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The first part of the article includes advice on how to search for content and images on zoological topics in old books on the example of the collection of early printed books in the Warsaw University Library. It is followed by the summary results of the thematic query conducted in the Early Printed Book department of the Warsaw University Library, as a result of which 90 Polish books containing zoological threads and published between 16th and 18th centuries were selected. The author attempted to organize the publication according to the adopted content and genre division. Then, in short chapters several issues were signalled, which seem worth further scientific deepening. They are, among others: heraldic animals (whose images are also used in so-called stemmata, emblems and superexlibris), star signs and constellations, fantastic creatures, monsters and beasts (which were present in many Renaissance books as zoomorphic ornaments), the characteristics of wild and breeding animals left by 16th century authors, and various contexts in which a zoological thread is present in old herbaria.
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The study contains reflections on the relations between man and beast in the works of two writers, who played significant roles in Polish history of Christian Aristotelian writing of the Baroque. The main source is are the works of Sebastian Petrycy from Pilzno (1554–1626), published together with Aristotle’s works translated by him, i.e. "Commentaries to Aristotle’sEconomics" (1602), "Commentaries to Aristotle’s Politics" (1605) and "Commentaries to Aristotle’s Ethics" (1618), as well as written as scientia curiosa the encyclopedia of the Jesuit, Wojciech Tylkowski (1625–1695), "Erudite Discussions Containing Almost All Philosophy" (1692), whose basis was his earlier work "Philosophia curiosa seu universa Aristotelis philosophia" (1680–1690). The analysis of the title subject leads to the conclusion that the essential difference between regnum hominis and the animal world lies in the soul unique to a human being, created by God, endowed with reason and immortal. The difference between man and beast defined in such a way enabled to emphasize the privileged status of the ontic human being in the great chain of existence and justify human supremacy over fauna. Emphasizing the difference between man and animal, the authors of the analysed sources drew attention to the similarities between them, referring to the Aristotelian concept of the division of the soul into vegetative, sensitive and rational one. They also argued that the insight into similarities and differences between people and lower beings should inspire self-cognition, which aims to discipline animal features of human nature. An important thread of their inquiry was emphasizing ingenuity and intelligence in the behaviour of animals, while stressing that they should not be explained in an anthropomorphic way.
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The text explores 16th century religious contexts in literature which refer to animals. It includes poetry and prose from the Early Renaissance to its last years, the works of Jakub Wujek, among others, who was the author of a monumental four-volume "Posthylla catholica", an original and not translated work. The sermons in this book are the biggest Polish collection of animal exempla from the 16th century. The text indicates the main source inspirations for animal topics, i.e. the Bible and Aesop’s "Fables", published by most European printers. The rules of modern animal topic were formulated by Erasmus of Rotterdam, who also used animal examples to paraphrase Biblical texts, formulate the rules of the rhetoric in De duplici copia verborum ac rerum, juxtapose exempla in Adagia, and to discuss the methods of educating young people in De pueris instituendis, on the basis of the human-animal parallel. The translations of the Bible and adaptations of ancient works formed an animal symbol characteristic of the Renaissance. His distinguishing features are: performance realism, identification of its literary context and its relation to divine and human being. The company of animals reminded people of their moral condition, focused them on good, aroused sensitivity and self-reflection. The Renaissance reception of Cicero contributed to discovering the subjectivity of animals, making them carriers of feelings: mourning, sympathy, helplessness in suffering. Biblical affirmation of life in the works of Janicius, Andrzej Krzycki, Andrzej Trzecieski and Jakub Wujek, saw charis in animals: grace, admiration, tenderness and affection. The metaphors of animal community, especially of sheepfold, were present in social and political discourse (Stanisław Orzechowski) and in the religious one (Stanisław Hozjusz, Andrzej Trzecieski and others). Anthropomorphization and teriomorphization, known since ancient times, in the discussed texts gain new interpretative, allegorical contexts, and in the second half of the 16th century become an expression of religious beliefs. In Catholicism animal symbols express transcendence aimed at internal and mystical experiences. In Protestantism they have didactic and allegoric meaning, which is also present in Arianism (Erazm Otwinowski). In other authors representing this last trend (Marcin Krowicki) the questioning and crisis of the symbol become sclearly visible.
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The research was conducted on one hundred Old Polish animal tombs by different authors, from Jan Kochanowski to Jan Ludwik Plater (18th century). As a result, it was possible to define five paradigms of perceiving animals in Old Polish literature: 1. on the moral level (animals are subordinate to man, opposed to him only when they show solidarity with each other), 2. in the utilitarian context (their beauty and other features serve men), 3. in connection with the sphere of eroticism, 4. in the sacrum space and 5. on an equal footing with man (few epitaphs). Zoothanatology, present on Old Polish tombs, is dominated by functional perception of animals. The epitaphs serve as moral and, more frequently, immoral examples, far from the Christian vision of reality, but very useful to express “the law of the jungle” of the human world. Objectified animals occupy a separate, usually lower than that of a human, place in the order of nature as they are jokingly or seriously perceived from the angle of human sexuality. They are used as a pretext for writing panegyrics addressed to people and as objects of praise only when their beauty corresponds to the sense of aesthetics of man and their behaviour (mammals and domesticated animals) becomes like that of a human or serves the work and fun of their owners. The more animals discard their natural features, the more they are valued by people, becoming their companions, friends and, in the most extreme cases, the heroes of a battle (knights’ horses), who are treated equally with fallen soldiers. Even the reflections on the death of animals per se does not exempt Old Polish poets from the anthropocentric attitude. Only Zbigniew Morsztyn and Jan Gawiński, albeit in few cases, stand in their epitaphs on the animal side, which allows them to see the emerging sensitivity to their death and human cruelty.
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The dissertation shows curiosity – curiositas as one of the most essential, apart from novitas, varietas, maraviglia, admiration, categories of the Baroque aesthetics. The article aims to show biological and neurological mechanisms governing this drive. The author discusses the qualities of the brain and how the prize works, which are the most important aspects of awakening and satisfying curiosity. The analysed notion is considered in one of its manifestations: the need to collect animals. Zoological specimens – apart from plants and minerals, frequently became the most important element of the collection of curiosities. As a result of the emancipation of natural sciences in the 17th century, numerous inventions and the change in attitude to knowledge, which was treated in a syncretic manner, human attitude to nature was also transformed. People were interested in nature more and all unusual and strange specimens were treated as the limits of power of creative nature. Although natural collections in old Poland were not as abundant as in Western or Southern Europe – armour, works of art and decorative arts were exhibited more often, they constituted an important component of contemporary cabinets of curiosities also in these areas. From this different, new research and collector’s perspective the objects which belong to the scientia curiosa trend look especially interesting. The basis for further reflections is the analysis of Wojciech Tylkowski’s "Erudite Discussions", which are characteristic of this intellectual trend. The article focuses on reading the vision of the animal world, which emerges from the Jesuit’s works. His questions, confirming the curiosity of the world are still surprisingly valid, and the answers given by the author show his profound knowledge of animals. The dissertation attempts to answer the question what “quaint” means in the Baroque era: on what basis a natural exhibit could be classified as unusual and what animals were perceived as such. Tylkowski attempts to answer this question differentiating between familiarity, ordinariness and strangeness and wildness, related to it.
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The chapter is devoted to the analysis of the portrayal of animals in medieval and Renaissance culinary literature and texts on the specific dishes consumed by upper social classes. Old culinary books show animals not only as a natural product, rich in in appropriate nutrients, but also as an important component of dishes prepared for the tables of nobility. In this second aspect, individual animal species have additional cultural, symbolic or aesthetic meanings. An indispensable element of books, reflecting the then state of medical knowledge and existing opinions, is the assessment of animals as such and the recipes subjected to the theory of humours in terms of their suitability for different groups of people, with regard to their health, age, sex or background. De honesta voluptate et valitudine, Bartolomeo Platina’s Renaissance publication is a breakthrough in the earlier perception of cooking as a prosaic aspect of life. Platina shows a culinary animal in a new humanist version, devoting to it additional chapters containing natural knowledge, closely related to dietetics and medicine. The popularity of his treatise is reflected in how particular animals are described in Polish Renaissance herbaria.
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The article aims to explore the origin of topoi connected with a swan and their presence in old literature and culture. The author attempts to draw attention to writers’ choices leading to the transposition of descriptions of nature and habits of the bird into symbolic images. The analysis was conducted on the basis of ancient literature and Latin literary works of the modern era, which until now was taken into account only to a small extent. Untranslated sources, including encyclopaedias of symbols and emblematic books were used. The second part of the article focuses on the swan as a heraldic figure. Undertaking threads contained in "The Medal of Bishop Andrzej Trzebnicki", a thorough study of Krzysztof Czyżewski and Marek Walczak, the author completed the analysis of stemmata dedicated to the bishop of Kraków with her own translations from Latin, a philological commentary and interpretation. In the last chapter the author asks the question why modern culture has forgotten the swan symbols and why only few of the meanings have survived in collective consciousness.
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The flourishing of vernacular bestiaries of the High Mediaeval Period bespeaks a lively interest in animals in the French culture of that period. Amongst the genres that gained widespread popularity and provided an alternative to the chiefly scholarly and moral character of the bestiary was the beast fable. Reynard the Fox (Roman de Renart), a cycle of fables about animals in 30 000 eight-syllable verses edited between the late 12th and early 13th century, is arguably the most notable example of the genre. The characters of the fable are animals inhabiting the kingdom of King Noble the Lion, which is modelled on the feudal monarchy. The protagonist, the titular "Reynard the fox", uses his cunning – a virtue that the tale centres on – to wreak havoc in the animal community. Although this work fails to offer a reliable representation of the animal kingdom, it constitutes a valuable historical source in its examination of the social and economic conditions of the Northern French countryside during the reign of Philip II of France. "Reynard the Fox" is an example of epic comedy. The comic aspects of this work are twofold. On the one hand, the fable satirises the representatives of the higher echelons of the feudal hierarchy. However, as the point of departure for the satire is not so much the social order of the day as its literary representation, Reynard the Fox can be also classified as a literary satire in its adoption of the elements of the courtly love tradition (amour courtois), which has its pedigree in the Troubadour poetry and chivalric romance. On the other hand, the fable heavily relies on the aspects of the Gallic jeer (rire gaulois), a genre that does not employ humour for satirical or moralising purposes. The main source of both the first and the second types of comedy is the relentless oscillation between the characters’ animal nature and their adherence to the norms of feudal society. Figuring in numerous French literary works and their foreign adaptations, the character of Reynard the Fox enjoyed immense popularity in the Middle Ages. But the character’s renown is not limited to mediaeval culture. He has also featured in some contemporary adaptations of the mediaeval tale, such as the 1979 "Kryminał o Renarcie" ("Reynard the Fox: A Crime Novel").
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The article explores the problem of the bird from Psalm 103 (104), 117; the attempts to identify it, their conditions and mechanisms and the importance of deciding the identity of this representative of the Middle East fauna for the exegesis of the Psalm from Antiquity to early modern times. The study begins with a comparative analysis of Polish translations and paraphrases from the Middle Ages to the 17th century, with reference to source texts (part 1). It is followed by the attempts to identify the bird, reconstructed on the basis of Joannes Lorinus’ commentaries ("Commentariorum in Liber Psalmorum… tomus tertius", 1616) and the ancient, medieval and early modern sources Lorinus indicates (part 2), and the implications of the findings for the exegesis of the Psalm in two keys: birds of prey (part 2.1) and other birds (part 2.2), which were first used by Saint Hieronymus and Saint Augustine. The results of the analyses are then merged in relation to individual historical periods from the perspective of perceiving Biblical fauna from a textual to a naturalistic paradigmin the 18th century (part 3). The study ends with the discussion of traces of reception of the problem outside the scientific biblical-philological discourse in early modern Polish republic (part 4) and a concise reconstruction of contemporary findings on the identity of the bird, also non-conclusive (part 5).
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The dissertation presents an elephant, the biggest land mammal in the cultural and biological context. It discusses the oldest findings of elephants’ bones, the history of the species, and the meaning of its name and its etymology. The article aims to present a broad research spectrum of interdisciplinary character, combining nature and humanist sciences. On the one hand, it shows the zoological conditions of the animal, its characteristic morphological features and behaviour, on the other hand, it presents how these aspects were interpreted in beliefs, literature and art. The article explores the motif of an elephant and its images in old cultures, especially in the ancient world and Indian and African mythology; it also focuses on the reception of the elephant image in Polish modern culture. It was Pliny’s and Aristotle’s early zoological works, which made elephants appear in images and symbols of the whole Europe. They brought clearly positive connotations with them, which allowed for using elephants as moral examples. They were associated with strength, memory, long life, wisdom, fidelity as well as royal or imperial power. They were used as military and pack animals, they took part in parades and festivals to add splendour and show richness and high social status of their owners. Elephants were eagerly shown in travelling menageries as a peculiarity. Their images were present on Roman coins, in old bestiaries, herbaria, modern zoological encyclopaedias. The motif of an elephant was, as we can see in the dissertation, known in Old Poland. The basis for the analysis are mostly source texts: manuals and encyclopaedias (especially Jakub Kazimierz Haur’s "A Storeroom or a Treasury of Farm Secrets", Jan Jonston’s encyclopaedia, Benedykt Chmielowski’s "New Athens"), memoirs and journey accounts (by Albrycht Radziwiłł, Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł, Krzysztof Pawłowski, Michał Boym, Maksymilian Wikliński), literary works (in particular Wacław Potocki’s "Chocim War", Samuel Twardowski’s Important Embassy) and various other historical records such as the description of the parade during the wedding of the Grand Crown Hetman, Jan Zamoyski. The article also discusses few iconographic images of elephants, from the territory of the Old Polish Republic (illustrations from herbaria, the picture of the Hasken she-elephant) and the first representatives of this species in Polish zoological gardens.
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Michał Boym’s Flora Sinensis is the most important 16th century treatise devoted to flora and fauna of China and compiled in the West. The import of zoological knowledge to Europe was then an extremely complex process, in which animal world research prevalent in modern times and frequent problems connected with translating and preparing scientific illustrations played a significant role. The aim of the first part of this study is to analyse the way in which Boym used the information taken from treatises of Chinese scholars to show the fauna of the Middle Kingdom to European readers, and to indicate what methods of the zoological description he took from Chinese authors. In the second part, on the basis of numerous historical sources, the author shows the late 17th century and the 18th century reception of the "Flora Sinensis" to demonstrate that in the middle of the 17th century Boym could have easily transferred the knowledge from China to Europe thanks to the similarity of paradigms in describing the world of nature. The subsequent decades brought a gradual change in thinking about zoology, which made his treatise obsolete very quickly.
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The article aims to explore the motif of salamander in old Polish literature, as well as the literary traditions which contributed to its perception in the old ages. The reflections are embedded in the context of the works of ancient writers and medieval compendia (Aristotle, Pliny, Isidore of Seville), the treatises containing information on salamander and the works of modern naturalists (Gessner, Aldrovandi, Jonston, Topsell). The reading of this material allows us to learn about the state of knowledge of old humanists on this amphibian and enables to verify their attitudes towards the information resource inherited from antiquity. Similar thought patterns are present in Old Polish writers’ works, who oscillated between repeating data taken from classical canons, skepticism about them or an open polemic with their authors.
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The text analyses the use of dog motifs, Sirius – the “Dog Star” and the dog days of summer in Jan Andrzej Morsztyn’s "Kanikuła" in reference to astrological tradition. It recalls the most important elements of knowledge about Sirius in old culture and describes how they are used by Morsztyn. The author explores the poem Denomination and shows how the poet refers to the impact Sirius has on weather, people and dogs in other poems. Morsztyn shows dogs and the “dog star” in such a way that he blurs the boundaries between astronomical and religious sky, the heaven and the earth, man and animal. He sees dogs more as culture heroes than elements of nature, and he recalls them to create brilliant poetic games in which he half-jokingly testifies to his liking of skepticism, hedonism, sensualism, naturalism and erotism. In "Kanikuła", Sirius becomes a secular, natural deity, representing nature together with biological human desires. Yet, at the same time, he is an element of a literary game, which allows the poet to provoke and manifest scandalous ideas under the cover of play and seemingly not seriously.
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In 2020, 160 years have passed since the day Grigor Stavrev Parlichev (18 January 1830 – 25 January 1893) won the laurel wreath at the Rallis poetry competition, organized by the University of Athens in the mid-19th century. The focus of this article is not so much on the life and work of the outstanding Bulgarian National Revival leader, writer, poet, translator, teacher and public figure, about whom a lot has been written over the years, but on the literary life in Greece at that time, as well as on the poetry contest itself and its patron and sponsor Ambrosios Rallis.
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The present paper examines Chinese short forms xiaopin or xiaopinwen 小品文 which origins can be traced back to the period of the Six dynasties (3rd – 6th cc.). The focus is specifically on authors from Ming Dynasty period such as Gui Youguan 归有光, Zhang Dai 张岱, Xu Wei 徐渭 and Li Zhi 李贽 in view of the extremes to which the lives of China’s intellectual elite were thrown. Extremes that find their reflection in literature. Zhang Dai (1597–1689) is a prominent ℎ𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑒𝑥𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑦𝑛𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑦, 𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑡, 𝑎 𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓-𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑖𝑠𝑡 (Wang 2022). The essay which translation we present here in Bulgarian is titled “西湖七月半” and describes the celebration of one of the important traditions in the festive calendar of Chinese, namely the Ghost Day 中元节. As this tradition originates from both Taoism and Buddhism, the festival is celebrated in other East Asian countries as well.
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Ghassan Kanafani is a Palestinian novelist whose works were translated into dozens of foreign languages and gained international recognition. He was born in 1936 that was the year of The Great Palestinian Revolt. The author constantly returned to this date in his books because of its importance in the modern history of the Palestinian people. The emigration from his early childhood also left a strong imprint on his creativity. The alienation and the threat of death during the extraordinary military events that took place in his hometown of Acre, as well as his early diabetes deeply affected him. They led Kanafani to believe that his death was inevitable. Nevertheless, he masterfully took advantage of Western literary devices to describe the reality of the Arab world and, in particular, the everyday life of the Palestinians and their survival after long wars and losses. The present paper discusses his several works that reveal a loss of identity as a consequence of alienation, and invoke readers not to remain isolated and indifferent to the fate of others and to be brave enough to change their life path, despite all the obstacles.
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The article presents the results of a study carried out within the project “The Post-1989 Democratic Transition – Interpretations of Historical Change, Social Experience and Cultural Memory in Contemporary Bulgarian Literature,” financed by the National Science Fund, Ministry of Education and Science. The study focuses on two films: Gori, gori, ogunche (Burn, Burn Fire) (1994), screenplay by Malina Tomova, directed by Rumyana Petkova, and Radiogramofon (Radiogram) (2017), written and directed by Ruzie Hasanova. The subject of the paper is the reflection within Bulgarian society during the so-called “Time of Transition” of one of the most traumatic period of Bulgarian history – the changing of the Bulgarian Muslims’ Turkish or Arabic names which the communist government initiated and enforced, at times using violence, during the 1960s and 1970s. The concept of the modern Bulgarian nation shared after 1989 was characterized by the same heavy nationalistic leanings which had been created and sustained by the totalitarian regime in the previous historical period. Some of them shaped the social representations after the collapse of the Communist regime. Using the two movies under consideration, the article looks at some of the main aspects of the changes in Bulgarian society – the collective images, the attitudes towards history, and the problems of group identities in the new social, political, economic and historical period. Along with mass media content analysis, the study is based on numerous interviews with local people. The chosen methodology aims to reveal and discuss the sites of trauma in the collective memories.
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In the early years of Bulgaria’s political transition (1989–2007), writing for the theatre was in a situation substantially different from the developments happening on the theatre stage. While the latter, especially during the first ten years after the political changes, went through a period of rapid resurgence and intense and profound transformation, playwriting suffered a deep existential crisis. In the plays of those authors who had established their names prior to 1989, the crisis manifested itself as a traumatic need for a desperate revision of the past and for a pessimistic end to it. The main image of the transition imposed by these dramatic texts is of filial guilt – the guilt of children towards their parents, and the apocalyptic irreparability of the broken relationship between them. For the young generation of playwrights of the 1990s and those who came after them, the obsessive image of filial guilt was no longer familiar. They outlined a different emblematic image of the transition – that of the cosmopolitan homeless person. In their plays, children and parents live together, sharing a common space and time, their roles alarmingly mixed up. The image of the cosmopolitan homeless person has retained its presence, albeit in a new way, in the dramatic texts written after the beginning of the 21st century, where it is manifested mostly in the sharing and immediate experience of personal stories. Out of the emblematic perspectives and images of the transition in Bulgarian drama from the period 1989–2007, the only one retained in today’s writing for the stage, though in various different transformations, is that of the cosmopolitan homeless person. By contrast, the image of filial guilt has long disintegrated and is now forgotten, while the endeavour to distance and forget the past has been replaced by the theatre’s newly awakened critical attitude towards the processes and the complex dynamic developments current in the modern world.
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In this paper, I examine Alexios’s farewell letter to his parents and his bride, as displayed in the poem The Life of Saint Alexios the Man of God (1833) written by Konstantin Ognjanović. The specificities of the Slavo-Bulgarian type of Bulgarian literary language in the first half of the 19th century as represented in the letter in question are analyzed as well. In addition, I also aim to reveal the genre characteristics of Alexios’s letter.
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