Volume 24, Issue 4

Volume 24 (2024)

Publication date: 2024

Description

The publication of this volume was financed by the Jagiellonian University in Kraków – Faculty of Philology of the Jagiellonian University.

Cover design: Dorota Heliasz

Licence: CC BY

Editorial team

Deputy Editor-in-Chief Jakub Kornhauser, Tomasz Krupa

Editor-in-Chief Wacław Rapak

Issue content

An Imaginary Map: The Representations of Romania in Polish Literature after 1989

Olga Bartosiewicz-Nikolaev

Romanica Cracoviensia, Volume 24, Issue 4, Volume 24 (2024), pp. 415-425

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.24.031.20986

The paper proposes five literary microanalyses focusing on the representations of Romania in Polish contemporary literature and their impact both on the collective Polish imagination and on the construction of the discourse regarding Romania in Poland. Its main objective is to study a constellation of (dis)similar motifs, the presence/absence of national stereotypes and their identity-creating role. Such an approach results from the conviction that literature creates and transmits national landscapes, myths, stereotypes, and ideological places, influencing the collective imagination.

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Aux seuils des romans d’In Koli Jean Bofane. Étude des paratextes

Renata Bizek-Tatara

Romanica Cracoviensia, Volume 24, Issue 4, Volume 24 (2024), pp. 427-437

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.24.032.20987

This article looks at the functions of paratexts in three novels by Belgian-Congolese writer In Koli Jean Bofane: Mathématiques congolaises, Congo Inc. Le Testament de Bismarck and La Belle de Casa. An analysis of the title, the image on the cover, the dedication and the epigraph, that these epigraphs constitute real points of junction and transition with the text: by stating and announcing it, they programme its deciphering and anticipate its reception. They also highlight Africa, the writer’s native land, which plays a major role in his writing.

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Gide, Camus, Sade face à la censure en République populaire de Pologne (1944–1989)

Marzena Chrobak

Romanica Cracoviensia, Volume 24, Issue 4, Volume 24 (2024), pp. 439-448

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.24.033.20988

The paper deals with translation under constraint in the period of the Polish People’s Republic, a satellite state of the Soviet Union. The aim of the paper is to present the history of translations of the works of three French writers and to show on their example the forms of censorship of the literary field applied by the state and the techniques used by agents of this field in order to circumvent censorship. The selected authors are Sade, Camus and Gide, controversial writers, who theoretically should not have been allowed into the field because of their immorality, individualism, a sense of the absurd, or rebellion. Though initially blocked, translations of their works were eventually published in the Polish People’s Republic (sometimes in truncated versions) thanks to the engagement and enthusiasm of translators, publishers, journal editors or other actors of the field, as well as thanks to favourable historical circumstances.

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L’écrivaine comme archiviste. Les cas de La honte d’Annie Ernaux et de Sauvage est celui qui se sauve de Veronika Mabardi

Karolina Czerska

Romanica Cracoviensia, Volume 24, Issue 4, Volume 24 (2024), pp. 449-458

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.24.034.20989

The author of the article analyses two novels, La Honte by Annie Ernaux (1997) and Sauvage est celui qui se sauve by Veronika Mabardi (2022), from the perspective of archive theory. She focuses on the role of the archivist in the production of archives. She points to the figure of a writer who becomes “keeper of memory” collecting material traces that participate in the creation of the novel. In this reflection, the affective dimension of archives is crucial, related to the traumatic family histories described in the novels and Baptiste Morizot’s concept of tracking.

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Les Fossiles de François de Curel et Les Revenants d’Henrik Ibsen : deux façons de questionner la tradition dramatique

Tomasz Kaczmarek

Romanica Cracoviensia, Volume 24, Issue 4, Volume 24 (2024), pp. 459-467

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.24.035.20990

François de Curel has gone down in posterity as the partisan of boulevard theatre. However, while remaining somewhat attached to the canonical form of the drama, the author of Les Fossiles calls into question the construction of the Aristotelian “beautiful animal”, while proposing new solutions aimed at overcoming the formal constraints of tradition. It is curious to note in this regard that the French writer attacks the very foundations of the genre at the moment when Henrik Ibsen launches a new dramatic paradigm. In fact, the staging of Ghosts at the Théâtre-Libre upsets those accustomed to the “well-made play” by its undeniable novelty. Therefore, reviewing and comparing the two landmark dramas reveals the analogous processes that the writers adopted in their works, the emphasis being placed on the questioning of the fable and the new approach to the character.

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Chanter le cercle de vie, conter le cycle saisonnier : Camille Lemonnier et ses Noëls flamands (1887)

Agnieszka Kocik

Romanica Cracoviensia, Volume 24, Issue 4, Volume 24 (2024), pp. 469-477

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.24.036.20991

The aim of the paper is to analyse the tales in the Christmas-themed pieces by Camille Lemonnier (Flemish Christmas Carols, 1887) from the point of view of the poetics of change, recurrence and circularity, actualised, in this case, in ways of inhabiting festival and/or winter space-time. This idea corroborates the data of primary importance in Lemonnier’s literary project of Christmas carols (noëls). Namely, the intimate and familiar aspect of Flanders with its cheerful rusticity, and of the Flemings with their tender, somewhat naive spirit, but very powerful in its reassuring simplicity. In addition to the issues raised above, the paper seeks to clarify the status of stories from the literary genre of noëls in Lemonnier’s literary creation, which combines “intimacy” and “colour” with “naturalism” and Belgian “modernity”.

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La mémoire de l’écrivain à l’époque des big data. Autour de Proustonomics. Cent ans avec Marcel Proust de Nicolas Ragonneau

Katarzyna Thiel-Jańczuk

Romanica Cracoviensia, Volume 24, Issue 4, Volume 24 (2024), pp. 479-489

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.24.037.20992

In this paper, the author addresses the transformation of the memory of Marcel Proust as a writer in the contemporary information society, taking the work of Nicolas Ragonneau as a starting point. The creator of the Proustonomics blog, using quantitative data and large datasets concerning the author of In the Search of Lost Time, calculates his social influence. Proust is presented as a model of some social practices and artistic pastiches. Thereby, Nicolas Ragonneau turns imitation into a basic strategy of memory of the writer as well as critique of its modern approach focused on the work and its originality.

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L’existentialisme athée français du XXe siècle et la philosophie postmoderne

Magdalena Wojciechowska-Czajka

Romanica Cracoviensia, Volume 24, Issue 4, Volume 24 (2024), pp. 491-498

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.24.038.20993

The purpose of this article is to juxtapose the philosophy of Sartre as well as other French atheist existentialists of the twentieth century, especially that of Beauvoir, and the postmodern one. We aim at demonstrating the relevance of the existentialist paradigm in the contemporary philosophico-literary panorama. By exploring the paths proposed by postmodern philosophers, including Nik Farell Fox or Markus Gabriel, we will examine the extent to which an approach constituted by the juxtaposition of two methodologies: the existentialist and the poststructuralist one, allows to explore the issues raised in postmodern literary fiction, particularly the novel.

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Files to download

Title and imprint pages PDF Table of contents PDF About the Authors PDF

Słowa kluczowe: imaginative geography, imagology, literary representations of Romania, Polish literary imaginary, In Koli Jean Bofane, Africa, paratexts, photo, painting, literature, history of translation, translation under constraint, translation in the Polish People’s Republic, French literature translated into Polish, Sade translated into Polish, Gide translated into Polish, Camus translated into Polish, Annie Ernaux, Veronika Mabardi, archives, archivist, photography in literature, philosophical tracking, François de Curel, Henrik Ibsen, “well done play”, new dramatic paradigm, “drama-of-life”, Belgian modernity, Christmas-themed pieces, Flemish populace and townsmen, poetics of snow, tradition of the “old masters”, influence, Marcel Proust, Nicolas Ragonneau, cultural memory, Beauvoir, contemporary novel, existentialism, neoexistentialism, postmodern philosophy, post-existentialism, poststructuralism, Sartre

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