The history of Polish viola literature – the 19th and 20th centuries

After the Romanticism era, when virtuoso music was dominated by the violin, cello and piano, there was a noticeable tendency among composers to search for new and fresh sound inspired by instruments previously functioning mainly in an orchestra. One of the instruments which acquired a new glory back then was the viola. Even though Western European literature earned a permanent place in the repertoire of violists worldwide, Polish pieces representing this genre are lesser-known and performed not as often, except for a few compositions. The library of Polish 20th century viola works is quite rich, but many compositions did not stand the test of time and we would look for them in vain within the performance canon; others were not published in print or recorded, and their manuscripts are owned by private collections. Some autographs of compositions have gone missing and only their titles have been preserved to this day. The present article is an attempt to systematise the state of knowledge about Polish viola compositions written before the end of the 20th century.

Narcissus and Pygmalion

That nature imitates art is not a paradox distilled from Oscar Wilde’s pen, but the bold formulation of a Roman poet, Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE), which marks a radical turning point in ancient aesthetics, founded on the principle of mimesis. By enhancing phantasia, the artist’s creative imagination, Ovid opens up unexplored perspectives for future European literature and art. Through Narcissus and Pygmalion, figures of illusion and desire, who are the protagonists of two major episodes of the Metamorphoses, this book sheds light on some crucial junctions in the history of reception and aesthetics. With its combination of sophisticated by combining literary critical thinking and patient argument applied to the poetics of self-reflexivity and, in particular, to the fundamental interface between the verbal and the visual in the Metamorphoses, it has mainly contributed to the poet’s critical fortunes in this new aetas Ovidiana we have been living in the past few decades. A substantive introduction to this edition positions the book anew in the forefront of current discussions of Ovidian aesthetics and intermediality, in the wake of the postmodern culture of the simulacrum.

Chinese Gretchen in Russian Literature: on the Genesis and Attribution of M. Shkapskaya’s Poetry Book Tsa-Tsa-Tsa

This article examines in detail Maria Shkapskayas poetry book Tsa-Tsa- Tsa (1923) and its handwritten genesis. It explains the role and significance of ancient Chinese poetry for this literary piece of work. The problem is to attribute the texts that make up the book and find out their translated or stylized basis. The general thesis is that all the poetic texts of the book are translations: the names of Tao-Yuan-Ming, Du Fu, and Bo-Juyi indicated by Shkapskaya in the manuscripts are reported. One of the texts in the book is attributed as the Sixth Poem from the Shi ju gu shi ( Nineteen Ancient Poems ). The removal of the names of Chinese authors (not only in the book published in 1923 but also in the manuscript of 1921) and the alignment of the thematic word series silk, crane, thousand, spring that organize the book into a single text indicate a tendency to blur the border of the own-alien text (even though the book was treated by the author as translation from the Chinese, in autobiographies and correspondence). This trend leads to the appearance of a central artistic image of the book (it is a feature of M. Shkapskayas poetic books). It is the image of a lonely, longing woman. The mention of the spinning wheel connects this image with the popular (especially in Western European literature) image of Gretchen. This way the poetry book Tsa-Tsa-Tsa goes beyond the narrowly translated work and reveals some features of chronologically later literary trends (such as postmodernism and metapoesis).

Modernist interpretation of the image of the sun in the European literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries

The article is devoted to the clarification of the semantic and text-creating potential of linguistic cultures in the european and ukrainian artistic speech. The research was carried out in several directions: a) on the material of texts of european and ukrainian authors of the beginning of the twentieth century revealed semantic-stylistic features of the linguistic culture of the sun; b) considered the semantic structure of the text through the projection of this image into the context; c) through the description the modernist features of the interpretation of the image in the European literature of the early twentieth century. In the work, a comparative method of analysis was used, which allowed to find out the common and excellent in interpreting the image, revealing its deep meaning. Modern linguistics defines the concept of linguistic ethnocentrism. It becomes the background for the development of an ethnic group as an original phenomenon, acts as a uniting beginning of each individual nation, a marker of the national language, traditions, and culture. The history of its formation is dynamic. The philosophical origins are hidolen in the idea of anthropocentrism. Human being is regarded as an organic part of nature, and its surrounding animals, birds, trees, plants, rivers, rocks – as living beings endowed with a human soul The formation of linguistic ethnocentrism was significantly affected by the geographical and climatic features of the ethnic group's residence (natural landscape, climate, natural phenomena, flora and fauna). The natural origin caused the occurrence of a system of cult concepts associated with phyto-and dendrological symbols. It is expedient to analyze the historical and social conditions of the formation of an ethnic group and its culture (economic activity, occupation, relations with neighbors, social and political forms).The distinctive features of any ethnic group affect its psychological behavior and mental traits. Among the most characteristic features of Ukrainians, it is appropriate to name humanity, individualism, emotionality, sentimentalism, receptivity, hospitality, a kind of sincerity, lyricism. Formation of national-marked language units (epithets, metaphors, comparisons, proper names, compound words, associative language relations, specific vocabulary and phraseology) becomes the background of individualization of any ethnic culture, and Ukrainian especially. Ethnic language pictures of the world, which all members of society are involved in, affect the way people think and behave.

Writing for the Family Audience

Családi Kör (1860–1880) was the leading Hungarian domestic magazine of the mid-19th period, which, under the editorship of the first Hungarian woman of letters Emília Kánya, played a major role in introducing the domestic readership to contemporary European literature and in discussing the struggle of women’s employment opportunities before a wider public. Critical studies have also suggested that it was edited and published under the influence of the German Gartenlaube (1853–1944), the journal credited with embedding the journal of domestic magazine in the broader regime of 19th century print culture. Based on a close reading of the two magazines’ coverage in its European cultural historical context, this chapter offers an account of the possible connections and affinities between the two periodicals, and argues that the Hungarian magazine was significantly more daring in its politics and more systematic in its pursuit of introducing the local audience to European literary trends and works.

On Some Features of the Formation and Development of Literatures of the Peoples of Russia

Literatures of the peoples of Russia represent an interliterary community that has historically arisen and maintained its dynamic enrichment. The formation and development of these literatures has a number of common features that show the consistent pattern of this process. Literatures on national languages are characterized by irregularity of its development. Moreover, the European literature history can explain the peculiarities of this phenomenon and show that this uneven and intermittent development is essentially a part of a standard growth. Literatures of peoples of Russia at a certain stage entered the period of enrichment assimilating freely the traditions of Russian Literature and World Literature. One of the most important roles for this process was played by literary translation. Numerous features were showed by national literatures, the formation of genres, distinctive national characters, expressive possibilities of national languages, writers, and their artwork which made a national fund of literature. Folklore and national culture made a huge impact in comprehending process as well.

Bestselling ‘beeldekens’. Hendrik Consciences “Hoe men schilder wordt” (1843) en de negentiende-eeuwse populaire beeldcultuur

Around the mid-nineteenth century, European literature abounded with book illustrations and the use of a pictorial style. Depending on the context and perspective, this literary fashion was associated with a threatening democratization of literature or perceived as a chance to reach new audiences. This article investigates whether the striking interactions between text and image in the internationally popular novella Hoe men schilder wordt (1843) by the Flemish author Hendrik Conscience can be regarded as a factor in its nineteenth-century popularity, and as a starting point for Conscience’s current image as an author of ‘popular’ literature, aiming at broad upcoming audiences.

На фоне Центральной Европы: Преимущественно вежливый Леопольд в сети мужских персонажей романов Михала Вивега

The author of the present study investigates the character of Leopold in the new novel by Michal Viewegh in the net of the characters of his preceding novels. In this novel, the writer does not discuss politics, the problem of men and women, husbands and wives, and the sexual promiscuity, but, above all, unstoppable aging and permanent support of the gradually waning sexuality. Leopold is a metaphor of anatomy and physiology of a Central European man who, in his own manner, has always aimed at searching new ways, at the beginning of new epochs, at the anticipation of new ideas and at the formation of new humans under the changed conditions. Viewegh – already in his quasipostmodernist poetics, and due to his extreme opinions and language and style inventions – belongs, covertly or openly, to the mighty stream of unclear, vague, ambivalent Central European literature.