Ruch Literacki

This article discusses some proposals aimed at creating a new discipline named polonistyka (Polish studies), an umbrella term which would encompass those research (sub)divisions that fall outside the traditional academic taxonomy. The article identifies three cultural turns whose shockwave effect have significantly changed the face of the humanities. They are the transition from the analogue to the digital; an impasse in the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary studies; and the continual fragmentation of research interests. The new discipline, as envisaged by the article, would reintegrate and provide institutional recognition to all kinds of studies, projects and probes. It would also create a framework for some kind of academic certification of research interests that are in dispute. To achieve these goals it would be necessary to redefine the subject matter, the scope as well as the functioning of the new discipline. That, in turn, implies a reformatting of the legacy model of teaching and study to fit in with the new discipline. The transition is absolutely necessary, not least because of the real danger of marginalization and pauperization of the profession (i.e. teachers and specialists in the field of ‘Polish philology’).

This article marks the 400th anniversary of a series of bloody battles which were fought from 2 September until 9 October 1621 between the Polish-Lithuanian army and the invading Ottoman armies led by Sultan Osman II. Intent on defeating Poland and conquering all of Europe, the 17-year-old sultan gathered well over 100,000 troops, probably the largest fighting force ever assembled on one battlefield. The campaign culminated in the Battle of Chocim (Khotyn), in which the Turks lost approximately 40 thousand men (one third of the invasion force). As a result Osman II was compelled to back off and sign a peace treaty which brought to an end his plans of expansion. What turned the fortunes of war in favour of Poland was a conjunction of two factors, the indomitable fighting spirit of the soldiers in the field and, no less important, the use of modern defence tactics under the agile command of Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz. While the victory at Chocim aroused great interest not just in Poland, nowhere was its significance given so much weight as in Rome. Pope Gregory XV issued a breve Victoriarum gloria and instituted a special thanksgiving service (officium gratiarum) to be celebrated in Catholic churches worldwide. The article looks again at these, better known reactions to the Polish-Ottoman war of 1620–1621 before exploring a raft of diaries and memoirs, in manuscript and printed, and various types of publications, including leaflets describing the battles, published in various languages in Poland and all over Europe. However, at the centre of this study is the poetic legacy of the war. The poems in which the war is remembered and celebrated focus their praise either on Hetman Chodkiewicz or Prince Władysław Waza (the future king of Poland), who was also present at Chocim. The article examines this duality primarily in the poems of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, Samuel Twardowski, Wacław Potocki, Ignacy Krasicki and the Croatian Baroque poet Ivan Gundulić.

From its beginnings – in Poland it was the second half of the 18th century – the novel, a genre that eluded the distinctions of traditional normative poetics, had to face all kinds of strictures, not only in the sphere of aesthetics. At the same time, due to its innovatory representation of reality and its effectiveness as a tool of persuasion, it aroused a genuine interest among the enlightened elites. This positive attitude appears to have been shared by Ignacy Krasicki, whose work (not excepting novels) was generally regarded as a model of unparalleled literary excellence. This article re-examines his achievement as a novelist and discusses at greater length his first novel Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki. Published in 1776, it was the first Polish novel and the most interesting example of early realistic fiction until the appearance in 1815 of Dwaj panowie Sieciechowie by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz.

This articles explores the life and work of Elżbieta Glaize Walkerowa, a forgotten poet from the early19th century and owner of a girls’ boarding school in Lwów. Hitherto unknown archival sources, which have been used to reconstruct her biography, reveal that she was a close relative of François Glaize, Poland's most eminent tapestry-weaver, with connections to the House of Działyński (the Trojanów branch). The second part the article focuses on Elżbieta Glaize's 1801 debut poetry volume Pierwiastki mojej muzy [ Elements of My Muse]. The poems, written in the sentimental style which was in fashion at that time, represent the sensitivity and worldview of a young woman who, having been raised in a home steeped in literary culture, was keen to showcase her own literary ambition.

This article takes a closer look at Juliusz Słowacki's poetic drama Ksiądz Marek ( Father Marek) from the perspective of its links and affinities with some of the prophetic books of the Bible. A comparison of the text of the drama with parallel passages of the Book of Isaiah and the Book of Ezekiel in the Jakub Wujek Bible throws into sharp relief the prophetic-visionary characterization of the title hero (whose real-life prototype the Franciscan friar Marek Jandołowicz was the charismatic leader of the Bar Confederation) as well as other dramatis personae (especially Klemens Kosakowski). Comparing parallel passages not only brings to light Słowacki's use of Old Testament imagery but also reveals a multilevel embedment of the drama in the biblical vision of God's work in the world. It seems that this aspect of Słowacki's creative art has not been fully appreciated in the critical readings of the drama. His relationship with the Bible should be treated as something more fundamental than a an indicator of his religious faith and, also, as a respectful and critical commitment to a narrative model of ageless relevance.

The thread that runs through this article is made of silk, a fabric with a fascinating history of origins in China and a long record of projects aimed at organizing and mechanizing its production in Europe. The silk motif recurs throughout 19th century literature. As an object of realist description it gives the writer the opportunity to explore its sensuous material appeal and, also, to create around it a web of additional references and associations. For Honoré de Balzac and Bolesław Prus silk carries connotations of elegance, social status and social aspirations. In the fiction of Eliza Orzeszkowa it is one of the regularly recurring elements of descriptions of outward appearance of characters. It can interpreted as a mechanical repetition or, perhaps, the foregrounding of the stereotype meaning of silk intended as an invitation to the moral judgment of characters furnished with that mark.

This article argues that the short story ‘Ave Patria, morituri te salutant’, first published in a book of Stanisław Reymont's short stories in 1907, shows an overwhelming influence of the expressionist aesthetic. It is conspicuously present in the story's stripped-down sentences, spiked with highly emotive (animal) imagery, and cast in lines that move inexorably towards the catastrophic end. It manifests itself in the disillusioned, sarcastic tone which the writer uses to take up old certainties like military glory and patriotism. Finally, it brings to the fore the conflict between man and nature, man and the universe, the individual and the crowd. As all of those elements are evidently part of the narrative and dramatic structure of ‘Ave Patria…’, it should be viewed as an exemplification of Reymont's drift from realism to modernism (preexpressionism). That transition is also signalized by the tripartite structure of the story. The divisions are worked out with the precision of a master craftsman assembling ‘an epic clock’ (to borrow a telling phrase from Kazimierz Wyka's analysis of the structure of The Peasants), or a painter designing a triptych. The article pursues the latter analogy further by discussing the impressionist technique of framing and cutting off the dispensable elements of the picture.

This is a presentation of letters regarding Maria Konopnicka from the Maria Dulębianka Papers held at the Vasyl Stefanyk National Scientific Library of Ukraine in Lviv. After Maria Konopnicka's death in 1910 Dulębianka kept in touch with the poet's youngest sister Celina Świrska and her daughter Laura Pytlińska. Apart from tracing letters and notes written by Konopnicka's close relatives, the author of this presentation has gone through the letters of a wide circle of Maria Dulębianka's friends and acquaintances, among them Jan Baudoin de Courtenay, Stanisław Karol Lineburg (social activist from Suwałki) and Paulina Kuczalska-Reinschmitt (women's rights activist). Their correspondence gives a better insight into various facets of Dulębianka's life, her relations with Maria Konopnicka and the poet's close relatives. Some letters and notes contain information about behind-the-scenes arrangements to dispose of Konopnicka's country home at Żarnowiec and Dulębianka's collection of paintings (including her portraits of Maria Konopnicka).

It was with great sadness that we learned on 18 October 2021 of the death of the distinguished Italian Slavist and Polonist Sante Graciotti, professor emeritus of the Sapienza University of Rome. This personal tribute, written on the first anniversary of his death, begins with a recollection of the ceremony of awarding Sane Graciotti the title of Doctor honoris causa by the Jagiellonian University. on 16 December 1986. The laudatio, delivered by Professor Tadeusz Ulewicz, presented our guest's achievements and the main stages of his academic life. It began with the study of Italian philology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan and came to a turning point at La Sapienza in Rome, where he pivoted towards Slavic philology. The youthful fascination became a lifelong commitment which earned him the acclaim and honours that are the crown of an academic career. Finally, he concentrated his attention on Poland, Polish history and culture, and the history of Polish-Italian cultural relations. In his explorations of the new field, he could count on the friendly assistance of his Polish colleagues, especially Tadeusz Ulewicz, a historian of Polish literature with a profound knowledge of the historical ties between Poland and Italy. The respect they had for each other's work led to the promotion of Graciotti's research in Poland and the awarding of the doctorate honoris causa to Tadeusz Ulewicz by the Università Cattolica in Milan.