In Slovenian metapoetry, the imagining of the emerging national literary canon symbolized efforts to cultivate the vernacular language. The indigenization of Parnassus, the topos of canonicity, served as an autopoietic strategy of a nascent literary system (embedded in the Habsburg Empire) to assimilate the cosmopolitan patterns of the classical canon and capitalize on its prestige. Through the process of “worlding,” nations canonized their iconic poets as universal. In the international arena, “national poets” were believed to prove that a given nation – especially when stateless – meets the standards of the world canon. While the novel as a form of modern writing represented the national character of core literatures, the peripheries justified their nationality with the canonical epic genre. Prešeren’s 1836 Byronic poem Baptism on the Savica is a deliberately hybrid national epic. It entered the canon because it embodies the national “essence” in a controversial way.

This paper analyzes Jacques Derrida’s statements on modern Marranismo and on his own identity in the context of his entire body of work. For philosopher, marranismo is not only “tormented Judaism” of the Jewish inhabitants of Toledo who were forced to take the Christian identity. It is also a chance – a paradoxical occasion – to search for a philosophical language, which would oppose the canonical hegemony of the Western thought as a whole and therefore escape the measuring patterns of tradition which is characterised by “the stern shine of that which is canonical.” Derrida chooses his Maranism as an expression of the affirmation of life: the condition of the survivor who preferred to go on living rather than submit to an honorable martyrdom. At the same time, he turns against the traditional systems of symbolic life, which demand sacrifices in the name of preserving the purity of their canons and leave no room for ordinary survie.

The aim of the article is to present the ways, in which the Polish patriotic canon functions in Jacek Dehnel’s novel But With Our Dead Ones. In the first part, the author presents the connections between the enforcement of one – canonical, official – version of national identity and the upsurge of the nationalist attitudes in the modern Polish society depicted in the novel. In the second part, the author discusses the homogenizing strategies of adapting the Romantic legacy to the needs of nationalist ideology. The third part includes the analysis of the selected consequences of an uncritical approach to the Polish patriotic canon; and the interpretation of the allegoric tools used by Dehnel.

Philosophers tend not to appreciate the literary works of Henryk Sienkiewicz and consider him to be a popular writer. On the contrary, one could argue that the Nobel laureate’s prose has a significant philosophical dimension – it undermines at least a few myths prevalent in human culture. The first myth concerns the truth and meaning of life. The literary fates of Petronius, Płoszowski or Bukacki not only show that there is no such thing as objective truth which could become the foundation of human life, but that the very concept of objective, final, and eternal truth is incomprehensible. It is also impossible to answer the question whether life has meaning or not. Even more radically, Sienkiewicz dismantles the myth of Christianity as a religion of peace and love, by showing that it is a religion of violence, and the colonial myth of white supremacy, by showing that white people are defined by ruthlessness, killing, and conquering the world. Sienkiewicz’s prose also overthrows the myths of knighthood, patriotism, and war; the writer shows that famous knights do not defend any noble ideals, but instead are professional killers who want to be famous. Finally, Sienkiewicz deals with the myth of woman as an object of male, knightly adoration. From the perspective of men, such as Winicjusz, Kmicic, or Skrzetuski, a woman is no more than a sexual object and a mother, destined to give birth to new legions of soldiers. Undermining the myth of womanhood also results in disrupting the binary distinction between the social roles of men and women, as exemplifies by Skrzetuski’s fiancée, who dressed as a young man, nevertheless arouses erotic desire in other men.

The article presents the interpretation of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Janko the Musician and Maria Kuncewiczowa’s The Stranger, having chosen as the central analytic and interpretational concept the desire, which in case of both characters is centred around music and violin that symbolises and embodies it. Identified and acknowledged desire plays a key role in the transition from the Oedipus complex and creates the base for the development of human subjectivity. Music (being art) enables the expression and formation of that subjectivity.

The article discusses the problem of Central Europe as a myth-creating area with particular emphasis on the latest publication by Michał Masłowski, Mity i symbole polityczne Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej (2020). Origin, interpretation and actualization of myths confirm the thesis about their indelible presence (Leszek Kołakowski’s notion) in both national and broader, universalistic discourse. When discussing myths, Masłowski takes into account the chronology and the place of their origin, while reflecting on their current, modern transformations; the myth of progress and the myth of the declining West are of particular interest in this context. These considerations are complemented by the recent publications in Polish language: Larry Wolff ’s Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilizations on the Mind of the Enlightenment (2020), Timothy Snyder’s The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (2019), and Iwan Krastew’s After Europe (2018).