This text focuses on non-military aspects of Polish-Soviet relations in cinema before 1989. It offers an analysis of two melodramas, the Polish “Interrupted Flight (L. Buczkowski, 1964),” and the Soviet-Polish “Remember Your Name” (S. Kolosov, 1974). From a narrow ideological perspective, both fi lms show Polish-Soviet relations in a positive light. Yet, the author points to omissions and understatements that refl ect the ambiguities present in Polish-Soviet relations of the time. As a genre. melodrama complicates superfi cial statements of Polish-Soviet friendship.

Anna Janko’s latest novel Finalistka [ The Finalist] (2021) contains a catalogue of ill-nesses that the main character, the poet Hanka M., has to struggle with. The book, which in many ways resembles a patient’s diary, is a record of the battles Hanka, the author’s alter ego, has to fight with the enemy which happens to be her own body. The article considers the strategies she employs to hold her body in check as it repeatedly lets her down and, in effect, becomes her enemy. Its disconcerting strangeness strikes her every time she slips into a search for the signs and symptoms of ageing (her reflections at this point are compared with those of Simone de Beauvoir and some other writers). In Finalistka suffering from illnesses is inscribed into life’s transience which is not just human but universal, and at the same time particular, affecting both men and women. Nonetheless, it is the woman’s perspective that this article finds more interesting.

This article aims to present several gender theories related to linguistics which could be useful for contemporary onomastics. The author would also like to demonstrate their applicability (especially the theory by R. Connell) in particular onomastic and textological analyses. In the first part of the article, the author explains that there are numerous ways to define gender within the discipline of gender studies. The author focuses on constructivist and performative approaches, especially on those which understand gender as a discursive and normative category. In the second part, the author presents four gender theories by: J. Butler, R. Connell, J. Scott, and by French feminists (J. Kristeva, H. Cixous), paying attention to their methodological value: understanding gender as a linguistic/performative/semiotic/symbolic/discursive category, as a group of textual practices (games) existing in the dominant culture, and the maintenance or defiance of gender. All of those notions can be related to different groups of onyms and their associated communicative practices. In the third part, the author presents the directions of research conducted in post-1945 Polish anthroponomastics in the field of feminine names (she is particularly interested in lexical, systemic, and contextual (social, historical etc.) mechanisms). In the empirical section, the author formulates her most important assumption concerning research of gender onomastics in the media (Polish women’s magazines): femininities are constructs, primarily of a normative, model-creating function, they produce hierarchy and difference; proper names are important “notional nodes” in those constructs. The analysis claims that there are at least three different femininities: dominant (celebrity), banal (anonymous) and defiant (rebellious). Female proper names are an important part of each construct as their arrangement (name and surname, name alone, diminutive of the name or culturally-loaded name), along with the appropriate description of their bearers, can give an impression of the popularity and familiarity of certain people and of their high social status or of their anonymity, closeness or unreality.This article aims to present several gender theories related to linguistics which could be useful for contemporary onomastics. The author would also like to demonstrate their applicability (especially the theory by R. Connell) in particular onomastic and textological analyses. In the first part of the article, the author explains that there are numerous ways to define gender within the discipline of gender studies. The author focuses on constructivist and performative approaches, especially on those which understand gender as a discursive and normative category. In the second part, the author presents four gender theories by: J. Butler, R. Connell, J. Scott, and by French feminists (J. Kristeva, H. Cixous), paying attention to their methodological value: understanding gender as a linguistic/performative/semiotic/symbolic/discursive category, as a group of textual practices (games) existing in the dominant culture, and the maintenance or defiance of gender. All of those notions can be related to different groups of onyms and their associated communicative practices. In the third part, the author presents the directions of research conducted in post-1945 Polish anthroponomastics in the field of feminine names (she is particularly interested in lexical, systemic, and contextual (social, historical etc.) mechanisms). In the empirical section, the author formulates her most important assumption concerning research of gender onomastics in the media (Polish women’s magazines): femininities are constructs, primarily of a normative, model-creating function, they produce hierarchy and difference; proper names are important “notional nodes” in those constructs. The analysis claims that there are at least three different femininities: dominant (celebrity), banal (anonymous) and defiant (rebellious). Female proper names are an important part of each construct as their arrangement (name and surname, name alone, diminutive of the name or culturally-loaded name), along with the appropriate description of their bearers, can give an impression of the popularity and familiarity of certain people and of their high social status or of their anonymity, closeness or unreality.