On December 6, 2022, Professor Hanna Taborska, an outstanding linguist, Slavicist, distinguished researcher of the Kashubian language, doctor honoris causa of the University of Gdańsk, Righteous Among the Nations passed away at the age of 92. She worked continuously for 58 years at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. She is the author of over 500 scientific publications, including fundamental works in the field of Kashubian and Slavic studies.

The articles attempts at the reconstruction of the image of America in letters and memoirs of Dmytro Chyzhevs’kyy, Yuriy Shevel’ov, and Wiktor Weintraub, East‑European scholars who after WWII greatly contributed to the formation of the image of Slavic civilization in the West. They immigrated to the US in late 1940s – early 1950s expecting Harvard to be the site for their further academic endeavours since the after – WW II Europe could not satisfy their academic needs. Interaction with the American academic community developed differently for each scholar, which had its impact on their further careers. Impressions from America and Harvard in particular in their correspondence generally testifies to the their hopes and expectations, while memoirs contain a balanced or even distanced re‑evaluation of those. Historical context within which these writings are viewed suggests that for each scholar the image of America was dynamic and different due to their age, personality, character, previous immigrant life experience, and their cultural background and academic worldview. Unlike Chyzhevs’kyy, these factors suited well Shevel’ov and Weintraub in terms of adjustment to the reality and expectations of the New World. Further study of these scholars’ biographies from this perspective seems particularly topical under the circumstances of recent reformatting of the Slavic Studies as a discipline.

Obituary for Antoni Furdal, an eminent linguist, specialist in Polish and Slavic studies, theory of language and semiotics. The text presents some of his most important achievements in each of these fields.

The article describes the author’s collaboration with professor Boryś on the publication of a six-volume “Dictionary of the Kashubian etymology” (Warszawa 1994–2010). In addition, the author briefly describes the achievements of the deceased Professor in the field of Slavic linguistics, focusing on the publication of “Dictionary of the etymological Polish language” (Krakow 2005) – an outstanding work on which the Professor worked for most of his life.

The Serbian Language as Viewed by the East and the West: Synchrony, Diachrony, and Typology, edited by Ljudmila Popović and Motoki Nomachi is a collection of papers which were originally presented at the symposium on February 5th in 2014 at the Slavic-Euroasian Research Center of Hokkaido University. The authors analyze various examples of language contact and linguistic change in the history of the Serbian language with special attention to the cultural opposition of the East and West. In the last section, the results of contrastive analyses of Serbian and Japanese, Russian as well as other Slavic languages are presented. With regard to the topics discussed and high quality of all the studies (most authors are renowned linguists) the volume has a big value for contemporary Slavic linguistics.

Obituary of Ewa Siatkowska, an eminent linguist, specialist and expert in Czech and Sorbian, as well as West Slavic studies, initiator of the scientific journal “Zeszyty Łużyckie” and its editor‑in‑chief for many years. The text shows a wide range of her research fields and exceptional research passion.

The jubilee volume “Slavica Wratislaviensia”, CLIX: Wyraz i zdanie w językach słowiańskich (8), is a collection of contributions by pupils, collegues, and friends, dedicated to Professor Jan Sokołowski slavist of Wroclaw University, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The publication topics covered subjects connected with researches on word and sentence in Slavic languages, their description, comparative and contrastive studies, and translation. They take up important current topics, reliably and comprehensively analyze problems that have not been noticed before or have not been solved yet. Due to the selection of topics and high scientific level (most authors are renowned linguists) the volume should be considered as representative for contemporary Slavic linguistics.

It was with great sadness that we learned on 18 October 2021 of the death of the distinguished Italian Slavist and Polonist Sante Graciotti, professor emeritus of the Sapienza University of Rome. This personal tribute, written on the first anniversary of his death, begins with a recollection of the ceremony of awarding Sane Graciotti the title of Doctor honoris causa by the Jagiellonian University. on 16 December 1986. The laudatio, delivered by Professor Tadeusz Ulewicz, presented our guest's achievements and the main stages of his academic life. It began with the study of Italian philology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan and came to a turning point at La Sapienza in Rome, where he pivoted towards Slavic philology. The youthful fascination became a lifelong commitment which earned him the acclaim and honours that are the crown of an academic career. Finally, he concentrated his attention on Poland, Polish history and culture, and the history of Polish-Italian cultural relations. In his explorations of the new field, he could count on the friendly assistance of his Polish colleagues, especially Tadeusz Ulewicz, a historian of Polish literature with a profound knowledge of the historical ties between Poland and Italy. The respect they had for each other's work led to the promotion of Graciotti's research in Poland and the awarding of the doctorate honoris causa to Tadeusz Ulewicz by the Università Cattolica in Milan.