Psychoanalysis – the Promised Land?

The book is the first systematic study of the beginnings of psychoanalysis on Polish lands in Galicia (Austria-Hungary) and Congress Poland (Russia) during the partitions of Poland in the years between 1900 and 1918. The birth of the movement was presented on a broad cultural background, as an element of the assimilation processes among Polish Jews. At the same time, Freud's and Jung's theories began to gain popularity in Polish medical, philosophical, artistic and literary circles. By 1918, over a dozen articles on psychoanalysis had been published in Polish scientific and philosophical journals. Freud himself was vitally interested in this process, sending Ludwig Jekels to Krakow in the role of – as he wrote – an "apostle" of his theory in the circles of the Polish intelligentsia

Tuwim’s Wedge: 'Survival Strategies' of a Polish-Jewish Poet

Tuwim’s approach to the “Jewish question” has already been analyzed by Polish and foreign scholars. The article is intended to consider some “survival strategies” of the Polish poet from a slightly different angle. In Poland, in the period between the wars Jewish writers were persuaded to accept total polonization and a rejection of their ethnic identity; yet, at the same time they often suffered a rejection from the circles of Polish artists. Any attempt of highlighting their Jewish identity or even a slight interest in Jewish culture incited brutal Jew-bashings. Tuwim considered his being a Polish Jew not only as a fact to be proud of, but also as an opportunity for engaging with self-criticism. He painfully felt the Jewish question as “a powerful wedge cleaving [his own] worldview”. However, like many other Polish-Jewish writers he masked its enduring presence in his own psyche, constructing his public persona through a process of self-fashioning. This paper tries to follow the traces of this “wedge” in Tuwim’s works: from poems supposedly having nothing to do with the “Jewish question”, to encrypted allusions to the great Yiddish writers, from his relentless questioning of all forms of intolerance and nationalist rhetoric, to his conviction that a new poetic language could “reform the world” and become a homeland for all readers regardless of their nationality.Zadanie „Stworzenie anglojęzycznych wersji wydawanych publikacji” finansowane w ramach umowy nr 948/P-DUN/2016 ze środków Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę

Scientific Activity in Pedagogy and Education Field of Polish Students at John Casimir University in the 1930s

The reestablishment of Poland’s independence in 1918 forced academic circles of a new state to the process of learning the history of education and culture of a native land. Polish students were among the most active participants in this sphere. They gathered in scientific societies. The Pedagogical circle of Polish students functioned in the John Casimir University in the 1930s

Towards the Modern Alternative Theatre in Poland – Selected Issues

The present book “Poland – History, Culture and Society. Selected Readings” is the third edition of a collection of academic texts written with the intention to accompany the module by providing incoming students with teaching materials that will assist them in their studies of the course module and encourage further search for relevant information and data. The papers collected in the book have been authored by academic teachers from the University of Łódź, specialists in such fields as history, geography, literature, sociology, ethnology, cultural studies, and political science. Each author presents one chapter related to a topic included in the module or extending its contents. The book contains the extensive bibliography

Eugenics and the woman question in the works of selected Polish catholic humanists in the period 1918-1939

Tak, jak w I połowie XX wieku rozpowszechnione było myślenie oparte o założenia eugeniczne, tak również rozpowszechniona była jego krytyka. W części pochodziła ona z przyjmowania perspektywy Kościoła katolickiego przez humanistów, pedagogów, którzy w odniesieniu do nauki społecznej Kościoła budowali swoje koncepcje pedagogiczne. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest pokazanie podstawowych elementów krytyki stanowiska eugeników z punktu widzenia polskich pedagogów katolickich z lat 1918-1939. Krytyka ta istniała, podnosiła podstawowe wątki charakterystyczne dla stanowiska Kościoła Katolickiego, ale prowadzono ją m.in. - co interesujące - z punktu widzenia "interesów" kobiety. Wprowadzenie zasad eugeniki, choć w środowiskach ją aprobujących było przedstawiane jako sposób emancypacji, w opisywanym środowisku traktowano jako drogę do demoralizacji i degradacji kobiety jako osoby.In the first half of the 20th century, thinking based on eugenics premises was as common as its critique, which partly resulted from assumption of the perspective of the catholic church by humanists and pedagogues, who built their pedagogical conceptions on social teaching of the Church. The present paper aims at presenting the basic elements of criticism of the eugenics stance from the perspective of Polish catholic educators in the years 1918-1939. Such criticism existed and addressed the fundamental themes characteristic of the Catholic Church's position, but it was executed, among others - and that's interesting - from the perspective of women's "interest". Although within introduction of the eugenics principles was presented within the circles that accepted it as a way of emancipation, within the abovesaid environment was treated as a path of demoralization and degradation of the woman as a person

The Role of Professor Władysław Semkowicz and the Jagiellonian University in Promoting Polonophilia in Slovakia in the Interwar Period

The interwar relations between Czechoslovakia and Poland were tense for almost twenty years. Problems were caused not only by border disputes. In this situation, the interest of young Slovak intelligence in Polish culture and science began to increase in the early 1920s, which was supported by Warsaw, in its efforts to undermine the position of Prague. A well-known Slovakophile, Professor Władysław Semkowicz played an important role in supporting young Slovaks. His largest impact on Slovak-Polish relations was his patronage of visiting Slovak students at the Jagiellonian University. Semkowicz’s efforts gradually bore fruit. Many of the programme participants promoted Polish literature, art and history after their return home. This Polonophilia was not limited to the cultural sphere but also had an effect on politics. At the end of 1938, the Polish territorial claims against Slovakia severely disappointed the Polonophiles. Nevertheless, there were a number of Slovaks who kept their contacts in Polish cultural circles and continued to have pro-Polish sentiments even after the country’s defeat in September 1939

Linguistic complexity: English vs. Polish, text vs. corpus

We analyze the rank-frequency distributions of words in selected English and Polish texts. We show that for the lemmatized (basic) word forms the scale-invariant regime breaks after about two decades, while it might be consistent for the whole range of ranks for the inflected word forms. We also find that for a corpus consisting of texts written by different authors the basic scale-invariant regime is broken more strongly than in the case of comparable corpus consisting of texts written by the same author. Similarly, for a corpus consisting of texts translated into Polish from other languages the scale-invariant regime is broken more strongly than for a comparable corpus of native Polish texts. Moreover, we find that if the words are tagged with their proper part of speech, only verbs show rank-frequency distribution that is almost scale-invariant

Why Polish philosophy does not exist

Why have Polish philosophers fared so badly as concerns their admission into the pantheon of Continental Philosophers? Why, for example, should Heidegger and Derrida be included in this pantheon, but not Ingarden or Tarski? Why, to put the question from another side, should there be so close an association in Poland between philosophy and logic, and between philosophy and science? We distinguish a series of answers to this question, which are dealt with under the following headings: (a) the role of socialism; (b) the disciplinary association between philosophy and mathematics; (c) the influence of Austrian philosophy in general and of Brentanian philosophy in particular; (d) the serendipitous role of Twardowski; (e) the role of Catholicism. The conclusion of the paper is that there is no such thing as 'Polish philosophy' because philosophy in Poland is philosophy per se; it is part and parcel of the mainstream of world philosophy simply because, in contrast to French or German philosophy, it meets international standards of training, rigour, professionalism and specialization