This article deals with the three discursive strategies which were used by French intellectuals for establishing their attitudes towards the political sphere on the basis of different ‘truth speeches’. This paper states that the notion of truth, which represents a certain relation between reality and the knowledge, played a special role in the debates between French intellectuals over their social and political vocation in the 20th century — from the Dreyfus Affair to contemporary media debates.

Unique and independent historical observations, carried out in the central Arctic during the early twentieth century warming (ETCW) period, were used to evaluate the older (20CRv2) and newer (20CRv2c) versions of the 20th Century Reanalysis and the HIRHAM5 regional climate model. The latter can reduce several biases compared to its forcing data set (20CRv2) probably due to higher horizontal resolution and a more realistic cloud parameterization. However, low-level temperature and near-surface specific humidity agree best between 20CRv2c and the surface-based observations. This better performance results from more realistic lower boundary conditions for sea ice concentration and sea surface temperature, but it is limited mainly to polar night. Although sea level pressures are very similar, the vertical stratification and baroclinicity change in the transition from 20CRv2 to 20CRv2c. Compared to observed temperature profiles, the systematic cold bias above 400 hPa remains almost unchanged indicating an incorrect coupling between the planetary boundary layer and free troposphere. In addition to surface pressures, it is therefore recommended to assimilate available vertical profiles of temperature, humidity and wind speed. This might also reduce the large biases in 10 m wind speed, but the reliability of the sea ice data remains a great unknown.

The avant-garde is synonymous with the concept of New Art, the breakthrough in art which took place in the visual arts during the first decades of the 20th century in Russia and then in the USSR. Its representatives, determined by the changes brought about by new technical inventions, especially in the sphere of urbanization, were convinced, like the Italian futurists, that they would be at the foreground of social change, new perceptions and shaping of culture. They believed in the new society which would rend apart the class structure of previous ages when its place would be taken by dynamism and creativity in the service of utilitarian and egalitarian solutions. They believed in their mission, the Promethean idea of a new better world, when man- kind would be liberated from all subjection. This social mood was developing in the whole of Europe, but was particularly strong in Russian society in the last twenty years before World War I. In fact, one could say it was a prelude to the war. From this sequence of events came the conviction held by represen- tatives of New Art about their prophetic message of freedom. The actual reality, the advance of totalitarianism, was a bitter epilogue for the whole formation, for almost all the great artists of the avant-garde. Nevertheless, though rejected and often dying before their time, their works remained, suffused with enthusiasm for the new gravitation – belief in the greatness of mankind – in the new, universal idea.

Popular science magazines published in Poland between 1758 and 1939 are an important resource for all kinds of research including interdisciplinary analysis as well testing new methodological approaches. They provide insights into the changing understanding of science and its social functions, the status of the scientist, models of popularization of science, the channels and forms of communications, techniques of construction of the popular science text enhanced with graphics and illustrations.

The aim of this article is to bring back from oblivion Antoni Bogusławski, a man of multiple talents and a distinguished figure of the interwar Warsaw and the Polish community in London. He was a brilliant journalist, writer, poet, literary critic, author of children’s literature, translator, officer of the Polish Army.

Although he was only recognized as the patron saint of Poland by the Vatican in 2002, St. Andrzej Bobola was accorded a cult following much earlier than this, and venerated as the saint protector of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was seen as a special defender against the threat from first Tsarist Russia, then Orthodox Russia, then the Soviet Union – the Blessed’s intercession was associated with the victory of the Battle of Warsaw in 1920. For this reason, his beatification and canonization were part of political discourse.
Andrzej Bobola’s relics were originally stored in the Jesuit church in Pińsk, moved to Połock after its closure, and were taken to the Hygienic Exhibition in Moscow in 1922. Recovered thanks to the Pope’s intervention in 1924, they were taken to the Il Gesù Church in Rome. By the 1920s, Polish church authorities were already making efforts to canonize Andrzej Bobola and return his relics to Poland. Several Polish cities tried to obtain the saint’s remains, including Vilnius, Warsaw, Pińsk and even Janów Poleski.
The canonization, which took place on 17 April 1938, in particular the ceremonial return of the relics of St. Andrzej Bobola to Warsaw in June 1938, took the form of a great religious and patriotic demonstration. It was accompanied by numerous ceremonies in which the highest church and state authorities participated, with extensive paratheatrical scripts, as well as specially designed decorations and music composed for the occasion. The press reported these in great detail, constituting a fascinating case of an event of both great religious significance and broad political context.

The year 1933, which marked the 15th anniversary of Polish independence, also saw the celebrations of the 400th birthday of Stefan Batory and the 250th anniversary of the Relief of Vienna led by King Jan III Sobieski. Both events allowed for a wide campaign of propaganda for the Sanation movement’s updated political programme, clad in historical analogies, especially in the context of Eastern policy. For this reason, the ceremonies organized in the Borderlands, a particular lieux de mémoire associated with great kings, who were seen in official historical politics as natural harbingers of Józef Piłsudski, took on a special character. This provided an excellent opportunity for the propaganda of the Polish civilizing mission in the East and the promotion of the idea of Poland as a superpower. The main ceremonies commemorating Stefan Batory were organized in Grodno, where the monarch died in the historic castle in 1586. These celebrations, broadcast by radio and widely reported by the press, were attended by President Ignacy Mościcki and many national and local dignitaries, ministers, senators, deputies, voivodes, bishops, generals etc. Lavish occasional decorations, saturated with specific symbolism, were set up as modernized late 16th-century architectural stylizations. The activities of the Grodno Castle reconstruction committee were officially inaugurated on the 350th anniversary of Batory’s death. Even more magnificent were the two-day festivities commemorating the Victory at Vienna organized in Olesko, which overshadowed the central celebrations in Kraków. The programme of the ceremony proclaimed that “a deed of European importance – by King Jan III and the then-superpower Poland – must be reflected by a programme of celebrations of its 250-year anniversary on a superpower scale”. An extensive open-air spectacle was organized with the participation of thousands of extras, including soldiers in historical costumes, several hundred fire brigades, scouts and aviation squadrons. Particularly spectacular was the especially arranged musical performance combined with night illuminations. These celebrations were enhanced by other accompanying events such as the Star Automobile and Motorcycle Rally and the sightseeing rally On the Trail of Sobieski. In other Borderland towns such as Tarnopol the jubilee was celebrated on a smaller scale, where a number of outdoor events were organized under the umbrella name Harvest Festival of King Jan III and the Arrival of the Austrian Emperor’s Legation with a Request for the Relief of Vienna.

The article discusses the artistic setting of the largest religious ceremony of the beginning of the 20th century, the coronation of the icon of Our Lady of Consolation in the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Lviv. The painting itself was considered to be one of the palladiums of the city, as in 1656, during the Swedish Deluge, the papal nuncio Vidoni first uttered the call to the “Queen of the Polish Crown” in front of this Marian image, in the presence of King Jan Kazimierz and the court.
In 1904, on the occasion of the jubilee of the announcement of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Marian Congress took place in Lviv, and in that same year the decision was made to create new crowns for the painting of the Mother of God and Baby Jesus. A committee, composed of representatives from the aristocracy and bourgeoisie of the city, was set up to raise the appropriate funds, and the then Archbishop of Lviv, Józef Bilczewski, was asked to perform the solemn coronation. An artistic and technical committee was also established, which included the architect Teodor Talowski (chairman), Antoni Popiel, Andrzej Romaszkan, Tadeusz Czapelski and Karol Richtmann, who made the decision to transform the altar where the painting was placed and to convert the area of the church bay into a distinct chapel. The works were led by Karol Richtmann, the altar was renovated by the painter Karol Domański, and the new bronze antependium was designed by Antoni Popiel. The bolt with the depiction of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception was made by the sculptor Piotr Wójtowicz. The icon of the Virgin Mary itself was restored by Henryk Kühn. The chapel vault was decorated with paintings by Tadeusz Popiel, and its space was separated from the rest of the church by a grid made according to a project by Alfred Zachariewicz. Antoni Popiel designed golden crowns and a new dress for the figures of the Mother of God and Baby Jesus, made by the goldsmith and jeweller Jan Wojtych. The Committee also commissioned new stained glass windows for the chapel from the Kraków workshop of Stanisław Ekielski and Antoni Tuch. The main work was completed in July 1905.
On 12 February 1905, a coronation decree was issued in Rome, and Archbishop Bilczewski was appointed to perform the coronation act. On 28 April 1905, another decree was issued recognizing the antiquity and miraculousness of the painting, and the ceremony was scheduled for 28th May.
The church façade, side elevation and interior were decorated extensively, while the focal point was prepared for receiving the painting – “The Gothic golden throne with motifs from the tomb of Kazimierz the Great”. The decorations were designed by Stanisław Jasieński, a renowned painter and theatre decorator of the time. The streets and squares which the coronation procession went through were also adorned. The ceremony was very carefully planned and directed; it was attended by the clergy of the three Christian rites, local authorities and representatives of all social strata. When analyzing the coronation ceremonies, it is important to underline their considerable reliance on the schemes of coronations of Marian images which took place on Polish territory in the 18th century. The tradition of the last Marian coronation, of a painting from the Dominican Church in Lviv in 1751, was strongly referred to and accentuated in occasional prints that accompanied this solemn act. The reference to old Polish coronations can be seen in numerous occasional prints, in reporting on the course of the ceremony, as well as in the extensive descriptions and texts of sermons published. This ceremony had an exceptional social and national dimension, as it was the first such coronation in the former Polish lands since the loss of independence, and the most important ceremony before the outbreak of the First World War. Not without significance in this context was the underlined similarity of forms between the coronation throne and the canopy over the tombstone of Kazimierz the Great in the Kraków Cathedral, or the calling of one crown as Kazimierzowska and the other Jagiellońska. The new artistic remodeling of the Chapel of Our Lady in the Jesuit Church was a prelude to the renovation of the remaining altars in the church. The coronation ceremony and the restoration of the chapel gathered together the most important artists of the early 19th century working for the Church patronage in the capital of Galicia. The chapel designed by Teodor Talowski successfully combines an 18th-century retabulum with paintings by Tadeusz Popiel, being probably the last example of a true Baroque bel composto.

The subject of this article are the Egyptian inspirations in the graphic works of Ewa Siedlecka-Kotula, an artist living and working in Kraków in the second half of the 19th century. During the period from May 1948 until June 1949 she resided in Cairo, a productive period which came to fruition in the form of a special cycle of linocuts, executed in 1969 and based on earlier sketches. The series comprises of the following works: “Kobiety/Women”, “Woda/Water”, “Ryż/Rice”, “Tkacze/Weavers”, “Pasterka/ Female shepherd”, and “Barany/Rams”, depicting contemporary Egyptians and their typical, everyday tasks. During her stay in Egypt the artist also designed the exhibition graphics for the 16th Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition in Cairo. Her works were put on display at an individual exhibition (December 1948). She also participated in the exhibitions entitled “Le salon des femmes-artistes” in Cairo Women’s Club (March 1949) and “France-Égypte” in the Museum of Modern Art in Cairo (May 1949). Ewa Siedlecka-Kotula’s works met with much interest at that time. Unfortunately, references to antiquity are very scarce in her art, and include only a watercolour showing an Egyptian peasant by a shaduf (fig. 1), and a drawing of a female offering-bringer figurine from the tomb of Nakhti, overseer of the seal, in Asyut (early 12th dynasty, around 1900 BC). The latter drawing was perhaps made in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and most likely represents a statuette whose current fate remains unknown, which would make this drawing an exceptional record.

This paper is devoted to the surname changes performed through administrative channels in the interwar period. The research is based on the announcements of the “Official Gazette of the Republic of Poland” in 1929. The author describes main reasons for the decisions of surname changes taking into account characteristics of avoided surnames and chosen demographic tendencies, especially those connected with the age and profession of applicants. People of Jewish origin, Poles and representatives of other nationalities showed different motives for surname changes. Jews most frequently changed their surnames due to legal reasons — they wanted to legalize the unlawful use of a surname of the so-called ritual father. The changes carried out under the motive of assimilation occurred definitely less often. Non-Jewish applicants changed mainly appellative names, especially those derived from words related to animals. After comparing tendencies occurring before and after World War II one concludes that besides legal and assimilation factors which are particular to the pre-war decades (connected with the ethnic, legal and religious situation of the time), the remaining reasons for the surname changes are universal and do not distinguish the pre-war period from that of the post-war.

This biographical sketch is based on materials from the Roman Ingarden Archive, as yet unrecognized in philosophical literature. These materials are preserved in Krakow by Krzysztof Ingarden, the grandson of the philosopher. On their basis, a two‑volume biography was prepared by R. Kuliniak and M. Pandura I am a philosopher of the world (Κόσμου φιλόσοφός εἰμι) – Roman Witold Ingarden (1893–1970), Parts I and II, Wydawnictwo Marek Derewiecki, Kęty 2019–2020). This presentation is an abridged version of those volumes.

Tadeusz Breza (1905–1970), once one of the most popular Polish writers of the twentieth century, is today one of the authors less and less read. On the other hand, his debut and arguably most outstanding novel, Adam Grywałd, has not lost its value. It has been treated as an achievement of psychologism, a testimony to his fascination with Proust,s work and a manifestation of homosexual themes. However, these are unsatisfactory interpretations and lead to the discovery of false mysteries. They obscure the psychological profiles of the individual characters. The real mystery perhaps concerns a frightening encounter with nothingness, death, destruction. Read in this way, the novel becomes a truly intriguing work.

This article reviews the early history of the Polish motoring magazines from the launching of the Gazeta Automobilowa in Lwów in 1911 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. The article also tries to define the term 'motoring magazine' by examining the range and content of periodicals published in this segment in the early days of motoring.

Stanisław Hebanowski (1912–1983) was a well-known theatre director and translator of plays. At the age of 57 years, he moved to Gdansk, which marked the beginning of his most prolific artistic creativity and the period of some of his greatest achievements in the Polish theatre. Hebanowski’s collection of books, which, in the representative part of 4,000 volumes, made its way to the Gdansk Library, reflects its owner’s broad, not only theatrical, interests. Almost all the books are signed and provided with ordering numbers and letter markings indicating their belonging to a particular section – according to the author’s language or the topic of a given item. The provenance of the books is indicated by markings and annotations of their previous owners: apart from gifts and items purchased in second hand and ordinary bookshops in Gdansk, Krakow, Lwow, Poznan and Warsaw, the collection also includes books originating from theatres in Gdansk, Lodz and Poznan, and school libraries in Krakow and Tarnogora, university libraries from Krakow and Poznan, monastery libraries from Kolomyia and Stanislawow, and a public library in Rzeszow, along with ones previously belonging to various individuals. Some of the books from Hebanowski’s library – printed texts of theatre plays – include numerous annotations made by their owner – testimonies to the director’s preparation for the staging of the appropriate drama.

The aim of this article is to present the ephemera related to Sandomierz — either by content or place of the publication — whose distinctive trait was the use of the word 'jednodniówka', or single issue, in the title, the subtitle or the contents. Chronologically, this survey ranges from 1918, the date of the first print of this kind to be published, to the last one (known to the au-thors) dated 2002 and does not cover publications in languages other than Polish. The source material gathered in accordance with these criteria comprises a total of 34 single issues, of which ten appeared in the pre-war period and twenty-four after World War II. Themati-cally, ten of them can be classified as political or concerned with social issues; eight are products of trade unions or other professional associations; twelve are aimed at the younger generation; and each of the remaining four has a focus of its own (i.e. military, historical, religious, literary-artistic). In this article all of the single issues are discussed both with regard to their in format (layout) and their content.

In 1914 the Russian authorities in Warsaw granted Przyjaciel Młodzieży and Przyjaciel Dzieci, two weeklies addressed to young people and children respectively, a permission to continue publication in wartime. While each magazine tried to hold on to its established format and content, room had to made for some topical items on politics and the war, carefully adapted to the perceptions of the juvenile audience. It not clear what happened to the two children’s magazines after the Russians were driven out of Warsaw by German troops in August 1915. All we can sure of is that their last printed editions were dated 23 October 1915.

The aim of this article is to present the understanding of social history of Jerzy Topolski, from the theoretical side and as it was used in practical research work. The source basis, aside from the few direct quotes from the historian from Poznan on social history, are mainly analyses of his selected original works and works edited by him. The article also takes note of the discussion surrounding the term ‘social history’ itself and the research scope of social history as a historic discipline or sub-discipline which took place in the second half of the 20th century, which is the period in which Topolski published his works.

The Author presents in this paper a concept of research on the Jewish ethos internalized in the groups representing main political trends that were popular among the Polish Jewry in the interwar Poland (1918-1939). These trends are: Zionism, Socialism, Folkizm and a policy of Assimilation. Analysis of above group's ethos covers research on the following issues: values and attitudes constituting the ethos of a specific group, sources and function of the ethos and instruments of communication used in transmission of the ethos.

The start of Wolska Street, overlooking Błonia Park with the Kościuszko Mound towering over it, was an important place in the city’s structure as indicated in the competition plans for Greater Kraków from 1910. This led to the erection of formal buildings along the eastern boundary of Błonia, with the National Museum building at the forefront. In 1950, an urban-planning competition was held in relation to the planned construction of important buildings in this area. This paper presents unpublished works and the effects of decisions taken in this already forgotten competition on today’s development of the area around the square in front of the National Museum.
The goal of this paper is to present unknown competition designs dating back to mid-20th century and to indicate their impact on spatial solutions of the area at the end of Piłsudskiego Street, near the National Museum.
A comparative analysis of preserved pictorial materials and designs known to the author was used in this study. The analyses concluded that the opportunities to turn the start of Piłsudskiego Street into a nodal point in the urban plan of the city, a spot that would integrate space at both sides of Trzech Wieszczów Avenues, were not fully used. Urban analysis that also covered the area at the eastern side of the Trzech Wieszczów Avenues is a key to producing correct spatial solution for the square in front of the National Museum.

This article combines a general introduction to the crime fi ction of Walery Przyborowski with a study of the structure of the plot of his novels. The analyses of ten of his novels conclude with a typology of their narrative schemes, shown in the context of certain invariant patterns and the conventions of related literary genres. While the main objective of this study is to outline the structure of crime story and the social issues depicted in Przyborowski’s crime fi ction, it also pays some attention to the ways in which it refl ects his concerns about contemporary life and the condition of Poland under foreign rule. Basically, Przyborowski’s formula is to make use of the staples of the genre – mystery, adventure, romance – and the techniques of the popular novel. Moreover, his novels, like all of the 19th-century crime fi ctions, are clearly indebted to the conventions of the historical novel.

This article takes up Adam Dziadek’s somatic approach to literature to explore the theme of erotic experience in two poems by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, ‘L’amour Cosaque’ and ‘Amore profane’. With the help of inputs from gender studies and the contemporary theories of the subject it has been possible to profi le the ‘I’ of the poems as a deeply fragmented and sexually ambiguous subject, and, upon the evidence of the elusive autobiographical details woven into the text, as a subject suspended in a liminal space, between the real and the fi ctive world. After analyzing the body represented in the text, both perfect and decrepit, as well as traces of the poet’s carnality that interfere with the text and the reader’s sense of his own soma the article arrives at the following conclusion: in Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz’s lyrics the body seems to project its impressions and experiences onto reality, thus blurring the border between the inside and the outside.

Regarded primarily as a scandalist, Bruno Jasieński is also an innovator and ‘theoretician’ of the avant-garde. Then, so the argument, he converted to Communism and put his pen in the service of that ideology. He paid for it with the price of debasing his talent to the level of a socialist realist hack and, eventually, the price of his life when the regime he so avidly supported turned on him in the great purges of 1937–38. This article takes issue with the claim – which is part of the generally accepted narrative – that Jasieński ‘swerved gently to the left’ in 1923–1925. This article analyses the politics of young Bruno Jasieński's verse, i.e. the texts produced before 1921, the year of the publication of the first collection of his poems. In so far as his early poetic work contains nothing but praise of the Russian revolution and its ethos, his ideological evolution in the nineteen twenties should termed radicalization rather than a shift to the left.

This article considers the role of the sister figure in Bruno Jasieński's early verse. His poems as well as various facts from his biography leave little doubt that this highly significant role was filled by Irena Zysman, his sister. The key to the dialectic of her presence/absence in the poet's life and work is to be found in the concept of melancholy. Although Jasieński would hardly be credited with that kind of sensibility, the relationship with his sister does show that melancholy was part of his psychological makeup. Moreover, by bringing in psychoanalytical analysis, the article shows how his melancholy morphed into mania, a transformation which in a way fuelled his political engagement.

The article is a reappraisal of the work of Tymoteusz Karpowicz, one of the landmarks of the Polish poetic Neo-avant-garde, in terms of the quixotic model (principle). This approach brings into focus the following building blocks of Karpowicz’s autocreative poetics: the private library project, the idea of the book of books, the concept of holistic interconnectedness and the poet’s programmatic detachment (isolationism). In his verse they form sylleptic configurations in which language-games collide with the existential concrete and, in effect, transform the poetry into a performance acted out by the author both in his text and his highly mythicized geographic space. The superposing of his autothematic statements on his autocreative performative actions shows their remark-able congruence, and hence t the incontestable applicability of the quixotic model to describe the nature of Karpowicz’s creative project. In sum, he was a poet bent on finding his own place between the totalizing power of language and the harsh realities beyond the pale of literature.