As a result of the medieval expansion, Slavs settled 1/3 of Europe. The geography of this settlement and its political organization is well known for the Middle and Late Middle Ages. Much less is known about the original homeland of Slavs, as well as the course of their expansion in the early Middle Ages. It is a medium for many concepts, often contradictory to each other. However, the development of individual research disciplines (archeology, linguistics, genetic genealogy), brings new cognitive abilities. Allochtonist and autochthonist concepts do not have to be at all contradictory, but bring complementary knowledge. Placing the seats of the Proto-Slavs in the basins of the Vistula and the Oder, does not necessarily exclude shaping the foundations of Slavic ethnos in its final form in the basins of Pripyat, Boh and Dniester. This new cultural quality could, however, be spread with the participation of the Proto-Slavic population, and an important role in this process could also be played by the secondary migration of some Slavic tribes from the Danube Valley.

A given article presents briefly the history of research on the ethnogenesis of the Slavs. Some remarks upon the subject may be found already in the writings of the ancient authors and, later on, in the medieval chronicles. Finally, the issue in question caught attention of numerous academics, not only linguists. Various hypotheses concerning both the chronology and geographical locations of the homeland of the early Slavs have been suggested. These questions have not been yet definitely solved, though among the existing theories two may be regarded as predominant, namely co called the Western and Eastern one. Ethnogenesis of the Slavs is now often used in politics; moreover, the ethnogenetical myths have recently gained a considerable popularity in some Slavic countries.

The article discusses selected aspects of three contemporary Slovak prose texts: Peter Balko’s Once in Lošonc. Via Lošonc (2014), Maroš Krajňak’s Carpathia (2011) and Ján Púček’s Through the Eye of the Needle (Tangles) (2015) in the context of borderland, defined as an important cultural sign of the Central European region. The common elements of the texts are: exposing ethnic and cultural traditions of borderland diversity, combining historical and contemporary perspectives, and autobiographical themes. The borderland is presented in the works of Slovak writers mostly in the moments of historical breakthroughs of the twentieth century, events that the people of the region could not influence, but which had a decisive impact on individual fates and the shape of community – activating xenophobic attitudes, leading to the destruction of moral values and to death of innocent people. The way of taking up the issue of memory by Slovak authors can be connected to the concept of memory in which its important functions are to remind past tragedies to prevent them in the future, and to build an open, tolerant society. The polyphonic narratives, emphasizing the pluralistic tradition of Central European borderland can be an important reference point, both for contemporary individual and collective identities.

The first stage of the formation of the Romanian language on the basis of folk Latin characteristic for the Balkan-Danubian areas (latina dunăreană) ended around the 7th century. The next stages of development of this Romance language were marked by the strong influence of Slavic languages, which are observed not only in  vocabulary but also in phonetics and grammatical structures of the Romanian language. The centuries-old coexistence of the Roman and Slavic populations is described as the era of Slavic-Romanian bilingualism, finally culminating in the linguistic assimilation of the latter. It enriched the Romanian language with vocabulary from, among others, economy, agriculture, natural phenomena, but also abstract concepts concerning, for example, spirituality or human nature. The vocabulary has taken root most of all in Romanian, constituting today the element of its basic lexical resource. The second period of Slavic influence falls on the time of the formation of the first feudal states and the new distribution of political forces in the Balkans and the Transcarpathian North in the Middle Ages. The Romanian Principalities are still in the sphere of Slavic influences – those southern (Bulgarian, Serbian) and northern (Polish, Ruthenian) in terms of political, economic, cultural, and above all religious. The apogee of linguistic and cultural contacts falls on the XIV and XVI century called the era of ”cultural Slavism”. Such a situation is reflected in the language – in this period the largest number of Slavic borrowings are recorded, but in later centuries they have been eliminated or replaced with vocabulary, most often, of Neo-Latin origin.

The study of national images carried out in line with the dialogue of historical science, ethnic psychology, and sociolinguistics has become a topical trend in contemporary cultural studies.  A striking example of such a study is the monograph of the famous Hispanist E.V. Astakhova. The review reflects on the perception of Spain in Russian culture as a metaphor, giving rise not only to the meanings of a real country and people, but also their figurative and emotional evaluations. The main historical stages and sources of creating an image of Spain in Russian culture, modern stereotypical ideas about Spain are considered. Estimated role of color in the image of Spain. Attention is paid to the genres of holidays in the national culture of the Spaniards – traditional and modern. Changes in Spanish society are analyzed in terms of the worldview and mentality, symbols and metaphors of linguistic phenomena. The mutual influence of images of Russia and Spain in the mass consciousness is noted. 

Taking into account the constant alteration of the civilisational factor in world politics, there is an urgent need for development of the dialogue between Slavic countries.
Political dialogue is considered by the author of this article as a systemic phenomenon, covering all spheres of social life: economy, politics, social sphere and culture. The role of culture as particularly related to shaping the ethical and semantic foundation of political dialogue is highly emphasized.
It is also highlighted that cultural, symbolic and ideological potential of Slavic civilisational identity can become an important socio-cultural beacon in international dialogue and relations between Slavic countries.
Finally, the author argues that re-involvement of the important factor of Slavic identity in political dialogue implies the necessity to unleash the potential of the Slavs’ spiritual culture.

The article is focused on analysis of foreign policy factors that played prominent role in defying the geopolitical place of Poland after the Second World War. Foreign strategy of the Polish government is shown based on the newly introduced scientific archive sources, its main vector is analyzed. The author underlines the events  that more than others contributed to forming the after-war political image of Poland which became a part of the Soviet camp in the cold war.

The paper deals with the Polish word raport and the Russian word рапорт that are similar in sounding. The issue of which lexical borrowings in the Russian language should be considered polonisms is being resolved. We start with the review of the word raport dictionary descriptions in Polish lexicographical sources. It shows the  change in the lexical meaning of the studied word over time. In a similar way we analyze the lexicographical description of the Russian word рапорт. The study proposes an analysis of relevant examples from mono-, bi- and polylingual dictionaries. The article presents the results of the corpora data study. The contexts of raport word usage in the National Corpus of Polish and рапорт word in the Russian National Corpus, as well as the ways of these words’ translations from Polish into Russian and from Russian into Polish, are being studied and presented. It is concluded that the polysemantic word (five meanings) in Polish when borrowed to Russian  splits into three words: рапорт (first and second meanings), раппорт (third and fourth meanings) and раппорт (fifth meaning), the last two words with change in graphic appearance, reflecting the original spelling in French. If in Polish the correlation of the first meaning of the lexeme under study with military art disappears with  time, in Russian, on the contrary, it develops.

There were a lot of utopian and antiutopian compositions in the XXth century. Almost all of them related to totalitarianism and people who became in danger of being arrested, tortured, killed, sentenced either to concentration camps or to special psychiatric hospitals for political prisoners called dissidents. Writers realized this  threat very quickly and began to write, strictly forbidden by the Soviet censorship, works showing the results of communistic utopia. This genre was created both by novelists living in the former USSR and these onces who were forced to emigrate. However, we have to take into account that both of them were the eye witnesses of Soviet tragedy. These writers, often much earlier than historians, proved that communistic ideology was not able to come true because it is not possible to build the paradise on the Earth. They noticed that the only aim of communistic experiment was to create completely new kind of human being – homo sovieticus – a creature which is unable to think sensibly, to reach their own decisions, to act according their own choices.
After the collapse of communism, it turned out that antiutopias did not disappear. Moreover, in modern Russia more and more compositions are published. One of them, entitled S.N.U.F.F., was written by well known worldwide writer Victor Pelevin. The main question of XXIst century antiutopia is: what people are afraid of  owadays? Pelevin tries to answer it in his novel. Modern man desires about new inventions and introducing them into our lives. The progress makes our existence easier but at the same time it may cause very dangerous changes such as globalised world where people loose their identity and experiments connected with overusing biotechnology, artificial intelligence and the new creature called homo superior.

William Palmer, a tractarian, a graduate of Oxford University, a theologian and liturgist devoted his life to the reconciliation of the Anglican Church with the Orthodox Church. According to the branches theory which he postulates, the Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox Churches – like the branches of one tree – are deeply united, not only historically – by the same root, but also dogmatically by the same essence of worship. Sir Palmer, after receiving letters of recommendation from the bishops of the Church of England and secular dignitaries, went on a self-proclaimed ecumenical mission to Russia. Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church in the Years 1840–1841 are the fruit of his adventures, disappointments and admirations he had experienced during his quest. Although his hopes for intercommunion and unification quickly proved to have no chance of fulfillment, during his stay he thoroughly learnt the customs and the routine of a daily life of the faithful and priests in Russia,  which was immortalized on the pages of his notebook. This article is an attempt to familiarize the reader with this outstanding work – completely unknown in Poland, which was edited after Palmer’s death by cardinal John Newman, who wanted to prevent the dedication of such an exceptional theologian from being forgotten.

Medical staff taking care of prisoners and deportees is a very distinct group of people. As history shows, this profession was taken either as an act of free will, or of coercion. The 19th century exhibits examples of voluntary, unlimited devotion towards the prisoners, as for instance, of doctor Friedrich Haass. However, in the 20th century, during numerous deportations of the Russian intelligentsia to the labour camps, often the boundaries of a doctor-prisoner status got blurred, and the medical professionals were recruited from the people deprived of freedom, and they were forced to undertake medical duties towards co-prisoners. Anne Applebaum in her book Gulag describes the conditions of doctor’s work in Soviet labour camps. The image presented by the author is complemented by the memories of the doctors, who on the one hand were saving others and themselves from the danger of death, but on the other were striving to protect all from losing human dignity and the temptation to reject the highest humanistic ideas, in accordance with which they wanted to accomplish their mission.

This paper will be an attempt to outline various approaches of the medical professionals towards prisoners, as well as problems of penitentiary medicine during times of deportation. It will be based on the 19 ^th century testimonies about doctor Friedrich Haas, and modern autobiographies of Borys Lesniak I came to you ( Я к вам пришел ), and Nina Savoeva I chose Kolyma ( Я выбрала Колыму ). They are the people and the authors little known today, although many Slavian prisoners (e.g. Varlam Shalamov, Eugenia Ginzburg and a modest Polish priest Wojciech Darzycki) survived due to their disinterested help. Unnoticed by historians of literature, texts by Lesniak and Savoeva invariably constitute evidence of the struggle against the brutal political system, and show the strength of human spirit and the heroic sacrifice of medical professionals during the time of trial.