The Creative Echoes of Żeromski’s Neurotic Youth, or Writing Derived from Diaries

Until now, Stanisław Żeromski’s writings have not been viewed with regard to literature common to the age of anxiety from the turn of the eighties and nineties of the 19th century, though there are numerous common aspects shared by both. These are clearly discernible in the early works of the writer, written in his youthful days, and shaped among others by J. Ochorowicz’s literary piece Z dziennika psychologa (“From a psychologist’s diary”) concerning the latter’s views on the neuropsychological system of man, the acquired habitual self-analysis and autobiographism rooted in the practical activities of a diarist; all of which surface both in the subject matter, the singularity of style, narration, as well as the composition of later works by the author. By devoting the majority of space and attention to identifying and tracing literary awareness in his intimate notes from 1882 to 1891 – of which one volume carries the title Dziennik człowieka nerwowego (“Diary of the anxious man”) – R. Okulicz-Kozaryn portrays its role in Siłaczka (“The Strongwoman”), Mogiła (“The Grave”) and Źródło (“The Source”), also in Ludzie bezdomni (“The Homeless”). He further claims that Żeromski’s Dzienniki (“Diaries”) should be presented as its laboratory sample, whereas the entire literary output of the writer ought to be interpreted as more advanced consequences of the then initiated experiment.Until now, Stanisław Żeromski’s writings have not been viewed with regard to literature common to the age of anxiety from the turn of the eighties and nineties of the 19th century, though there are numerous common aspects shared by both. These are clearly discernible in the early works of the writer, written in his youthful days, and shaped among others by J. Ochorowicz’s literary piece Z dziennika psychologa (“From a psychologist’s diary”) concerning the latter’s views on the neuropsychological system of man, the acquired habitual self-analysis and autobiographism rooted in the practical activities of a diarist; all of which surface both in the subject matter, the singularity of style, narration, as well as the composition of later works by the author. By devoting the majority of space and attention to identifying and tracing literary awareness in his intimate notes from 1882 to 1891 – of which one volume carries the title Dziennik człowieka nerwowego (“Diary of the anxious man”) – R. Okulicz-Kozaryn portrays its role in Siłaczka (“The Strongwoman”), Mogiła (“The Grave”) and Źródło (“The Source”), also in Ludzie bezdomni (“The Homeless”). He further claims that Żeromski’s Dzienniki (“Diaries”) should be presented as its laboratory sample, whereas the entire literary output of the writer ought to be interpreted as more advanced consequences of the then initiated experiment

Cross-Border cooperation through universities: are educational preferences of students in Belarus similar to those in Lithuania?

Objective: The article provides a comparison on educational preferences of student in Belarus and Lithuania. If the educational preferences of students from Belarus and Lithuania are similar, then this contributes to cross-border cooperation between the universities of these two countries. Methods: The reliable research methods that the author used in the study were: literature review, questioning and statistical processing of questionnaires, verification of statistical hypotheses. Results: It was statistically proved that educational preferences in Belarus and Lithuania are similar. This means that student educational preferences in Belarus and Lithuania are in cognitive proximity. The difference must not be taken into account in planning Cross-Border cooperation Belarusian and Lithuanian universities. The results are highly statistically significant (99,0%). In this case, you have a decision-making process with accurate, controlled probability. Conclusion: The difference of the educational preferences of Belarusian and Lithuanian students is not a barrier to the construction of Cross-Border cooperation in the field of higher education. This scientific fact is in a good practical significance for Cross-Border cooperation in higher education. For example, for creation of knowledge networks

U.S. Religious Landscape on Twitter

Religiosity is a powerful force shaping human societies, affecting domains as diverse as economic growth or the ability to cope with illness. As more religious leaders and organizations as well as believers start using social networking sites (e.g., Twitter, Facebook), online activities become important extensions to traditional religious rituals and practices. However, there has been lack of research on religiosity in online social networks. This paper takes a step toward the understanding of several important aspects of religiosity on Twitter, based on the analysis of more than 250k U.S. users who self-declared their religions/belief, including Atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. Specifically, (i) we examine the correlation of geographic distribution of religious people between Twitter and offline surveys. (ii) We analyze users' tweets and networks to identify discriminative features of each religious group, and explore supervised methods to identify believers of different religions. (iii) We study the linkage preference of different religious groups, and observe a strong preference of Twitter users connecting to others sharing the same religion.Comment: 10 page

W gościnie i u siebie. Karol Irzykowski w „Skamandrze”, „Ponowie” i „Krokwiach”

W latach 1919–1922 Karol Irzykowski podejmował współpracę z trzema czasopismami literackimi: „Skamandrem”, „Ponową” i „Krokwiami”. Okoliczności i przebieg tej współpracy za każdym razem były różne, ale motywacja podobna – krytyk, po I wojnie światowej mieszkający na co dzień w Warszawie, próbował bowiem nie tylko zdobyć orientację w nowych, gwałtownie rozwijających się ruchach poetyckich, ale też uzyskać na nie wpływ. Uważał, że stanowią one – często nieuświadamianą przez ich uczestników – kontynuację awangardowych idei i eksperymentów sprzed wojny, w których brał wydatny udział. Dlatego skamandrytów i ich konkurentów z „Ponowy” obejmował wspólną nazwą Najmłodsza Polska. Od wszystkich wymagał najwyższej świadomości artystycznej wyrażającej się nie tylko w utworach, ale i w programach. Na charakterystyczną dla autorów „Skamandra” niechęć do ich formułowania zareagował słynnym artykułem polemicznym Programofobia. W „Ponowie” docenił skłonności programotwórcze, lecz miał wiele zastrzeżeń do praktyki związanych z nią poetów. Pomimo przynależności do komitetów redakcyjnych obu czasopism jawnie dawał wyraz swoim zastrzeżeniom do ich linii oraz zawartości, stając się dość osobliwym, starszym recenzentem, co prowokowało młodych autorów do ironicznych czy złośliwych reakcji. Inaczej wyglądała współpraca Irzykowskiego z założonym przez Romana Zrębowicza i udatnie nawiązującym do tradycji „Chimery” czasopismem „Krokwie”. Skupione wokół niego środowisko próbowało wylansować kierunek stworzony jeszcze w przedwojennym Lwowie, zwany konstrukcjonalizmem. Krytyk, który uczestniczył wówczas w zebraniach konstrukcjonalistów, sprzyjał ich zamiarom również po wojnie. W ich organie zamieścił rzeczy dla siebie szczególnie cenne: wiersze zmarłego przyjaciela – Stanisława Womeli – i esej Alchemia ciała. Można przypuszczać, że wiązał z „Krokwiami” nadzieje na rozwój twórczości własnej, dla której w „Skamandrze” i „Ponowie” nie znalazłby dogodnego miejsca. Niestety, po wydrukowaniu dwóch zeszytów Zrębowicz musiał zaprzestać wydawania swojego czasopisma

A jednak monady mają okna, czyli jak otworzyć zamknięte na siebie światy literackie

After all the monads have the windows, or how to open the literary worlds that look inwardsThe author reviews the pioneering work of Mindaugas Kvietkauskas dedicated to multilingual literature, which was created in Vilnius at the beginning of the 20th century. The book of the Lithuanian historian of literature emphasises multicultural and multi-ethnical trait of the early literary modernism in Vilnius that was created in five different languages: Lithuanian, Polish, Yiddish, Belarussian and Russian. It proves that what is the most interesting in the multilingual cultural environment takes place at the crossroads of apparently looking inwards and isolated worlds of different language and different literature.

Picie alkoholu przez piętnastoletnią młodzież a praktyki wychowawcze rodziców

Aim: To assess, in the context of other socialization factors, importance of alcohol specific parenting practices for adolescents drinking behaviors.Method: Questionnaire data collected from the random sample of Warsaw 15-year old students (N = 984) on: alcohol use and getting drunk, perception of parental rules and attitudes toward alcohol use by a child, child’s monitoring and support by parents, school climate and support by peers.Results: Logistic regression analysis confirmed that parental disapproval of alcohol use by teenagers and setting clear rules forbidding alcohol use are significant protective factors. Among adolescents who already drink, the risk of getting drunk is lower if they communicate openly with parents about their alcohol related behaviors. Parental factors seem to be more significant for girls than for boys and for those who have not initiate alcohol use yet.Conclusions: More research and preventive activities is needed to strengthen parents in their alcohol specific parenting behaviors

The play of nerves. Chopin in the era of mental disorder

This article concerns the neurotic image of Chopin that took shape in the 1880s and became popular during the Young Poland period. At that time, features highlighted from earlier descriptions of the composer’s character – over-sensitivity, over-sentimentality, excessive delicacy, emotional instability and inner complexity – were most spectacularly portrayed in the works of painters and sculptors such as Władysław Podkowiński, Wojciech Weiss, Bolesław Biegas and the designer of the monument in the Łazienki Royal Baths Park in Warsaw – Wacław Szymanowski. Critics and writers also helped to form the new portrait of the composer: Stanisław Przybyszewski, Cezary Jellenta, Wacław Nałkowski and Antoni Potocki. Their utterances allow us to grasp the dependency of the new picture on the theory of neuroses, advanced in 1881 by George Miller Beard and then developed and popularised during the last quarter of the nineteenth century by Richard Kraff-Ebing and Paolo Mantegazza, among others. Nervousness was considered to be the dominated feature of modern civilisation. These concepts were also influential in music criticism. Representatives of nervousness in music proved to be the Richards – Wagner and Strauss – and also Juliusz Zarębski and Ignacy Jan Paderewski. The latter, in a speech from 1911, depicted Chopin implicitly in terms of nervousness, which was also becoming a feature of the Polish national character. However, theories of neuroses were applied first and foremost to the individual psyche. The fundamental inner conflict of modern man, exposed to a surfeit of external stimuli, supposedly arose between the over-developed brain and the rest of the nervous system, as the centre of feelings and will. And it was the paresis of emotions and volition that brought a growth in the role of music, which, depending on a particular author’s assessment, either was itself the result and expression of nervous disturbance and contributed to the further deepening of the process of destruction (the stance of Antoni Sygietyński) or else filled the space left by subordinated emotions and enabled them to rebuild (the opinion of the novelist Eliza Orzeszkowa). The view of Chopin as a eulogist of new sensitivity was made manifest in Maurice Rollinat’s volume of poetry Les Nervoses, which caused quite a stir in the mid 1880s, and it was represented in Poland by Zenon Przesmycki’s Życie, and a philosophical treatise by Jean-Marie Guyau published in that periodical in 1887

The play of nerves. Chopin in the era of mental disorder

This article concerns the neurotic image of Chopin that took shape in the 1880s and became popular during the Young Poland period. At that time, features highlighted from earlier descriptions of the composer’s character - over-sensitivity, over-sentimentality, excessive delicacy, emotional instability and inner complexity - were most spectacularly portrayed in the works of painters and sculptors such as Władysław Podkowiński, Wojciech Weiss, Bolesław Biegas and the designer of the monument in the Łazienki Royal Baths Park in Warsaw - Wacław Szymanowski. Critics and writers also helped to form the new portrait of the composer: Stanisław Przybyszewski, Cezary Jellenta, Wacław Nałkowski and Antoni Potocki. Their utterances allow us to grasp the dependency of the new picture on the theory of neuroses, advanced in 1881 by George Miller Beard and then developed and popularised during the last quarter of the nineteenth century by Richard Kraff-Ebing and Paolo Mantegazza, among others. Nervousness was considered to be the dominated feature of modern civilisation. These concepts were also influential in music criticism. Representatives of nervousness in music proved to be the Richards - Wagner and Strauss - and also Juliusz Zarębski and Ignacy Jan Paderewski. The latter, in a speech from 1911, depicted Chopin implicitly in terms of nervousness, which was also becoming a feature of the Polish national character. However, theories of neuroses were applied first and foremost to the individual psyche. The fundamental inner conflict of modern man, exposed to a surfeit of external stimuli, supposedly arose between the over-developed brain and the rest of the nervous system, as the centre of feelings and will. And it was the paresis of emotions and volition that brought a growth in the role of music, which, depending on a particular author’s assessment, either was itself the result and expression of nervous disturbance and contributed to the further deepening of the process of destruction (the stance of Antoni Sygietyński) or else filled the space left by subordinated emotions and enabled them to rebuild (the opinion of the novelist Eliza Orzeszkowa). The view of Chopin as a eulogist of new sensitivity was made manifest in Maurice Rollinat’s volume of poetry Les Nervoses, which caused quite a stir in the mid 1880s, and it was represented in Poland by Zenon Przesmycki’s Życie, and a philosophical treatise by Jean-Marie Guyau published in that periodical in 1887

School Culture and Climate vs. Students’ Problem Behaviours

The aim of the project was to assess the relationship between school culture/climate and students’ problem behaviours. An anonymous questionnaire survey was conducted among second grade students from 4 junior high schools in Warsaw (n = 282). The cross-school comparisons showed significant differences in school culture (indicated by students’ socio-demographic characteristics), school climate (indicated by rates of students who like their school and behavioural norms), students’ functioning (indicated by the school load), leading to a varying prevalence of problem behaviours. A logistic regression analysis indicated the most significant risk factors related to school culture (focus on students’ achievements), climate (negative student-teacher relationships and positive relationships among students) and students school functioning (low school load and frequent truancy). The study results suggest the adoption of prevention guidelines, strengthening in particular teachers’ skills and involvement

From the Editorial Team

Wprowadzenie do numeru Poeci za bramą utopii