This article presents the concept of fate in the stories of the poet and literary sketches of twentieth-century Russian writer Jurij Dombrowski. The writer creates psychological portraits of Romantic poets, including George Byron, Alexander Gribojedov, Wilhelm Küchelbecker, focusing on selected episodes from their lives. In the article attempt is made to prove that the fate of the nineteenth-century artists serve as an excuse to explain the problems of contemporary author. Characteristics of historical fi gures are made through the prism of Dombrowski’s biography. The combination of biography and autobiography allows Dombrowski to present the subjective concept of the poet: a man condemned to loneliness and misunderstanding, confl icted with the epoch, trying to overcome the tragic dependence on historical conditions through art and creativity.

This paper discusses contemporary transformations in the way work is organised and the consequences for the stability of careers and biographies. It debates the widely held belief that organised and predictable life-course paths (including professional careers) have ceased to exist and that work itself has lost its stabilising quality. Biographical data collected among Polish employees of transnational corporations within the project “Poles in the World of Late Capitalism” proves that even though transnational corporations are widely criticised for propelling neoliberal tendencies in the global economy, they provide a means of protecting their employees against today’s uncertainty and occupational risk. Three empirical cases are presented to show how work in a transnational corporation may contribute to achieving and maintaining stability for persons who have had troublesome experiences of working in other sectors of the labour market.

In studying contemporary transformations of social relations and family life, researchers and social theorists have been focused on the increased diversity of forms of bonding, coupling and other interpersonal connections. When single people are discussed, either it is to emphasize the disintegration of their ties and the crisis of the family, or their single life is considered as an identity choice. The aim of this text is to look at the experience of singleness not by choice among contemporary corporate employees in Poland and to try to set this experience against the background of a broader social reality, especially the reality of professional work. The text also examines the relationship between relational forms (including being single) and the social system in late capitalism. The experiences of people who are not single by choice are discussed and contrasting variants for people whose single situation is associated with low interpersonal skills and for those with an interactional proficiency are distinguished. In the conclusion, the authors are looking for patterns of connection between being unwillingly single and operating on the late capitalist labour market.

In order to describe the features of Polish hospitality, autobiographical records containing memories of hospitality from various historical periods were compiled. The research material included about 300 episodes from 30 published sources. A targeted selection was made according to a combination of three criteria: a di versity of social positions among the authors, the biographies of the authors, and the detail of description. An analysis of the material was conducted in order to contribute to a better understanding of the social significance of hospitality. The oretical assumptions about hospitality in conditions of stability and social crisis were advanced. The analysis showed that in times of relative stability, hospital ity was biographically important when it allowed a person to transition between positions in the social structure (usually between close levels) and involved some form of promotion. On the other hand, in conditions of intensified change and crises, the order was disturbed: on the one hand, visits to the homes of persons occupying more distant positions in the hierarchy (both up and down the social ladder) became more common, but on the other hand, there could be a challenge to or rejection of traditional requirements of hospitality. The first situation occurs especially at the beginning of a crisis, and with the depletion of resources, the increase in the number of negative experiences, and socialization to a long-term threat, a survival strategy begins to take shape in which only the closest circles prevail. Such findings suggest that a more cautious look should be taken at both the theoretical concepts in which hospitality is considered a useful social invention especially in times of increased need and at the Polish self-stereotype as a nation with a culture based on hospitality, invariable generosity, and an inclination to selflessness.

Life history is a term usually assigned in the history of historiography to the Italian school of microhistory. In fact, it is a concept typical for the natural sciences in the case of which it is a framework focused on studies of life history strategies as well as life cycles. Life history analysis has become the subject of numerous studies around the world and has been gaining in popularity in social sciences. The author presents life history as a certain research perspective for historical studies which is capable of incorporating both natural and cultural approaches. He draws inspirations of the life history perspective from recent research into history of modern Poland.

This article examines the autobiographical quotations of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra that are corroborated directly and indirectly by both old and newly discovered documents which contain references to the writer and his relatives. It is worth bearing in mind that some of that evidence was for long ignored, or allowed to fade into oblivion, or, sometimes, misinterpreted. Even some 20th-century scholars acclaimed for their richly documented biographies of the author of Don Quixote, appear not to have taken account of that resource, while insisting that there are still many unsolved enigmas in Cervantes' life. Undoubtedly, his life, like that of any genius, continues to exert an irresistible fascination even though its exploration is fraught with countless hazards, not least because of the complex interrelationships between his own texts and all kinds of documentary evidence supplied by historical research. The latter, the article claims, constitutes not only an invaluable treasure for any pursuit of the truth about Cervantes but also a solid base for a comprehensive account of his life and work.

This article deals with migrants’ experiences of precarious working conditions in the cleaning and con-struction industries in the Danish labour market as seen from their perspective. The experiences are retained through biographical narrative interviews with migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe and are used to gain an understanding of the concrete strategies they apply when coping with their short-term contracts, demanding working hours, risk of unemployment and other insecurities. Mi-grants’ experiences of precarity and insecurity in their work is confirmed, to some degree, in numerous research studies. However, the resistance and strategies expressed by the migrant workers in their nar-ratives show that they have also developed specific ways to cope with this precarity. The article con-tributes to a new understanding of migrants’ responses to precarity in which they engage their social and cultural resources to cope with the labour market conditions they face in Denmark.

The essay will focus on a mid-nineteenth century medallion from the vast collection of Polish bibliophile Ludwik Gocel (1889–1966). Made in 1854 in the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C., it depicts a prominent nineteenth century American, Judge Charles Mason (1804–1882), and is a valuable token of the U.S. history. It was designed and completed by Polish distinguished medalist, Henryk Dmochowski (in the U.S. known as Henry Dmochowski Saunders; b. 1810–d. 1863) who can be called a “soldier-artist,” since he participated in three Polish uprisings. Expelled from partitioned Poland, in 1851 he came to America where he was offered the chance to work as a sculptor. This essay’s main aim is to describe the fate of the medallion, apparently almost unknown in both America and Poland, with special emphasis on the role of Ludwik Gocel in its preservation. This rare piece of art has never been included in Polish or American art publications in the field of sculpture.

This article deals with the rise in the Polish literature of 1970s of a new type of biographical novel, associated with the fi rst post-war generation of writers like Bohdan Zadura, Julian Kornhauser, Adam Zagajewski, Henryk Lothamer, Stanisław Piskor and Donat Kirsch. Their work is subsumed here under the label ‘new fi ction’ primarily because of its literary context, i.e. the late-modern fears and uncertainties culminating in the assumption that literature reached the state of exhaustion. The article argues that the ‘new fi ction’ acquired its distinctive character from a preoccupation with the biographical narrative and a sense of generational identity. The writers who defi ned themselves in these generational terms saw their prospect of following their aspirations and building up authentic lives weighed down by the constricting realities, and, as the article claims, resigned themselves – at best not entirely – to this sad conclusion.