The paper serves to delineate the figures of early-modern Protestant women included into Erazm Otwinowski’s paraenetic poetic collection “Sprawy abo historyje znacznych niewiast” (“Affairs or Histories of Notable Women,” 1589), namely Anne Askew, Jane Grey, Olimpia Fulvia Morata and an anonymous “princess,” presumably Vittoria Colonna or Caterina Cibo. As its purpose, the article accomplishes an identification of possible (oral or written) sources of information about the heroines and interpretation of intertextual references made by the poet. All that allows to portray the women patterns that Otwinowski sketched, combining apology of martyrdom for faith with religious exile.

Cyprian Norwid’s “Wanda” stands out above other dramas devoted to the beginnings of the Polish nation. Its uniqueness consists in the fact that its fantastic history is inscribed into a Christian story since Wanda’s freewill sacrifice as an religious act precedes the birth of the Polish peoples. The author of the paper introduces various interpretive orders that make up a certain two-voice structure. From the perspective of postcolonial theory, “Wanda” reveals a mechanism of appropriation the old pagan religion by the Catholic Church. Norwid’s worldview is particularly complex, and his relation to the Catholic Church proves ambiguous. The poet sees no special value in old cultures unless they scent Christianity. In Rudaś-Grodzka’s interpretation, the main role is played by mystical tradition and feminist criticism, especially Lucy Irigaray’s writings (the central category being the term “Mystérique” that she coined). This perspective broadens our understanding of national phantasms structure. The subject of reflection is hysterical personality of the Polish nation represented by Wanda in Norwid’s drama.

The key issue discussed in the paper is a controversial significance of Gabriela Zapolska’s journalistic sketch “W sprawie emancypacji” (“About Emancipation”), composed as a reaction to a medicine doctor Karolina Szulcówna’s doctoral dissertation defended in the Sorbonne. In the text, Zapolska formulated her life credo: “Kobietą jestem – i tylko... kobietą chcę zostać do zgonu [I am a woman and I only... want to remain a woman until my death],” convincing the readers of “Kurier Warszawski” (“Warsaw Courier”) to believe into invariability of biologically, religiously and culturally sanctioned principles that govern the sex-dependent roles. Glorifying males and approving their superiority over females, she places women within family circle and deprives them of the possibility of higher education as well as of any importance outside family sphere. Zapolska’s sketch, to this day commented several times, is here subject of yet another interpretation equipped with new contexts.

The paper is an attempt at researching a description of little known Inter-war poetry devoted to Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn. Crowning of Our Lady’s painting took place in 1927 as an act of grace after Poland regained independence, and this fact proved to have religious and patriotic dimension in that it favoured national identity creation. Both aspects of the event became a source of inspiration for the verses in question. Tierling-Śledź juxtaposes pieces derived from various literary registers. Apart from the works by such recognised Interwar poets as Teodor Bujnicki or Witold Hulewicz, the authoress analyses more poetry (poetic texts) of occasional and confessional character than fine artistic lyric. Minorum gentium poets vividly demonstrate the power of literary clichés as well as national and literary community the identity of which grows from living and experiencing models (also religious ones). These poems and the modes they were made public are interesting sociological documents of the epoch. A separate part of the article is dedicated to research in poetics of the poems with special attention paid to the literary genetic pattern of the litany.

The article presents the recontextualisation process of the national-patriotic topoi that derive from the literature of the Polish Romanticism. Anna Świrszczyńska’s poems break the traditional patriotic pattern based on an androcentric model, and at the same time enrich the national mythosphere with feminist elements (e.g. the idea of the nation’s rebirth after the war-occupational trauma gains new quality in reference to the metaphor of pregnancy and childbirth as a figure of collective awareness). The poet contradicts the vision of homeland as a bleak land with of graves an image of mother’s bosom endowed with the power of restoring the nation’s spiritual resources and physical substance, and she exchanges the romantic phantasm of the spirit’s independent country with a vision of the nation—a civil community in which woman voice can be audible to respect civil values and which is imperceptible for male leaders developmental perspectives.

The paper demonstrates the significance of bio-introscopy, or dermo-optical perception, to Jadwiga Stańczakowa’s poetry. Searching for the connection between Stańczakowa’s poems and her exercise in distinguishing the colour and the object, Marta Tomczok describes the concept of dermo-optical perception, created by Lech Emfazy Stefański, Stańczakowa’s teacher and co-creator of the Theatre at Tarczyńska Street, with the language of poetics, analysing a large group of poems from Stańczakowa’s rich output. When juxtaposing dermo-optical perception with the concept of embodied wisdom by Juhani Pallasmaa, Stańczakowa’s poetry becomes more than an individual fight for visual testimony in literature; it transforms into a kind of art similar to sculpture or architecture, oriented to its own processualism, as well as such multisensory artistic creation that embodies wisdom.

The purpose of this article is to present a book “Kingdom of Fear” by Hunter S. Thompson in the context of reporter’s biography and the main features of gonzo journalism and New Journalism. The examination shows that “Kingdom of Fear” is not only a text with an autobiographical key, but also an important commentary on the author’s work, and a kind of political manifesto. This multi-thematic project is clearly reflected in a hybrid structure of the book which succinctly combines elements of journalism and personal document literature. Based on the considerations contained in the research, it can be concluded that due to the numerous forms of subjective self-presentation and autocreation, which correspond to the narrative practices typical of gonzo reportage, “Kingdom of Fear” can be described as a gonzo(auto)biography.

Ewa Kuryluk’s “Encyklopedierotyk” (“Encyclopaedioerotic”) occupies a significant place in the writer’s output. It is viewed as turning point in her creativity: it completes the postmodern period while gradually releasing the element of autobiography. The novel parasites on the 18th c. epistolary tradition; it is a postmodern mystification where one cannot tell the true from the false. The author thus is trying to prove that the text works on Jean Baudrillard’s principles of simulation: both enchanting (seduction, illusion, painting, trompe-l’oeil) and disenchanted (pornography, hyperrealism). The mechanism of simulation allows for describing to this day unclear strategies of Kuryluk, who, intermingling the illusory reconstructions with hyperreal details, both reveals and conceals the reader from herself. Simulation is also linked to the novel’s structure—illusiveness of building material—the letter that contains a suspended and seducing scientific discourse, as well as marks a consecutive “autobiographical hiding” in Kuryluk’s creation.

Forgotten output of Zbigniewa Zmorska (1852–1894), prematurely deceased daughter of a poet, a radical democrat and Slavophile Roman Zmorski, amounts to 24 pieces (novellas and longer short stories, single poems, dramas, journalistic sketches). Zmorska’s works are characterised by conventional poetics of the romance-customary novel plot with elements of social criticism and ideology of “moderate” emancipation typical of this epoch (a vast array of exquisitely charming heroines with fiery temperament). The Ukrainian motif stands out against this background (e.g. “Druhy” <”Companions,” 1878>, “Z opowiadania rezydenta” <”From a Resident’s Story,” 1882>, “Mykita” <1890>, “Nitka jedwabiu” <”A Thread of Silk,” 1905>), which presents Ukrainian landscape and the lives of the Ukrainians (i.e. the Cossacks), and which reveals Zmorska’s fascination with aesthetic and ideological tradition of (post)romantic “Ukrainian school.” The most original poetic-journalistic text of “Companions” calls for Polish-Ukrainian conciliation and contains intriguing references to the 19th c. Ukrainian national discourse (Brotherhood of Saint Cyril and Methodius, “Księgi bytu narodu ukraińskiego” <”Books of the Genesis of the Ukrainian People”>), and the canon of Ukrainian poetry (Taras Shevchenko), allowing to show appreciation of Zmorska—an unrecognised representative of Ukrainism in Polish literature (culture).

The article analyses the issues linked with Maria Konopnicka’s stays and works in Cieszyn Silesia. She not only visited the region, but also published her poems in the local press, thus supporting the national movement. On the occasion of the poet’s jubilee, it was planned to purchase a national gift in the form a wooden villa located in Wisła and built by Julian Ochorowicz, but this plan did not come to fruition. The most interesting phenomenon is the reception of Konopnicka’s output in Cieszyn Silesia. Her works were adapted by local esotericists for their own purposes. Her less known texts were willingly published in the columns of such esoteric periodicals as “Odrodzenie” (“Rebirth”), “Hejnał” (“Bugle Call”), or “Wiedza Duchowa” (“Spiritual Knowledge”). Konopnicka was also a member of Eleuteria—an organisation founded by Wincenty Lutosławski to promote abstinence—for which in 1905 she composed “Hymn Elatów” (“Hymn of the Eleutherians”).

Nela Samotyhowa and Emilia Andronowska first met at the University of Geneva and they were very close friends for over 40 years. The former was a sociopolitical activist, art critic, teacher, and publicist with literary ambitions; the latter did not work professionally but revealed interest in literature and politics. Their little-known diaries and voluminous unpublished correspondence are an impressive testimony to this relationship. The article proposes to apply the category of “intimacy” to examine the autobiographical texts of both women and presents selected aspects of their friendship, from the early stages of fascination and the difficulties in naming the bond linking the students until 1940, when the Andronowski family was deported to Kazakhstan.

The year 2022 marks 30 years since the passing of Zofia Kozarynowa—a writer, publicist, translator, Polish language instructor at the University of Turin between 1929 and 1939, Polish emigration literature nestor. The paper presents Kozarynowa’s biography and her large output, as well as describes this interesting and controversial personality that stimulated her versatile activity. Additionally, it shows the family and social circle from which she originated, and the communities she lived in and worked with first in Poland, then in Italy, and ultimately in Great Britain.

Anna Pekaniec’s book “Autobiografki. Szkice o literaturze dokumentu osobistego kobiet” („Women Autobiographers. Sketches on the Literature of Woman Personal Document,” 2020) is subject of the review. Pekaniec makes the autobiographer the figure of mythological Philomela who, when devoid of her voice, sent encrypted message to her sister. The book is divided into four parts, namely “Teorie” (“Theories”) (on the category of evidence and letters), “Temat”y (“Themes”) (e.g. the January Uprising, family relations or diseases), “Osoby” (“Persons”) (e.g. Eliza Krasińska and Maria Morozowicz-Szczepkowska), and ultimately “Paralele” (“Parallels”) (on Gertrude Stein and Zofia Nałkowska).

The review undertakes “Listy do Konstantego Symonolewicza z lat 1928–1949” (“Letters to Konstanty Symonolewicz from the Years 1928–1949”) (2021) and briefly describes the state of research in Teodor Parnicki’s work as well as selected threads of the comprehensive (over 160 items) collection. The threads predominantly refer to the writer’s biography, the relation with mentor and teacher Konstanty Symonolewicz, alongside of the intellectual ambience of prewar Lvov and literary life politicality. The reviewer stresses how brilliantly Parnicki and Symonolewicz’s correspondence was prepared. Tomasz Markiewka in his comprehensive commentaries patiently explicates the complex and wide linguistic, literary, biographical, historical, and cultural contexts. The volume is viewed as a seminal and principally the ultimate item in the non-literary cycle of Parnicki’s publication. It is a valuable source of knowledge on the writer and on the influence of biography on literature (key issue for the author of “Słowo i ciało” <”The Word and the Flesh”>) as well as on the cultural life of prewar Lvov.

“Antyczne techniki perswazyjne” (“Antique Persuasion Techniques,” 2019), volume five of “Szkice o antyku” (“Essays on the Antiquity”), edited by Edyta Gryksa and Patrycja Matusiak, is made subject of the review. The reviewer presents the functioning of persuasive techniques in the Greco-Roman world, pointing at strong connections of rhetoric with everyday life, from courtroom to military camp. The connection between the contemporary interpretive practices, convincing in the world of media, politics, arts, staging and the antique sources of culture is also communicated. Ultimately, the author examines the crucial terms of the humanities, such as interpretation, mediation, and European identity.