The aim of the article is to define the genre of alborada, referring to its oldest Iberian forms, Mozarabic and Portuguese, and showing its evolution in the Early Modern Castilian poetry. This study will therefore serve as a basis for delineating the genre, which was present also in other European literatures, i.a. Polish from Renaissance to Romanticism. Iberian songs discussed here display a clear structure established in a long tradition and exploit the theme of lovers meeting at dawn, originating in the folk tradition, and implemented in Medieval formal courtly genres of kharja, cantiga de amigo (examples of Pero Meogo and Dom Dinis), and in 15th-century villancico, and entering other genres, most prominently sonnets, during the Renaissance. These multiple formal changes result in a gradual evolution of the lyrical subject of the alborada - the original complaint of a girl in love, a girl who is active and fighting for her happiness, has been transformed into a song of adoration and regret of a he-lover who serenades at nights for a lady who is mute and confined to the frame of her window. By this token, the history of the lyrical genre reflects the gradual removal of voices and subjectivity from women.

The article presents the relationship between Edward W. Said’s thoughts and a specific philological tradition in the context of the reception of postcolonial theory in the area of Polish literary research. The author demonstrates that philology in the sense given by Said can support postcolonial studies as well as constitute an inspiring tradition for contemporary literary studies.

In the first part of the article the author presents how the attitude of the American humanist to philology was changing. In Orientalism, Said criticizes Renan’s scientist practice, but in all his works he highly values this discipline and perceives it as an emancipatory, humanistic activity that transcends the dynamics of knowledge and power. Author of the article shows that the concepts of Giambattista Vico and Erich Auerbach are extremely important for the Palestinian-American critic. The next part of the article presents that Said uses methods characteristic of philology in his works, often in spite of the methodological declarations attributed to him (discourse theory).

The article reviews the state of research in multilingual literature and proposes the original research concept. In the first part, entitled: “Transnational research”, the Author describes the possibilities which were offered by the adhibition of the new methodological concept in comparative research on communism in European countries of the former Eastern bloc. In the second part, “Research on communist censorship”, the Author summarizes the trend of research on communist censorship, which was dynamically developing since the collapse of the system, with particular emphasis on the issue of censorship of literature. In the last part: “Comparative research on communist censorship” she juxtaposes both trends and draws a new research proposal from them. The Author notes that there is no scientific study yet to discuss censorship in all former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe as 1. a supranational phenomenon and 2. using the same methodological perspective. Therefore, she proposes to conduct such research and sees the transnational approach as particularly useful here, which – releasing the researcher from the national perspective of political histories – creates an opportunity to trace the “flows” of ideas, people, and cultural texts between the Eastern bloc countries.

The article analyzes the causative, emancipatory potential of the reportage of testimony, which going beyond its reporting function becomes a new form of liberating the voices of the victims of communist regimes and „remémoration” of the past. Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets and Małgorzata Rejmer’s Mud Sweeter than Honey. Voices from Communist Albania generate a space for reckoning with undemocratic past where it becomes possible: to (re)interpret history and regain the experience of its participants, to face up to historical trauma as well as to bring the identity back to the subdued. The discussed reportages question the objectivity of history, a homogeneous vision of the past, and thus open up to the constant reinterpretation of historical events.

Henryk Sienkiewicz is reknown as one of the most important Polish writers of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Study of his work can be complement by his extensive correspondence (Letters form Sienkiewicz alone have 14 volumes) or his notes. Particularly noteworthy are the literary work’s rough-drafts. Recently the library of the Ossolinski National Institute bought the latest collection, the Sienkiewicz’s archive from one of the writer’s descendant. In this archive is located a considerable collection of manuscripts, rough-drafts and documents written in Sienkiewicz’s wife handwriting. This collection contains noticeable fragments of drafts with doubtful authorship: written by writer’s wife, however presumably dictated by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Author will prove the meaning of this part of the archive for all research in Sienkiewicz’s heritage. Then, she will try to determine the authorship of one of the rough drafts. 

The object of reflection is Pauline Harmange’s famous essay, I Hate Men (2020). I start from the perturbations it caused on the political scene, then try to situate it on the French map of feminist and anti-feminist movements since the 1970s, asking about the place from which the young essayist speaks. I consider the central issue to be the misandric discourse she has activated, and around it I (re)construct a spectrum of issues that, in her view, illuminate it. I trace the “archaeology” of the word misandry, which is not anchored in the everyday reality, including the academic one. I ask about  its function by juxtaposing two contradictory perspectives: Harmange’s feminist one and the anti-feminist one whose activists proclaim misogynist and sexist slogans. The symmetrical or asymmetrical approaches to misandry and misogyny are also arranged at these poles. Harmange, while cultivating misandric attitudes among women, consistently enumerates the benefits they should derive from misandry.

The paper focuses on the book Odmieńcza rewolucja. Performans na cudzej ziemi (2020) by Joanna Krakowska. The author summarizes its main ideas and analyzes them in the context of recent discussions on queer and avant-garde.

The paper focuses on the book Pamięć perwersyjna. Pozycje polskiego świadka Zagłady (2020) by Jan Borowicz. The author summarizes its main concepts and analyzes them in the context of recent discussions and publications on Polish collective memory, the category of witness and Holocaust by bullets.