From European Federalism to the European Union, Insights of Nobel Prize Laureate, Maurice Allais

From 1945 to the end of his life, Maurice Allais, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics (1988), devoted a large part of his work to the European question. As a staunch Unionist, Allais insisted on the fact that, while the threefold freedom of goods, people and capital was necessary to improve the well-being of individuals, it was also a very ambitious goal. Thus, he argued, it was necessary to promote a European federalism on the basis of a scientific criterion: economic democracy—and via an organized method: competitive planning. However, Allais was aware that political integration had to precede economic integration and that economic efficiency could not be ensured without a single currency. He argued that the introduction of the euro had to be accompanied by real monetary reform (credit system, indexation of future commitments, stock markets, international monetary system) in order to regulate the multiplication of financial crises.

The Philosophy of Art by Günter Grass

This scientific article is dedicated to the philosophy of art by Nobel Prize laureate and German national poet Günter Grass. Its focuses on Grass’s understanding of art and reality, of ambivalence and relativism, his conception of imagination and reflection and the position of the language in it. In addition, the paper presents the interrelationship between Grass’s philosophy of art and its expression in narration. The focus of the consideration are the novels “The Tin Drum” and “A Wide Field”. The article pays special attention to Grass’s concept of reflection, which is placed in the philosophical context of the Romantic understanding of irony. This allows parallels to be drawn between Schlegel's and Grass’s philosophical positions.

Olga Tokarczuk is in A Dialogue between James W. Underhill and Adam Głaz on Filtering Olga Tokarczuk’s “Tender Worldview” into English during her Nobel Lecture

In December 2019, Olga Tokarczuk, the Nobel Prize laureate in literature for 2018, delivered the Nobel lecture in her native Polish. It was therefore up to her English translators, Jennifer Croft and Antonia Lloyd-Jones, to relay the laureate’s message to the wider audience. Two linguists and translators, James W. Underhill and Adam Głaz, discuss this Nobel lecture in its broader historical, political, and social context, recognizing Olga Tokarczuk’s position on topical issues, the role she plays in contemporary Poland, as well as the controversies she arouses. But Tokarczuk is predominantly a writer: her lecture is concerned with literature and it is literature. In a masterly fashion, the lauretate champions the creative power of storytelling, explores her notion of the tender narrator, and constructs intriguing analogies. She weaves nuanced semantic networks around the Polish words tęsknić/tęsknota (‘miss/missing’ or ‘long/longing for’) and jestem (‘here I am’). Underhill and Głaz discuss the meanders of the English translation of the lecture, pointing out the challenges that the translators had to face and suggesting alternative ways of coping with them. Through dialogue, they inquire into the nature of translation as an endeavour that is profoundly communicative and interpersonal. They emphasize that Olga Tokarczuk is an important voice; the role of her translators is to make this voice heard worldwide.

Blood groups

On June 14, 1868, Karl Landsteiner, an outstanding scientist, known for his works in the field of immunohematology and immunochemistry, who received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of blood group systems in 1930, was born in a Viennese family. In 1900, Karl Landsteiner published a work in which he described in detail the process of agglutination that occurs when the blood plasma of one person is mixed with the red blood cells of another one. At that time, the scientist came to the conclusion that this phenomenon was of an immunological nature. In 1901, Landsteiner decided to divide human blood into three subgroups: A, B, and C; a little later, the AB group was added to them, while the C group was renamed as O. In addition, it was Landsteiner who invented a fairly simple scheme that allows developing and introducing the basic principles of blood transfusion into wide practice, and the world got a wonderful opportunity to save hundreds and thousands of human lives. Thanks to this discovery, made more than 100 years ago, more than 100 million donations are made every year around the world, more than half of which are in developed countries with high living standards and incomes. Here people come to blood donation deliberately, and not for the sake of receiving financial or any other benefit. Thanks to blood transfusion, it became possible to successfully carry out many surgical interventions accompanied by the loss of a large amount of blood, exchange blood transfusion for hemolytic disease of newborns, and substitution therapy for many pathological conditions. Karl Landsteiner’s work was highly appreciated: in 1930, due to the discovery of blood groups, he became the Nobel Prize laureate in the field of medicine.

“ENTERING LIFE” OF POETRY BY E.T.A. HOFFMANN AND GÜNTER GRASS

In this scientific article, it is assumed that the literary works of the Nobel Prize laureate and the German national poet Günter Grass are characterized by romantic features. For this reason, the novel Ein weites Feld (“A Wide Field”) by Grass and the fairy tale Der goldene Topf (“The Golden Pot”) by E.T.A. Hoffmann are examined in terms of their similarities and differences. It is noteworthy that E.T.A. Hoffmann has so far only been associated with Grass in relation to his fairy tale “Klein Zaches, called Zinnober”, and the main hero of the fairy tale served as a literary model for Oskar Matzerath from “The Tin Drum”. Thus, this article makes it possible to throw a new light on Grass’es research. In this paper the following aspects are analyzed: questions of poetics, genesis, main characters, narrative or fictional levels, structural principles, as well as the role of the reader. The results are summarized in the final part of the investigation.

Digital reality: Choosing the future

We present an analysis of reports, round table discussions, approaches presented at the IV International Conference “Designing the Future and Horizons of Digital Reality”. The focus of the conference participants was the analysis of the results, risks and prospects for the development of the computer reality of the world and the Belarus-Russia Union State from the position of an interdisciplinary synthesis of knowledge at the intersection of philosophy, mathematics, computer science, sociology and a number of other disciplines. At one time, the Nobel Prize laureate academician Zh.I. Alferov said that it is in Russia and Belarus that the potential in the field of information and telecommunication (IT) technologies is greatest among the post-Soviet countries. And it is these technologies that should become the basis of our scientific and technical breakthrough. This foresight is the leitmotif of this conference. Many innovations in our countries are perceived with the imperative: “New is good”. But it’s not always the case. Our world is not linear. It is characterized by bifurcation points, in one of which it is now. Discoveries, technologies, inventions at this point can determine which branch of further development will be chosen. Therefore, a broad interdisciplinary analysis of the strategic risks of the development of computer reality is required. The choice that is now being made must be conscious and responsible. This circle of problems is also in the center of attention of the conference participants.

Trans-Dialogues: Exploring Virginia Woolf’s Feminist Legacy to Contemporary Polish Literature

This chapter addresses the role Virginia Woolf plays in contemporary Polish literature, examining the significance of her modernist legacy – as a vital part of planetary feminism – to Polish feminist fiction. Though Woolf entered Polish culture in the 1920s and her hybrid fictional forms were translated in the 1950-60s, her reception was delayed. Feminist rewritings of Woolf’s oeuvre began to emerge after the first Polish translations of Orlando (1994) and A Room of One’s Own (1997), followed by her auto/biographical writings. Polish writers – Joanna Bator, Sylwia Chutnik, Marta Konarzewska, Renata Lis, Izabela Morska, Maria Nurowska, and Olga Tokarczuk – transform, rewrite and re-use Woolf’s works in Central European cultural contexts. The most visible signs of Woolf’s ‘afterlives’ are transtextual relations between contemporary fiction, biographies of Woolf and her oeuvre. This chapter explores biofiction with Woolfian themes and intertextual echoes that enhance polyphonic effects. It also focuses on hypertextuality by analysing the functions of Woolfian hypotexts, for instance, tracing back the generic fusing of the Nobel Prize Laureate Tokarczuk’s ‘constellation novels’ to Woolf’s hybrid fictional forms. The chapter applies Jessica Berman’s ‘trans critical optic’ that allows to read Polish textual dialogues with Woolf from transdisciplinary, transnational and transgender perspectives.

Translation as Creation: Interview with Gao Xingjian

This article is an interview with Gao Xingjian, the Nobel Prize laureate of 2000.