The article presents the main achievements of Polish slavicists in the field of phonetics and phonology, on the synchronic as well as diachronic levels, including works on Polish phonetics and phonology.

Focusing on the period of unprecedented infl uence of popular science in Yugoslavia following the Second World War, the article examines a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches to linking science and Marxist philosophy of science against the backdrop of the dramatic political and cultural changes that were taking place in early socialist Yugoslavia.