Bezpieczeństwo zapisane w słowach powieści

Author(s): Krystian Kiszka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

The reflections on the size of the security dimension would not be complete without reference to the cultural level. Stories, myths, fairy tales, including socially acceptable patterns of behavior and interpretations of the surrounding reality, accompanying individuals and societies in moments of transformation. They tame its complexity, giving the ability to adapt to new challenges or transformation based on patterns developed over the centuries. Perhaps the analysis of the past experiences and lessons, just in the times of technological progress and globalization, will enable us to build the security they seek.

National self-criticism as a processing of the past: Memory politics in East Central European literature and film

Author(s): Zoltán Németh / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

In post-communist Central European countries the interpretation of the past is still oftengenerated by myths, self-pity, martyrdom, and the denial of one’ s own fault. Vergangenheitsbewältigung,a conscious, critical examination of the historical past, which is present inGerman language and literature, is almost absent in Hungarian, Slovak, Polish and Czechpolitics, culture, literature and films. The present study deals with cultural and political strategies,applied in films and literary texts of V4 countries, which critically process taboos,related to the national past. The study examines the issue of the historical self-criticism inPolish, Czech (Josef Urban’ s novels Habermannův mlýn – Habermann’ s Mill, 2001 and 7 dníhríchů – The 7 Days of Sin, 2012 and their film adaptations directed by Juraj Herz and JiříChlumský) and Hungarian (Tibor Cseres’ s novel Hideg napok – Cold Days, 1964 and its 1966film adaptation directed by András Kovács) literature and films.

Recenzie

Author(s): Jakub Souček,Valerij Kupka,Ivana Kupková,Lenka Kubriczká,Kristína Kállay,Miroslav Zumrík / Language(s): Slovak,English Issue: 2/2020

Review of: MICHAL JAREŠ – PAVEL MANDYS: Dějiny české detektivky [The History of the Czech Detective Novel] Praha: Paseka, 2019. 488 s. ISBN 978-80-7432-977-7 EVA MALITI FRAŇOVÁ: Andrej Belyj / Celistvosť (v) mnohosti [Andrei Bely / The Wholeness of (in) Multiplicity] Bratislava: Veda, vydavateľstvo SAV, Ústav svetovej literatúry SAV, 2018. 239 s. ISBN 978-80-224-1696-2 ANDREA BOKNÍKOVÁ (ed.): Poetika poézie a jej prekladu [Poetics of Poetry and Its Translation] Bratislava: Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave, 2018. 458 s. ISBN 978-80-223-4638-2 NIKOL DZIUB – FRÉDÉRIQUE TOUDOIRE-SURLAPIERRE (eds.): Comparative Literature in Europe: Challenges and Perspectives Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019, 265 pp. ISBN: 978-1-52-75-2226-1 THOMAS OLIVER BEEBEE (ed): German Literature as World Literature. New York – London: Bloomsbury Academic 2016. 214 pp. ISBN 978-1501317712

Kierkegaardův rytíř víry a jeho obraz v románech počátku 20. století

Author(s): Andrea Raušerová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3/2020

Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling analyses the biblical figure of Abraham, who was supposed to sacrifice his son Isaac, an act he calls “a knight of faith’ s conduct”. As other authors add, there are different aspects of behaviour – order, decision, jump, sacrifice and silence. We have borrowed the concept and applied it to two novels: Troje paměti Víta Choráze (The Three Memoirs of Vít Choráz) by Julius Zeyer and Hécate by Pierre Jean Jouve. Both transform this concept but show this knight of faith according to the abovementioned attributes as well.

Skúsenosť lásky a jej diskurz: Marionova fenomenológia a mystika

Author(s): Martin Vašek / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2020

The aim of this article is to approach the proximity of Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology to mysticism. Marion’s transcendence to mysticism can be seen in two directions: in the interpretation of Dionysius the Areopagite’s work, and in the understanding of saturated phenomena. Marion claims that Dionysius the Areopagite indicates a new pragmatic function of language, targeting God who overcomes all the names. The discourse of hymn and praise of God does not lie in predicting attributes (positive or negative). It is not a masked prediction, but it is outside the dual framework of true and false. Marion also believes that man, as an image of God, is not equal to his icon. His reflections can be understood and interpreted in such a way that two incomprehensible and loving beings come together in the encounter of God and man. Here we can see the first condition, assumption and the very possibility of mysticism as such. The intersections of phenomenology and literature are obvious, but phenomenology still remains both an invitation and a challenge for literary theory.

The location of utopia

Author(s): / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

Der historiographische Spezialdiskurs der Ereignisse aus der NS-Zeit in Eva Umlaufs interdiskursiver Autobiographie

Author(s): Ján Jambor / Language(s): German Issue: 4/2021

This contribution deals with Die Nummer auf deinem Unterarm ist blau wie deine Augen. Erinnerungen (The number on your forearm is blue like your eyes. Memories, 2016) by the Jewish-German author and psychotherapist Eva Umlauf (born in Nováky, Slovakia, in 1942, she emigrated to Munich in 1967). Its objective is to follow some of the clear traces of interdiscursive communication in the text and to point out how a personal life story became a multi-layered autobiography. In the first part, the originating points of literary theory are outlined and the structure of the work and its interdiscursive dimensions are presented. The second part deals with the incorporation of knowledge of historiographical discourse, exemplified by the events of the Nazi era (including her birth in the labor camp for Jewsin Nováky and her internment in the Auschwitz concentration camp 1944–1945).

Przez ucho do serca. O muzyczności „Piosenek nie śpiewanych Żonie” Stanisława Barańczaka

Author(s): Maria Szczepańska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1 (23)/2024

The article provides an interdisciplinary analysis of a part Piosenki nie śpiewane Żonie, included in the collection Chirurgiczna precyzja: elegie i piosenki z lat 1995–1997 by Stanisław Barańczak. The author focuses on the aspect of musicality in the poems, especially in the context of so-called latent musicality, which manifests in these poems through the transposition of musical genres and forms into the realm of literature. Based on Andrzej Hejmej’s categorization of musicality, the author distinguishes intermedial phenomena; she examines the poems separately and in the perspective of the part of the collection identified by Barańczak, often marginalized, which is a love confession to his wife. Through a formal analysis of the structure of musical genres – both classical and popular (madrigal, aria, blues, alba, serenade) – to which the poet referred to in the titles of his poems, the author uncovers new interpretative clues hidden in the construction of the poems. Her analysis confirms the critics’ opinion on Stanisław Barańczak’s masterful poetic craftsmanship and virtuosity in handling the form of the text.

Na granicy życia i śmierci. Doświadczenia obozowe w dzienniku Abrahama Kajzera

Author(s): Dorota Sula / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

Abraham Kajzer był polskim Żydem, prostym robotnikiem, urodzonym w Będzinie. Przeszedł przez getto, obóz koncentracyjny Auschwitz i kompleks obozów Riese, który podlegał obozowi koncentracyjnemu Gross-Rosen. Tam zaczął pisać dziennik. Robił to w wolnych chwilach w obozowych latrynach. Jego potrzeba dzielenia się myślami i przeżyciami z samym sobą była ogromna, większa niż strach. Zdawał sobie sprawę z wielkiego ryzyka. Pisał na skrawkach szarego grubego papieru, który pozyskiwał z worków po cemencie. Swoje zapiski chował w różnych miejscach, a gdy dowiadywał się, że ma być przeniesiony do kolejnego obozu, zbierał je i przybijał od spodu do deski sedesowej. W ostatnich dniach wojny uciekł z obozu i ukrywał się niemal w sąsiedztwie obozu, u mieszkającej tam Niemki, której uratował życie po wkroczeniu Sowietów. Po zakończeniu wojny objechał na rowerze wszystkie obozy, w których przebywał i zebrał swoje notatki. Dziennik jest niezwykłym i poruszającym zapisem przeżyć obozowych. Znajdujemy w nim opisy wielu sytuacji granicznych, pokonywanie barier oraz ograniczeń wewnętrznych i zewnętrznych. Z dziennika wyłania się obraz dobrego człowieka, który – mimo dramatycznych przeżyć, głodu, chorób, upokarzania i bicia – wierzył w ocalenie, a co najważniejsze – zachował otwartość i przyjaźń wobec ludzi.

Cave and Magic Lamp

Author(s): Kujtim Rrahmani / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

We dwell in a cave, searching for a magic lamp. No kidding. This is not a masquerade. A light embodied into the magic lamp stems from the inside of the cave. T here is no cave without a lantern or the other way round. The cave and the magic lamp constitute the foundations of the darkness-and-light life oxymoron. This essay aims to explore the imaginary space of the cave and the lamp as a topic, a genre, an emotion, a symbol and a world of the uncanny in a fairy tale, in knowledge and everyday life. Plato’s parable, the Cave, and the fairy tale of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp from the 1001 Nights are just two symbolic reference points that provide a suitable landscape for a journey of meditation and pondering in a world of magic. T he quest for the magic lamp becomes an inner human urge to comprehend, realise, experience and believe, but not understand at the same time. Certainly, the cave and the magic lamp shed light on crucial life dimensions, dilemmas and struggles. A genie granting wishes and capable of helping one get ‘out of the cave’ remains ubiquitous in human experience. The cave and the magic lamp render human adventure of human existence possible, making it always fit for endless exploration. This essay is a small effort to tread along that path.

Литературното образование и опитът с другия

Author(s): Adriana Damyanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2025

The text uses Milton Bennett‘s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) to problematize some educational stereotypes and reveal some of the possibilities of reading interpretation, or of understanding reading literature at school to contribute to the development of intercultural sensitivity of students. For this purpose, the works of Hr. Botev, Iv. Vazov, A. Konstantinov, P. P. Slaveykov, Y. Radichkov, and others.

The Limits of Philological Reading – Some Observations on the Internal Limits in The Humanities

Author(s): Ivan Popov / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2024

The article deals with the problem of the boundaries in contemporary humanities – if “everything is a text” and the process of assimilation and interpretation of new meanings is fundamentally open and infinite, then do we have any grounds to distinguish between different kinds of understanding of the cultural phenomena surrounding us? The central thesis of the article is that precisely those claims that are theoretical in nature should be read and discussed in a way that is alien to the philological perspective. However, this is not necessarily a problem – the internal heterogeneity of humanitarian thinking may be an advantage considering the point of development reached in the “camp” of the natural sciences.

Прекосявайки с Хегел зоните на късносъветската (анти)утопия

Author(s): Vladimir Sabourin / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2024

During the late Soviet era, science fiction was one of the first zones of its ideological cosmos, registering the exhaustion of the communist utopia precisely within the literary genre aimed at its representation. In this articleI consider the history of the “editing to death” of the Strugatsky brothers’ shortnovel Roadside Picnic as a representative case of the anti-utopian “uneasiness incivilization” of late actually existing socialism. Simultaneously with the censorshiptaming of the uneasiness, the Strugatsky’s science fiction dystopia underwent aradical interpretation in Andrei Tarkovsky’s film adaptation Stalker as a Hegelian“good music with text”. In comparison to the censored edition, which is barely a timid emendation, ultimately yearning modestly for a good life during the most consumeristic and moderately repressive years of Soviet power, Tarkovsky’ s aesthetically singular re-reading is truly a “Zone” of editing to death.

Teodor Iljaszewicz (1910–1948) – między biografią poety i działacza narodowego a pedagoga

Author(s): Helena Głogowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2021

Postać Teodora Iljaszewicza na trwale wpisała się w historię literatury białoruskiej i białoruskiego ruchu narodowego, szczególnie poczynając od lat 90. XX w., gdy powstała niepodległa Republika Białoruś. Jego nazwisko znalazło się w encyklopediach i słownikach biograficznych. Przedstawia się go jako białoruskiego poetę, prozaika, historyka, dziennikarza i działacza społeczno-kulturalnego. Pomija się zaś jego podstawowy zawód nauczyciela i pedagoga, który był dla niego nie tylko źródłem utrzymania, ale też pasją i powołaniem. Jego działalność w dziedzinie oświaty białoruskiej – zarówno pedagogiczna, jak i organizacyjna zasługują na odrębne zainteresowanie. Po ukończeniu studiów bowiem poświęcił się jej bezgranicznie. Bez względu na okoliczności starał się kształcić młodzież białoruską w języku ojczystym. W II Rzeczypospolitej w latach 1934-1937 uczył języka białoruskiego w Wileńskim Gimnazjum Białoruskim i w Prawosławnym Seminarium Duchownym w Wilnie. W latach 1939-1941 oraz 1941-1944 organizował szkolnictwo białoruskie na Białostocczyźnie, a w latach 1944-1948 w warunkach emigracji w powojennych Niemczech uczył dzieci i młodzież, wydawał podręczniki, organizował skauting i YMCA. Spojrzenie całościowe na życie i działalność Teodora Iljaszewicza wskazuje, jak ważną w jego życiu była działalność oświatowa, można nawet stwierdzić, że traktował ją priorytetowo, zaś twórczość literacka i naukowa była jej uzupełnieniem.

Rekonstrukcja i reinterpretacja koncepcji pedagogicznych głównych przedstawicieli pedagogiki katolickiej. Recenzja książki Janiny Kostkiewicz pod tytułem Kierunki i koncepcje pedagogiki katolickiej w Polsce 1918–1939

Author(s): Piotr Jaworski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2021

The Life Behind the Books: Reconstructing the Przeworskis’ Biographies

Author(s): Paulina Pająk / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

Adopting critical and feminist archival approaches, this article reconstructs the dis/continuous biographies of the Przeworskis, intertwined with the activities of the Wydawnictwo J. Przeworskiego (J. Przeworski Publishing House), which excelled in innovative life-writing and fiction, avant-garde aesthetics, works of progressive intellectuals, and bestsellers by women writers. As the Przeworskis were cultural mediators active in the global transfer of modernist works in Central Europe and in the UK, select UK and US archives act as substitute repositories, allowing some gaps in the scholarship on J. Przeworski to be filled. The article focuses on marginalized women publishers whose role in modernist publishing networks are only now being uncovered. Drawing on publishing correspondence, the biographical reconstruction is supported by recollections of family, other people in the literary marketplace, and Holocaust survivors. The research findings highlight the need to re-investigate previous assumptions on interwar print culture, frequently based on limited data and reproducing the mechanisms of systemic violence.

Life-Writing in the Works of Polish Critics: Situated Knowledge or an Epidemic of Narcissism?

Author(s): Zuzanna Sala / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

This article explores the evolution of life-writing within Polish literary criticism, examining the shift from narcissistic tendencies in the 1990s to contemporary forms of exposing the reviewer’s “I.” The author references the works of Karol Maliszewski, Dariusz Nowacki, and Maciej Jakubowiak to discuss the implications of personalism and autoethnography in literary criticism, with special focus on the intersection of subjectivity and sociological reflection. The author also considers the historical context of autobiographical criticism in Poland, particularly the impact of socioeconomic changes after 1989.

Against Confession: Negation of Commodity Form in Anna Adamowicz’s Book of Poems zmyśl[ ]zmysł (nonsense[ ]sense)

Author(s): Łukasz Żurek / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

Drawing inspiration from Nicholas Brown’s work on the social ontology of art under capitalism and Anna Adamowicz’s book of poetry zmyśl[ ]zmysł (nonsense[ ]sense), the article explores the implications of anti-confession literary strategies and how they negate the work’s commodity status. The author argues that literary confession may be intertwined with the commodity status of a literary work, reflecting broader economic and ideological mechanisms that increasingly commodify literature.

The Rape of Lucrece and the History of Shame

Author(s): Anna Czarnowus / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2024

Shakespeare’s Rape of Lucrece can be discussed in the context of interpreting shame in antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In this poem shame has legal and political consequences, since its social context matters and the external world is transformed by the emotion in question. Communal justice is a response to this shame and death. From the feminist perspective, which radically differs from St Augustine’s blaming Lucrece, she gains control by feeling shame and committing suicide. There is also a humoral background to the female shame she feels.

Nowy kierunek badawczy? Uwagi na marginesie monografii Joanny Kamień, Prawo i literatura jako kierunek filozoficznoprawny, Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 2024, ss. 407

Author(s): Michał Lewandowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2024

The monograph Prawo i literatura jako kierunek filozoficznoprawny [Law and Literature as a Philosophical and Legal Trend] is one of the most interesting studies devoted to the relationship between law and literature in the Polish scientific literature. Its author, Dr. Joanna Kamień, tries to convince the reader that a new current of research has emerged in Poland, which can be labeled “law and literature”. As a research tool, she proposes the use of four questions, which she has taken from the writings of Cracow scholar Professor Wojciech Zaluski. They read as follows: a) What is the law and what is its nature?; b) What are the values and purpose of the law?; c) What is the basis for the validity of the law and its observance?; d) How are the law studied and learned? This template can be applied to any literary work. The results obtained should then be collated, compared and commented on.