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3079 results in Jagiellonian University Press

Page 67 of 154

  • III - King Marko in the Folk Tales by Marko K. Cepenkov – A Cognitive Definition

  • from C - FOLKLORE
  • Maciej Kawka, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Macedonian Discourses
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 250-258

  • Summary

    The discussion on the issue of stereotypes and stereotypization in different kinds of text – primarily in folk but also in poetic and other types of texts – (in linguistic textology) has begun only recently.

    The terms stereotypes, prototypes, profiling, linguistic picture of the world enter the field of linguistics as related to the development of text theory and cognitive semantics in the last 50 years. This issue is very wide and of interest to authors who represent the field of text grammar that make use of folk material and even touches upon cognitivism, primarily prototypes and idealized cognitive gestalts by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson as well as the reconstruction of the linguistic piscture of the world by Jerzy Bartmiński and Ryszard Tokarski.

    For a complete profile and a construction of the cognitive definition of Krale (King) Marko, the number of contexts (contextual meaning) in which this character appears, should be taken into consideration.

    Only information contained in Cepenkov's folk stories have been used for a description of the linguistic picture of King Marko.

    Reconstruction of the linguistic picture of Marko Krale in folk literature is very attractive and enticing. However, for our purposes, a limitation will be applied, to include only Cepenkov's folk stories.

    According to Macedonian folklore researchers and some historians, King Marko (Marko Krale, Krale Marko, Krali Marko, Marko Kraljevic…) is an authentic person for whom there is scant historical data.

    He was born around 1334 // 1335 as a son of Vukashin. After Vukashin's death (1371), King Marko took ruled in Western Macedonia.

    As a vassal of Sultan Bayazid I, he died in the Battle of Rovine in 1395 while fighting for the Ottomans against Mircea the Elder. He is a historical figure who became a hero, and is described in the cycle about Marko Krale, one of the richest and most beautiful collections of folk epic stories of the Southern Slavic people. A large number of songs dedicated to him belong to Serbian folk literature, but Bulgarian folk epics also treat him as a folk hero.

  • K. Penushliski in his book Marko Krale – Legend and Reality states:

  • Chapter Three - Warsaw's eyes and ears: The Polish diplomatic and intelligence services in Soviet Ukraine

  • Jan Jacek Bruski, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Between Prometheism and Realpolitik
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 79-118

  • Summary

    Diplomatic and consular outposts

    The first Polish outposts in Ukraine started to be established at the turn of 1917 and 1918. Initially their status was semi-official or fully unofficial, and they performed quasi-consular duties, trying to provide assistance both for Polish residents in their catchment area as well as for refugees from the Congress Kingdom. Utilising the semi-official structures at their disposal, they continued the work of social organisations such as the Polish Society for Aid to War Victims (Polskie Towarzystwo Pomocy Ofiarom Wojny) which had operated earlier through an extensive network of local offices throughout Ukraine. An important initiative was the establishment in Kyiv of a coordinating centre known as the Generalny Komisariat, the branch of the Petrograd-based Liquidation Commission for the Affairs of the Kingdom of Poland (Komisja Likwidacyjna ds. Krolestwa Polskiego). Its ambition was to act as the representative of Polish interests to the UNR government, and its chief business was the issue of documents confirming the nationality of the vast numbers of Poles applying for this service. However, despite repeated efforts, it was never officially recognised as a consular office – either by the Ukrainian authorities or by the Polish Regency Council. The first institutions on Ukrainian territory holding an official mandate from the Polish authorities were set up in the summer of 1918. They were the Kyiv and Odesa offices of the Re-emigration Department in the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs. Nonetheless, the real breakthrough did not come until October 1918 and the establishment of direct diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Poland and Skoropads'kyi's Ukrainian State, when a Polish legation led by Stanisław Wańkowicz, the Regency Council's emissary, arrived in Kyiv. The legation included a separate consular department and military attache's office, and carried on with its work also after the Directory of the UNR ousted Hetman Skoropads'kyi from office, by which time it was acting as the official representative of the independent Republic of Poland. The office was closed down in April 1919 when its head, Counsellor Bohdan Kutyłowski, was forced to evacuate to Romania, ahead of the Bolshevik offensive. The Polish legation had obtained permission from the Hetman's government to set up a consulate general in Kyiv, and consulates in Odesa, Kharkiv, and Elizavetgrad.

Folklore in the Digital Age: Collected Essays
  • Violetta Krawczyk-Wasilewska
  • Foreword by Andy Ross
  • Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    22 December 2017
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016
  • Folklore in the Digital Age: Collected Essays represents the collection of updated essays that the author has worked on over the last 15 years, while developing e-folklore research at an international scholarly level. This book shows how digital folklore transcends the boundaries of cyberspace and has very real effect on our everyday life in today's interconnected global world. Online and digital cultures are perhaps the most vivid aspects of the globalisation process and while global multimedia culture may on the one hand be seen to endanger traditional folklore, there is no doubt that it also creates new folklore as well.
    The themes that the author touches upon in this book provide an excellent illustration of the range of modern folklore studies. While these themes cover the most serious political issues of the day, such as the 9/11 attacks, the Arab Spring and global epidemic threats such as the HIV virus, they also include more light hearted aspects, such as online dating and food culture.

  • Summary

  • Boguslaw Nierenberg, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Media Management
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    10 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 193-198

  • Summary

    The aim of this work was to introduce the most crucial academic achievements of the scholars who deal with media management all over the world into Polish scientific knowledge and usage. Their most important elements were created by the scholars working in the United States and the Scandinavian countries, especially in Sweden and Finland. Many achievements in the field of media management are inseparably linked to the media economy. This work, therefore, is based on this assumption.

    As previously mentioned, there are few scholars concerned with this issue in the Polish scientific community and even less, lest say: if any, dissertations devoted to it. Thus, in this respect, the work is pioneering and the author is aware of the fact that it might not be flawless, as it is oft en the case with pioneering research. The author also expects to hear not only from the scientific community but also from media practitioners, since management in general, while media management in particular, is both a theoretical and a practical field. It requires media managers to possess a range of managerial, economic, psychological and even artistic skills. As it was highlighted in the introduction, one of the most necessary skills a media manager should possess is the ability to forecast future trends and the media industry development. Certainly, every prognosis is encumbered with some mistake and in the case of the branch of economy which develops as rapidly as media industry and the turbulent environment the mistake may turn out to be so big that it may subject the forecaster to ridicule.

    Dennis Mc Quail justly points out that “history of previous technical evolutions in communication (…) says that one needs to remain careful when forecasting the future events based on technical options.”

    Having made this reservation, it seems that the coming years of media's operation and consequently media management will be defined by several processes and factors:

  • Dual nature of media businesses

  • Information as goods independent of any classical rules of economics

  • A shift from hierarchical to network structures as they are more efficient at using a resource such as information, as well as reaching goals of media organizations

  • Digitization and convergence as indicators of new structuring of the media market.

  • Chapter 9 - Legal and Ethical Aspects of Media Management

  • from Part 3
  • Boguslaw Nierenberg, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Media Management
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    10 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 167-180

  • Summary

    Boundaries of media freedom

    Media freedom is one of the pillars of a democratic country as it is connected with everyone's right to the freedom of speech. This right should be guaranteed. One of the first regulations of this type can be found in clause 12 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights of April 12, 1776: “That the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments [Barta, Markiewicz, Matlak 2005: 15].”

    Freedom of the media in the contemporary world is a key issue due to the fact that the mass media shape attitudes, views, and in a word, an image of the contemporary world in the minds of their customers. Will Rogers, one of the best-known American observers of public life of his times, used to begin his comments with the words: “I know only as much as in newspapers [Mallette 1996: 83].” D. Mc Quail [2007: 175] noticed that the “mass media not only wield some objective influence on society but are also used for social purposes.”

    It can be assumed that the basic determinants of media freedom are of three types:

  • • legal and ethical

  • • socio-political

  • • economical.

    • The legal norm which ensures media freedom is the basis. However, this freedom would be just an empty slogan, provided there is no political will or the will of the ones in power to respect this freedom. The media cannot operate without resources that are essential for its functioning, without economic resources. Therefore, it appears that media freedom should be guaranteed in these three dimensions. A shortage of any of them will cause media freedom to become deformed or even non-existent. Also the journalists themselves, concerned about high standards and the freedom of the performed profession, invoke used deontological codes. It seems that a breakthrough in this scope was the Hutchins Commission Report of 1947, the aim of which was “to examine areas and circumstances under which the press of the United States is succeeding or failing; to discover where free expression is or is not limited, whether by government censorship pressure from readers or advertisers or the un wisdom of its proprietors or the timidity of its management [ibid.: 183].”

  • Chapter III - An analysis of Procopius of Caesarea's account of Justiniana Prima

  • Stanisław Turlej, Jagiellonian University
  • Book:
    Justiniana Prima
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    10 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 87-124

  • Summary

    In order to reconstruct the history of Justiniana Prima, it is fundamentally important to systematise and analyse the existing source information about this city. Undoubtedly the most difficult task is to conduct a more thorough examination of Procopius of Caesarea's account, devoted to the origin and native country of Justinian, included in Book IV of his work De aedificiis. This is due to the fact that it is a fragment of an extensive account of Justinian's building activity in Europe, which in turn is part of a book presenting all of his building achievements in the Empire. So far it has been underestimated how useful an analysis of the information on Justiniana Prima can be for becoming more acquainted with Procopius’ technique and methods of work. It should be emphasised that in this case we have a completely unique opportunity to confront his account with the data recorded in the legal acts regarding matters personally close to Emperor Justinian. Establishing the Emperor's attitude to Procopius and his work is, after all, certainly very important for understanding the circumstances of writing and the credibility of De aedificiis, and the description of Justiniana Prima provides an opportunity to supplement general observations about this account with direct references to other sources.

    At the moment, there exists neither a historical analysis of De aedificiis nor a relatively comprehensive description of this work which would take into account the findings of the studies carried out so far. Usually, when using fragments of this very long book in various publications, historians do not pay attention to the work itself and instead settle for referring to the main literature on the subject. The latter, however, does not provide an analysis of De aedificiis, but only brief descriptions, since its main interest are essential issues which make it possible to provide a comprehensive characteristics of Procopius’ diverse writings, and so his individual works are presented from this perspective.

    Due to the fact that historical studies are behind time, when analysing individual fragments of De aedificiis it seems necessary to take into account, as far as possible, the significance of these partial findings for the comprehensive characteristics of the work. The version which has survived in manuscripts consists of six books.

  • VI - In the Circle of Politics and Linguistics

  • from A - PRAGMATICS OF DISCOURSE
  • Maciej Kawka, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Macedonian Discourses
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 62-63

  • Summary

    At the dawn of Macedonia in the 20th century, language politics had a very important role to play. The Macedonian language was to be recognized, and a Macedonian standard was to be developed and disseminated in all spheres of life. This task was entrusted to those people who were politically active at the time, and were also specialists in the field of literature and linguistics. Language commissions led by social activists, writers and linguists, were appointed to work on the codification of the Macedonian alphabet. After fierce discussions, a Macedonian alphabet was established and the central Macedonian dialects were chosen as the basis for the standard language.

    The language policy of the country played a great role here, especially with regards to the codification of the Macedonian alphabet, which – in accordance with the will of its authors – should have increased the difference between the Macedonian and the Bulgarian languages, and decrease the differences between the Macedonian and the Serbian languages. The Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet is closer to the Russian alphabet, but the Macedonian Cyrillic alphabet is under significant Serbian influence. The Bulgarian alphabet includes letters to represent, for example, the half voiced sounds – in the Old Slavic language; these sounds were reproduced and were represented with the corresponding letters: the front and back yer – were eliminated from the phonological system and the Macedonian alphabet. In the Orthography of 1945, the half voiced sound was granted a graphic representation in the form of an apostrophe. Љ, њ, џ were introduced in the Macedonian alphabet in accordance with the Serbian letters, as well as the Latin ј, after Vuk Karadžić.

    After World War II, the Macedonian language was recognized as an official language of the newly formed Republic of Macedonia, as part of the Yugoslav Federation. Although the Macedonian language was recognized as an official language of the Republic, in practice, the role of a dominant language – higher ranking, from the perspective of prestige and functions – was performed by the Serbo-Croatian language. Some researchers, including H. Voss,55 are on the opinion that the Serbo-Croatian language influenced the Macedonian standard so strongly, that the larger part of the population in Greek Macedonia, stopped feeling their mother tongue, leading to a quick Hellenization of this population.

  • Let's talk like a Turk with a Manchu or a story of a certain text from Professor Stanisław Kałużyński's collection

  • Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Barbara Podolak, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Words and Dictionaries
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    18 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 353-366

  • Summary

    If asked about this article's character, even I, its author, would have to ponder what to say. Because what can it be? It is a contribution to the history of Altaic studies in Poland, and an essay in Manchu studies as well as an article which somehow touches upon issues of Turkology. But as for the latter ones, I have to admit that I barely skim through them here. Let someone more competent deal with them as they will do it better.

    After this hopefully intriguing introduction, here is a handful of vital explanations. Among the relics of Manchu literature a special place is held by reading books or readers. Some of the texts contained in them have the form of dialogues, others are short stories, many of them are clearly didactic in nature. But we can also come across what we would call genre scenes. There exist several anthologies of these, differing not so much in contents but more in volume. The most extensive and the best known one bears the title Tanggȗ meyen, which means “One Hundred Chapters”.

    According to T.A. Pang – expert in the field – the first readers were composed only in Manchu language. It may be assumed that their aim was to aid those Manchus who wanted to gain competence in reading the new script introduced less than a century earlier. Progressive assimilation of China's conquerors created the need for bilingual texts – Manchu-Chinese. Their additional advantage lay in the fact that also those Chinese who learnt Manchu could use them. Finally, as a natural course of events, readers containing versions in other languages of the empire popped up: Mongolian and Turkish (“Turki”) from Xinjiang. It is interesting, but most probably there were no Manchu-Tibetan readers. At least I have not come across such.

    Among the known multilingual readers the bulk are Manchu-Chinese. Those addressed to the Mongols are few – among them one of the editions of the Tanggȗ meyen anthology – and those created with Xinjiang's Turks in mind are a rarity. According to my knowledge so far only two such anthologies have been known, both published by Erich Haenisch years ago.

  • Chapter Six - A reshuffle. The coup of May 1926, and a new momentum to Poland's “Ukrainian policy”

  • Jan Jacek Bruski, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Between Prometheism and Realpolitik
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 267-294

  • Summary

    The long shadow of Piłsudski: Soviet reactions to the coup d’état of May 1926

    In the spring of 1926 it became evident that a violent clash was brewing on the horizon of Polish politics. Piłsudski embarked on a bid for a return to the military and, in the long run, once again to control the governing of Poland. On the other side of the political divide the right-wingers were also beginning to think about a violent takeover of power to resolve the chronic political stalemate. The personality they envisaged as their strong man to clear up the crisis was General Jozef Haller. Tension reached a climax in late April 1926, in connection with the fall of Aleksander Skrzyński's government and rumours of a prospective coup d'etat, spread by both the left and right. “There was a growing general belief that a coup was imminent,” Włodzimierz Suleja writes, “the only question being who would stand at its head.” Piłsudski decided to take the initiative. He took the designation of Wincenty Witos for the post of prime minister as a personal challenge: Witos’ appointment would have facilitated a return of the Chjeno–Piast government of 1923. On the morning of 12th May Piłsudski started an operation which was intended as an armed show of strength but turned into a violent, albeit brief clash with government forces. Two days later Witos’ ministry resigned, and President Stanisław Wojciechowski stepped down. Over the next few days the coup d'etat was legalised: Maciej Rataj, Speaker of Sejm and acting Head of State, appointed a new government headed by Kazimierz Bartel. Piłsudski became the new Minister for Military Affairs and Inspector-General for the Armed Forces, but in fact he was now the principal wielder of political power.

    The developments in Poland came as no surprise to the Soviets. Moscow had been closely observing events in Poland for a long time, carefully following all the symptoms indicating that the Piłsudskiites were preparing for a showdown with the Right. But the attitude of the Bolsheviks to Piłsudski and his doings was not unanimous. The prospect of his comeback certainly generated great concern, which was hardly surprising, since the Marshal of Poland was traditionally regarded as the number-one enemy of the Soviets, and leader of the anti-communist forces in Eastern Europe.

  • Chapter 2 - The social world of yoga practice

  • Krzysztof T. Koniecki
  • Book:
    Is the Body the Temple of the Soul?
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    10 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 39-68

  • Summary

    What is the social world?

    The social world is some form of association based on mutual interests and the undertaking of various actions by individuals, and this is what defines belonging to this world.

    Here, I use the term ‘social world’ as it was described in interactional sociology by A. Strauss (1978; 1982) and his successors (Becker 1982; Star, Griesemer 1989; Clarke 1991; see also Kacperczyk 2005).The social world centers around some basic actions which it selects. You can distinguish many social worlds, for example, the world of qualitative researchers, the world of practicing yoga, the world of climbers, the world of dance, the worlds of postage stamp collectors, non-conventional medicine, tourist travel, etc. While the world contains spaces where the action can be carried out, technology, especially innovative technology, also which allows one to carve out for a given world both symbolic and physical space. In a social world, we usually encounter some division of work. Some persons deal with justifying the existence of the given social world (legitimization and theorization, as well as public relations), others searching for new spaces for extending its work, others are involved in the development and teaching of technical skills, etc. Some do all of these things on their own. There are also many auxiliary activities, such as defense and attack, creating associations, which help to achieve the main action (Strauss 1978; Kacperczyk 2005). Arenas of disagreement also arise: who is an authentic member of this world, what are its boundaries, what are the justifications for its existence (so-called legitimization), and so forth. Sometimes there is a boundary object around which the disagreement takes place.

    The definition of ‘belonging’ to a particular world is connected with the performance of certain primary activities which, in the case of hatha-yoga, involve performing certain practices. The level of advancement in the practice describes the social identity of the practitioner. Some have a vivid identity and some less so, and many balance on the border of several particular social worlds and accept and juggle many identities, often ending up on the border of all the worlds in which he or she operates.

  • Chapter 4 - The process of becoming a hatha-yoga practitioner

  • Krzysztof T. Koniecki
  • Book:
    Is the Body the Temple of the Soul?
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    10 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 83-140

  • Summary

    It needs to be remembered that the body is the temple of the soul and it needs to be nourished, cared for as if making the place saintly, then it is in harmony with our mind… Yoga teaches how to love your body, it is a great gift, we got it on the day of birth and it is a great gift and we should take care of it, love it just the way it is.

    (from the interview with a yoga instructor)

    Introduction

    This chapter undertakes the problem of perceiving and feeling the body in the process of acquiring the identity of hatha-yoga practitioner. The process of becoming a “yogi” is connected with the practice of work on the body and on defining these practices, engendering a specific perception of the body, and feeling the body.

    Becoming a hatha-yoga practitioner is a process. In this chapter I describe the phases of this process: 1) the initial phase – constructing motives and first steps; 2) the phase of a fuller recognition of psycho-physical effects and ascribing appropriate meanings to them; 3) the phase of a fuller recognition of spiritual aspects of hatha-yoga (as a quasi-religion). The relations between the mind and the body become complicated at the moment of meaningful engagement in yoga practice and in defining body practice as mental practice, as well as spiritual. The work on the body can change the Western perspective of defining the body as a material element of human existence (the Cartesian vision), to a vision of treating the body as a spiritualized substance (the vision of Eastern philosophy). Such a change is not always possible if we hold on to the guidelines of other religions as our own (e.g., the Catholic religion). In such a situation, changes in the body and psyche have to be defined differently and also certain language descriptions of these changes have to take place (often acquiring guidelines of set languages formulas) in order to combine the statements of conventional religion with the new spiritual experience.

  • 9 - Measurement of achievements in the areas of science, technology, and innovation in terms of gender criterion

  • Ewa Okoń-Horodyńska, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Anna Zachorowska-Mazurkiewicz, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Statistical Profiles of Women's and Men's Status in the Economy, Science and Society
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 165-176

  • Summary

    Abstract

    The chapter gives an overview of the methodological guidelines and recommendations used in the practice of public statistics for gender described in the following areas: science, technology, and innovation activities. Analysis was carried out on the limitations and possibilities of using patent information for the study of gender relations in the context of technological creativity. The chapter also refers to the more important partial research undertaken as part of a large research programme on productivity of scientific and technical men and women. The current development of measuring the effects of scientific, scientific-technical, and innovative activity in terms of the roles ascribed to women and men in society, and that could have a significant impact on the course and nature of that activity, does not aid in its present form in obtaining answers to the question of whether the social roles and relationships men and women affect their creativity and innovation. The transition from the economy of capital, labour and allocation to an economics of innovation and intangible resources has necessitated the development of new methodologies, techniques and tools for data collection and methods of quantification of phenomena and processes related to innovative activity.

    Key words: gender, creativity, measurement methods, innovative activities

    Introduction

    The development of policy and public statistics in the field of science, technology and innovation is a derivative of significant changes in the factors governing economic development. Innovation (technical, process, social) has finally become important characteristics through which we can currently explain the reasons for different levels of economic development. And the concepts of the “knowledge-based economy,” “information economy,” “creative economy” or “intellectual capital” have permanently entered the catalogue of main categories of economic study. In economic policy they are growing to paradigms for building competitive advantages.

    The transition from the economy of capital, labour and allocation to an economics of innovation and intangible resources has necessitated the development of new methodologies, techniques and tools for data collection and methods of quantification of phenomena and processes related to innovative activity. Innovation as a factor of development arises from a complex structure:

  • Contemporary Polish Essays: In Search of the Aura of Paintings and Photographs

  • from ON-LINE/ OFF-LINE
  • Edited by Jarosława Płuciennika, Peter Gärdenfors
  • Book:
    On-line/Off-line
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2016, pp 115-132

  • Summary

    Abstract

    When an essay, as a specific form of writing, is conventionally compared to travel, the latter is understood not only as a model of translocation but also as a literary genre. The parallel between essays and travel writings identifies their numerous common elements in text, for instance a movement between the topics, the observer's visible distance, an intel-lectual journey (the last term was introduced by Walter Pater in his pioneer reflections on the essay in 1893).The listed similarities encourage the writer of this article to formulate a rudimentary statement: both real and literary travel and the act of writing an essay are usually undertaken to discover a thing worth one's attention and interest; a thing that, even if commonly known, should be, firstly, experienced, and secondly, depicted in a way that would cast new light on it.

    Key words: literary genre, essay, act of writing, experience, real and literary travel

    Theodor W. Adorno in his work entitled The Essay as Form describes the specific happiness of unconstrained essayistic exploration: “the object of essay is the new as something genuinely new, as something not translat-able back into the staleness of already existing forms”, and later adds, that essay “becomes a compelling construction that does not want to copy the object, but to reconstruct it out of its conceptual membra disjecta” (Adorno 1984: 169). As a consequence, in a model form of a travel essay (which is a distinctive subgenre of essay writings) the described search of novelty should be certainly taken into account. Supposedly, what seems the most attractive for authors of travel essays are the excursions to unknown re-gions intriguingly labelled “ubi leones”. Experiment, risk, originality, indi-vidual experience – all those elements are repeated in various preliminary definitions of an unstable, protean essayistic form (e.g. Bense 2012, Atkins 2005, Sendyka 2006).

    Considering contemporary Polish travel essays, an important ques-tion might be asked: how to discover this individual voice and the nov-elty of the essay's object when the traditional place of an artistic pilgrim-age comes to be the destination of a real journey, described subsequently in the text.

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