Czy język polski jest językiem żydowskim? O lingwistycznych dylematach poetów polsko-żydowskich dwudziestolecia międzywojennego

IS POLISH A JEWISH LANGUAGE? LINGUISTIC DILEMMAS OF POLISH-JEWISH POETS OF THE INTERBELLUM Evidence of their authors’ linguistic dilemmas in the context of their national and cultural identity, can be found in many poems published by the Polish-Jewish press of the 1920s and 1930s. Jewishness understood as an existential experience was expressed in literature in the times of the Second Polish Republic in three semiotic orders—in Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish (this issue has been researched by W. Panas, Ch. Shmeruk, E. Prokop-Janiec, and M. Adamczyk-Garbowska). Three poems written in Polish are the object of the present analysis: “Do mowy żydowskiej” (To the Jewish Tongue) by Eleazar Merchentraum, “Do polskiej mowy” (To the Polish Tongue) and “Do mowy hebrajskiej” (“To the Hebrew Tongue”)—both by Daniel Ihr. They contain reflections on cultural-semiotic systems used by the poets as an artistic means of expression of their identity.  However, both the assimilationist Jew from Merchentraum’s poem and the Zionist from Ihr’s linguistic elegies are addressing the three languages—Jewish, Polish and Hebrew—using the Polish language. Polish-Jewish poets in the 1930s discovered the truth of being doomed to otherness, fated to talk about their Jewish dilemmas—linguistic, ethical, religious and cultural—in Polish. So by the middle of the 1930s, the Polish language had become one of the Jewish languages for most Polish-Jewish authors—in terms of communication, just for a few years; nevertheless, in terms of culture—forever

Krzywopłoty – Late Glacial and Holocene Mire in the Bydlin Area (Częstochowa Upland)

Macroscopic and laboratory tests of over 4-metre-thick organic deposits of Krzywopłoty profile (gyttjas and peat) allowed the authors to identify the development of the peatland as having four phases, each transition being associated with fluctuations in water level. Sediments from a depth of 3.75–0.65 m were also included in palynological testing. Seven local pollen assemblage zones show a continuous transformation in the plant landscape and surroundings of the site between the end of the Vistulian and the Holocene. Pollen data indicates a change of vegetation, from open communities of herbaceous plants and loose pine-birch communities in the Younger Dryas, then dense pine forests in the Preboreal chronozone, and finally multispecies forests in the Atlantic and Subboreal chronozones

Between Protestant Individual and Social Ethics. On the New Biography of Jerzy Pilch

This article shows an influence of Martin Luther’s understanding of ethics on the ideas concerning these matters presented by Jerzy Pilch — a contemporary Polish writer. Ethical questions and the reflections connected with them are one of the main subjects of his considerations in Dzienniki [Diaries] (2012, 2014). In his approach towards ethical problems you can see on the one hand an individual attitude, which was called by Luther “freedom from” or practical life for God, and on the other hand — a sociable attitude or “freedom to” displayed in a disposition of living for others. Everything that is concerned with morality in Pilch’s diaries, their author comments carrying out a dialogue with Lutheran tradition and provoking its adherents of Lutheranism. These, mainly ironical statements, should nonetheless be treated as the testimony of his inner struggle with the Protestant tradition and the resulting vision of the world. Katarzyna Kubisiowska, in her monograph dedicated to Pilch, puts the reader gently to this track. However, to arrive at the core of envoi of the author of Diaries, it is necessary to employ the work of a scholar, who would be able to combine three skills in his research: literary, theological and ethical

Na manowcach humanistyki, czyli lektury w świetle krytyki i dydaktyki (O książce Doświadczenie lektury. Między krytyką literacką a dydaktyką literatury pod redakcją Krzysztofa Biedrzyckiego i Anny Janus-Sitarz)

On the peripheries of the humanities, or, reading in the context of literary criticism and teaching of literatureThe volume Doświadczenie lektury. Między krytyką literacką a dydaktyką literatury (The Experience of Reading. Between Literary Criticism and Teaching of Literature) edited by Anna Janus-Sitarz and Krzysztof Biedrzycki is an important book devoted to the question of reading as practiced by scholars, critics and teachers. The monograph contains views of historians of literature such as, for example, Anna Burzyńska, whose article opens the book, and others like Piotr Śliwiński, Wojciech Ligęza and Krzysztof Biedrzycki. Other essays focus on school as a place where books are read in an improper way. Zofi a Budrewicz, Anna Janus-Sitarz, Witold Bobiński, Leszek Jazownik, Jerzy Kaniewski write about the present situation of teenagers in the Polish system of education and their attitude to reading. Some texts are connected with two titular notions: ‘reading’ and ‘experience’. Their authors are: Barbara Myrdzik, Małgorzata Latoch-Zielińska, Anna Włodarczyk, Elżbieta Piątek, Anna Pilch, Krystyna Koziołek, Marta Rusek. The collection also contains articles presenting the issue of teaching (by Ewelina Strawa, Karolina Kwak, and Kordian Bakuła). The last part of the book is composed of essays interpreting the works of Czesław Miłosz (by Grażyna Tomaszewska), Gustave Flaubert (by Magdalena Marzec), Michał Witkowski and Dorota Masłowska (by Dorota Kozicka), Eugeniusz  Tkaczyszyn-Dycki (by Jarosław Fazan). The Experience of Reading. Between Literary Criticism and Teaching of Literature is a very modern and interesting project. It shows that the borders of these two disciplines are not far from each other

חורבנות Jewish Calamities in the Poetry of Aleksander Wat

In Judaism, calamity [Hebr. חורבן churban, plural. חורבנות churbanot] is a cultural category that is not necessarily characterized as negative. It is viewed as a form of purification, which begins a crisis that finally leads to a religious and moral recovery. Three most important churbanot are usually recognized in the history of Israel: the destruction of Salomon’s Temple by Nebuchadnezzar (586 B.C.) followed by the Babylonian captivity, the destruction of Herod’s Temple by Titus (70 A.D.) with the subsequent dispersion of Israelites (Hebr. גלות [‘galut’]) and the Holocaust (1939–1945 A.D.), a planned and methodical extermination of European Jews. All these experiences of Jewish disaster strongly resonated with the work of Aleksander Wat (1900–1967), a Polish poet with Jewish roots. Two of his poems are analyzed here. The first one (consisting of two parts), entitled Na melodie hebrajskie [‘To Hebrew Tunes’] (from the volume Wiersze [‘Poems’], 1957), explicitly mentions two churbanot: the Babylonian captivity and the diaspora of 70 A.D. The other poem is the third part of Pieśni wędrowca [‘The Songs of a Wanderer’] (from the volume Wiersze środziemnomorskie [‘Mediterranean Poems’], 1962). It allusively mentions the Holocaust as the greatest Jewish disaster. In each case, the churban helps to identify the heart of Jewish identity. Because the Shoah cannot be said to have any positive consequences, Wat treats it in mystagogical terms, i.e., as a mystery

Polonistyczny proces dydaktyczny w świetle nowej podstawy programowej

Materiał ten powstał w ramach projektu „Wdrożenie reformy programowej wychowania przedszkolnego i kształcenia ogólnego w poszczególnych typach szkół. Przeszkolenie wojewódzkich ekspertów przedmiotowych." Prezentuje on tematykę związaną z wdrożeniem treści nowej podstawy programowej

Praca z tekstem kultury - literackim i nieliterackim na lekcjach jezyka polskiego w świetle nowej reformy programowej

Materiał ten powstał w ramach projektu „Wdrożenie reformy programowej wychowania przedszkolnego i kształcenia ogólnego w poszczególnych typach szkół. Przeszkolenie wojewódzkich ekspertów przedmiotowych." Prezentuje on tematykę związaną z wdrożeniem treści nowej podstawy programowej

O nowej formule egzaminu maturalnego z języka polskiego

Artykuł z numeru 3/2013 internetowego czasopisma edukacyjnego ORE "Trendy

Multiproxy study of anthropogenic and climatic changes in the last two millennia from a small mire in central Poland

The Żabieniec kettle hole is the first peatland in central Poland analyzed quantitatively with four biotic proxies (plant macrofossils, pollen, testate amoebae and chironomids) to reconstruct the past environmental change. Palaeoecological data were supported by historical and archaeological records. We focused on autogenic vegetation change and human impact in relation to climatic effects. The aims of our study were (a) to describe the development history of the mire during the last 2,000years, (b) to date and reconstruct the anthropogenic land-use changes and (c) to discuss a possible climatic signal in the peat archive. The combination of proxies revealed dramatic shifts that took place in the peatland since the Roman Period. Żabieniec was a very wet telmatic habitat until ca. AD 600. Then, the water table declined, and the site transformed into a Sphagnum-dominated mire. This dry shift took place mainly during the Early Medieval Period. Human impact was gradually increasing, and it was particularly emphasized by deforestation since AD 1250 (beginning of the Late Medieval Period). Consequently, surface run-off and aeolian transport from the exposed soils caused the eutrophication of the mire. Furthermore, chironomids and testate amoebae reveal the beginning of a wet shift ca. AD 1350. Openness considerably increased in the Late Medieval and the Modern Periods. The highest water table during the last 1,000years was recorded between AD 1500 and 1800. This wet event is connected with deforestation, but it could be also associated with the Little Ice Age. Our study shows plant succession in the Żabieniec peatland, which can be explained with the recent landscape transformation. However, such changes are also possibly linked with the major climatic episodes during the last two millennia, such as the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Ag

In-channel accretionary macroforms in the modern anastomosing system of the upper Narew River, NE Poland

Predomination of sandy bedload is typical of the anastomosing channels of the Narew River. Several types of in-channel accretionary macroforms have been found in these channels: side bars, concave-bank bars, plug bars, point bars, linguoid bars, and mid-channel bars. The first three types are relatively rare, point bars occur only exceptionally, while linguoid bars and mid-channel bars are quite common. The bars usually occur in main channels, which are the master routes of sand transport in the whole anastomosing system of the Narew. The lower parts of the bars are built of coarse- and medium-grained sand, similarly to the sediments in the deeper parts of the channels. Fine-grained sand, locally alternating with organic-rich muddy sand, predominates usually in the upper parts; peat with high content of sand is present in the highest parts of some bars. All bars are rapidly colonised and stabilised by plants. It is for this reason and due to the low energy of the river that the bar sediments have a high preservation potential. The development of bars is usually not accompanied by lateral migration of channels. Consequently, sediment accretion in bars is one of the factors leading to gradual narrowing of channels. Deposits of some sand-bars, when preserved in fossil record, may probably be represented by characteristic "wings" in the outer parts of ribbon-like sand bodies