https://doi.org/10.31261/FL.2026.14.2.03
The article discusses the functions of the name Wołyń ‘Volhynia’ in Polish public discourse and its role in shaping collective memory. The analysis demonstrates how public discourse organizes the contemporary Polish mental map. The article raises questions about whether the toponym functioning as a carrier of memory serves history education. The research method draws on onomastic discourse analysis, memory linguistics, and sociology of memory. Data from the Corpus of Contemporary Polish Language from 2011–2020, as well as resources from social media and news portals from 2023–2025 show that Wołyń functions in discourse based on metonymy place for event or as a metaphorical metonymy. Furthermore, the line between the locational and symbolic functions of the onym has become blurred, resulting in the incorrect placement in Volhynia of villages located in former Eastern Galicia. The conclusion is that contemporary memory of the past coexists with deficits in historical erudition.
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2026
Published: 2025-01-30
10.31261/FL
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Język Polski
English