The article is a case study of human behaviour against the background of political, economic and cultural changes in the 1990s in the countries of the former USSR based on the example of the life of insects depicted by Victor Pelevin. The writer in his book The Life of Insects reduces all human life to the world of insects, constantly trying to find themselves. Pelevin by means of grotesque and allegory, touches upon the issues of human life and the use of culture by the authorities to educate the Soviet people, depriving them of their personal consciousness and independence. The picture presented by the author makes the reader wonder whether people who are deprived of their own consciousness deserve to live?

' Savoir-vivre with a past', or an Etiquette Guide of the Age of Transformation according to Agnieszka Osiecka, was published in the illustrated weekly Przekrój in 1993–1994. This article analyzes the column's content in the context of contemporary social and cultural change, focusing on issues from a broad field of dos and don’ts that acquired unexpected visibility during the early years of the Transformation, and tries to find out what was Osiecka's treatment of individual cases says of her own views.