franjevci među svojim pukom. Kratka povijest Bosne Srebrene, Svjetlo riječi, Sarajevo 2021, 179 str. (Vili Radman) Antal Molnár, Confessionalization on the Frontier. The Balkan Catholics between Roman Reform and Ottoman Reality, Roma: Viella, 2019, 266 str. (Emir O. Filipović) Fra Zvonko Benković, Pričam ti priču, Izbor iz usmene književnosti toliškoga kraja, Zaklada „Terra Tolis“ i Franjevački samostan, 594 str., Tolisa 2021. (Mato Nedić) Župa Čuklić od postanka do danas (uredio: fra Marijan Karaula), Svjetlo riječi, Sarajevo, 2020., 508 str. (Velimir Blažević) Dvije pjesničke zbirke Roberte Nikšić: 1.Otmica Europe, Društvo prijatelja knjige „Milivoj Cvetnić“, Hrvatska Kostajnica 2017, 50 str. 2. Patela, Društvo prijatelja knjige „Milivoj Cvetnić“, Hrvatska Kostajnica 2019, 56 str. (Hrvoje Žabić)