The Prescriptum entitled Polonistyka nie tyko po polsku [Polish Studies not only in Polish] explains the origin of the multilingual issue of “Postscriptum Polonistyczne” that crowns the 30th anniversary of the periodical as an international publication. It was thirty years ago, in fact, that the journal, back then still a newsletter of the School of Polish Language and Culture at the University of Silesia, featured the first article by a foreign Polish studies scholar, Halina Klimsza from the Czech Republic. This text provides a very brief historical account of how the periodical became internationalised, describing the stages of its development that led to the transformation from a newsletter to a “journal of Polish and foreign Polish studies scholars”, and reporting on the editors’ most recent decisions to accept papers for publication also in the English language. The Prescriptum explains the motivation for creating this issue as a collection of Polish studies texts in the
native/first languages of the foreign Polish studies scholars who wrote them. We wanted and still want to make sure that knowledge about interesting phenomena and research from Poland and in the field of Polish studies can reach all those who are curious about the world and who would otherwise not be able to obtain such information in their respective countries due to the language barrier. Moreover, we keep in mind young members of the Polish diaspora, who do not always understand the language of their ancestors.

The author proposes that teachers of Polish as a foreign language should keep track of the development of contemporary general linguistics. However, in the process they need to focus on the specific problems of Polish while initiating students only into the necessary general linguistic knowledge, using it first and foremost to draw the students’ attention to their own native language, in order to be able to compare it with the second language. An important premise of the proposed method is that when teaching any foreign language we should constantly revisit traditional grammatical theory and terminology. In this way, conflicts resulting from differences between knowledge of one’s national language and a foreign language may be avoided. A specialist in a foreign language should be able to describe it in such a way that people who do not yet know either this language or its respective grammatical terminology are able to build in their minds some representation of it comparable to other languages they already know. Unfortunately, in contemporary general linguistics we do not usually have at our disposal concepts and theories for adequate description of a great variety of languages (except in fields such as phonology and morphology). Therefore, the final and decisive element of successful learning of a foreign language remains the passion and commitment of the
learners themselves..

I took up the topic of grammatical gender in Polish due to the fact that the theories of 5, 7 and even 9 genders (including the so-called personal-masculine gender in plural) accepted in Poland since the second half of the 20th century give rise to unnecessary difficulties for foreigners attempting at correctly building Polish sentences such as Matka i dziecko nie mogli się sobą nacieszyć. (‘Mother and child could not stop enjoying each other’). The research I conducted as part of interactive linguistics (using the Prolog artificial intelligence language and the SEMANA platform) showed that the theory distinguishing the category of gender from the category of animacy (as in comparative Slavic linguistics) is more economical and gives better results (than the theory of 9 genders) both in the analysis and production of utterances. Additionally, due to the “personal-masculine” gender introduced into Polish grammar, there arose a debate on the possible “male-chauvinistic” character of the Polish language, and consequently of the entire Polish culture. In response to this, I argue that one should not too hastily identify grammatical categories with cognitive categories, especially since in all European languages I know, it is the masculine gender which is the unmarked gender (-feminine). It follows from this that the masculine gender has two meanings, one broad and more abstract (e.g., man as a human being in general) and one narrow indicating only men (e.g., man as a male person). Recently, however, the non-marked meaning of the masculine gender has been undermined by the so-called inclusive speech. In Polish, in the plural, the so-called masculine-personal form indicates either a group of men or a group of entities among which is at least one human being regardless of gender (in the utterance quoted above, in which the verb nie mogli (‘could not’) exhibits the so-called personal-masculine form, the feminine noun matka (‘mother’) and the neuter noun dziecko (‘child’) constitute a collective subject that occurs in grammatical agreement with the verb form in the masculine gender, acting as an exponent of the category of humanity (not “masculinity”). Thus, the so-called personal-masculine form is used with the unmarked gender meaning of a personal (or human) form (+human, feminine). The research I conducted shows that in contemporary Polish the category of gender has the following meanings: masculine, feminine, and neuter, and the category of animacy: inanimate (-animate), human animate (+animate, +human), and non-human or animal animate (+animate, -human).

Croatian and Polish, being genealogically related languages, share a lot of features, yet there are certain differences in the sound systems and alphabets of the two languages. Both languages use the Latin alphabet and share most of the letters but some graphemes and sounds differ. Therefore, the goal of the paper is to provide an overview of the main differences between Croatian and Polish sound and graphemic systems as illustrated by two selected poems (respectively, Cvrčak [Cricket] by Vladimir Nazor and Chrząszcz [Beetle] by Jan Brzechwa). Some of the differences may be explained from a historical perspective. Thus, it is demonstrated how in the two languages in question, which both come from Proto-Slavic, some sounds developed in discrepant ways. What is more, the modern Croatian and Polish are also dissimilar when it comes to accent, which is briefly discussed in the text.

The article is conceived of as an outline of the most intriguing works of Polish literature, briefly described in order to entice Mecedonian readers to learn about Polish literary heritage. First, the author indicates to the merits of Polish literature; most of all by pointing to the number of the Nobel Prize in Literature recipients and to the fact that not solely works written both in Poland and in Polish may be classified as Polish literature, but also those created in Latin, French, and English, etc. She refers to the latter when substantiating the reasons for listing the legends contained in the Old-Polish chronicles, among others the one by Gallus Anonymus, as the ones to be read first; the very same reasoning justifies mentioning Jan Potocki’s Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse. The author is of the opinion that acquainting oneself with the belles lettres resembles educating a child through literature: first, he or she reads fables, fairy tales, and illustrated books, then realist literature, to finally search for more demanding forms like absurdist, superrealist – briefly put: peculiar and separate. This way the author makes her selection of Polish literary works and establishes her article’s structure: from medieval literature to the contemporary prose by Olga Tokarczuk. According to the author’s outline, the greatest of Polish Romantic poets, Adam Mickiewicz, occupies prominent place in
Polish literature; he is characterised as an author of fantastic stories born out of folklore, but also of the works which forged national identity and patriotism, the identity of the kind to suffer and die for. Next, what is presented in the article is a didactic experiment carried out at the “Blazhe Koneski” Faculty of Philology,
Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. It aimed to acquaint stundents, in the space of one semester, with five texts representing the Polish literary canon, instead of analysing a particular literary epoch. The following works were chosen: Bez dogmatu [Without Dogma] by Henryk Sienkiewicz, Sklepy cynamonowe [The Cinnamon Shops] by Bruno Schulz, Zniewolony umysł [The Captive Mind] by Czesław Miłosz, Imperium by Ryszard Kapuściński, and Bieguni [Flights] by Olga Tokarczuk. Upon discussing the consecutive works, a clear rationale was arrived at and elucidated based on which the said books had been selected as those representing what is the best in Polish literature. In her summary, the author concludes that Polish literature constitutes an inexhaustible source of new literary forms and in many aspects it is on a par with world literature.

Both, Dante Alighieri’s ouevre and him as a person, ignited a grand, incessant passion and unflinching interest of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski (1812–1887), which was fueled by a deep sense of awe. Kraszewski’s works thrive on Dantean motifs mediated by the 19th-century culture that was saturated with the latter. Dante’s towering persona reigned over the 19th century, the era during which not only his ouevre but also his person were idolised, often by applying a political key to him. The Polish writer’s narrative and lyrical output bears a palpable residuum of the Divine Comedy – an inexhaustible source of inspiration he continually aluded to by references, quotes, suggestions, and reworking of topics and motifs. After scrutinising literary reminescences of the Divine Comedy recognised in Kraszewski’s works, the article proceeds to focus on reverbarations and echoes traced back to the masterpiece’s part one, in particular Inferno V (the fifth song) and their relationship with the source text. The astounding fate that befell Paolo and Francesca creates a context for the analysis of a narrative poem Paolo. Powieść wenecka (‘Paolo. A Venetian Tale’; 1843) and a novel Pod włoskim niebem (‘Under the Sky of Italy’; 1845).

The practice of using literary texts as auxiliary teaching materials in the process of teaching a foreign language has a long tradition. Culture texts can illustrate Polish reality and present linguistic issues in an attractive and accessible way. Therefore, this paper assumes that the use of the didactic and functional potential of a literary text during the classes of Polish as a foreign language contributes not only to diversification of the didactic activity by awakening and cultivating interest in the language and culture being learned, but also to improvement of the learning process. It also stimulates the interest of students in specific Polish cultural phenomena. In addition to aesthetic values, the literary text offers expressive images of the Polish society, mentality and spirituality over the centuries, being an invaluable source of knowledge about the essence of Poland through the decoding and interpretation of socio-cultural codes and ethno-national or identity symbols. The aim of the paper is to discover what elements of Polish culture and civilization are found by Romanian students in the short story Green Children by Olga Tokarczuk. The narrative universe of Olga Tokarczuk is often inhabited by real characters, special individuals who existed in reality at some point, covered by oblivion, but being unusual during their lifetime. Olga Tokarczuk brings them out of the basket of history, reinterprets them, gives them a chance for a new life, and, above all,
gives them a voice, thus bringing them back to the present day. In the Books of Jacob, we rediscover, among other people, Józef Andrzej Załuski (bibliophile and bibliographer), Andrzej Stanisław Załuski (patron of the arts), Benedykt Chmielowski (the first Polish encyclopedist) and Elżbieta Drużbacka (the baroque poet). In Green Children, William Davidson was a Scottish physician, chemist, and biologist. Through his eyes, we discover the political, social, and cultural realities of those times. Through Davidson, we can draw out and discuss the elements of old Polish culture and civilization, such as the situation in the political arena, internal tensions between the king and the gentry, the relationships between such concepts as center and periphery or between “I” and “the other”, the interesting phenomenon of plica polonica, or echoes of Sarmatian ideology.

In the 1990s, posthumanism gained popularity in interdisciplinary research, and its concept of the personification of technology and the “cyborg” offered a wide scope for science fiction. But as early as the 1970s, Polish science fiction novelist Stanisław Lem had already made a manifesto of posthumanism in his work, in which he created Golem XIV, a typical cyborg, and expressed his own views on the relationship between human and technology, human and non-human, etc. through the narration of this artificial intelligence. In his book, he created Golem XIV, the archetypal cyborg. The philosophical ideas of Lem in Golem XIV not only coincide with the present theories of posthumanism in many ways, but also have some insightful thoughts that go far beyond the framework of posthumanist thought and are more forward-looking. This paper includes the history of the development of the discipline of posthumanism, discussion on the content of Lem’s Golem XIV, an in-depth analysis of posthumanist thinking, and Lem’s own unique philosophical views in the hope of providing new ideas for interpreting Lem’s work.

In the interwar period (1918–1939), prior to the development of the comparative literature discipline, the most important Polish authors would be included in the canon of world literature in studies published in Hungary. Mihály Babits’s great synthesis, Az európai irodalom története [History of European Literature], only includes the names of Adam Mickiewicz and Henryk Sienkiewicz (without stating the titles of their works), because Babits divided the individual national literatures into “major” and “minor” ones, and considered both Polish and Hungarian literature to belong to the latter group. In turn, Antal Szerb, author of the still popular A világirodalom története [History of World Literature], described Polish Romanticism competently in a separate subsection and provided a brief summary of the earlier periods. In his opinion, Polish and Hungarian literature developed parallel to each other, and during the Renaissance both literatures produced poetry at the highest level in the respective national languages. The researcher was convinced that not only were certain periods and individual authors “astonishingly similar”, but that the entire history of both literatures was built on similar principles. In the following decades, data was collected on Polish-Hungarian contacts, focusing on reception and imagology. Factual material was collected confirming Polish-Hungarian literary contacts in the spirit of positivist literary science. Thanks to Endre Bojtár’s many years of systematic work, Central European comparative literature established itself at the Institute for Literary Studies of Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Bojtár contributed to a paradigm shift, with a new category of Central European literature emerging between world literature and Hungarian literature. Another researcher, György Spiró, also worked in the field of regional comparative literature, and compiled a history of drama “from the Enlightenment to Wyspiański’s synthesis”. Not so long ago, in the 1980s, leading Hungarian prose writers such as Péter Esterházy and Péter Nádas, avidly read and commented on the works of Witold Gombrowicz, among others, but subsequent generations lost contact with Polish literature.

Although Ziemowit Szczerek is one of the most interesting Polish writers of modern times, his books are not often translated into other languages. Given the fact that he mostly devotes himself to the subject of Central Europe, his books would certainly also find readers in the Czech Republic. The article raises the question of whether Szczerek’s very specific authorial style, which discourages potential translators, may be the cause of this state of affairs. This article tries to analyze the style and language of Szczerek’s writing on the material of his book Międzymorze (2017a). The aim of the text is, among other things, to show how careful analysis and philological training can help the translator understand the author’s specific style and thus help with the prospective translation. The article analyses specific means of expression, such as very creatively understood neologisms and expressive vocabulary. Particular attention is paid to specific sentence constructions
and the possibilities of their translation into Czech. Also typical of Szczerek’s texts are foreign-language elements, reflecting the atmosphere of a place or characterizing the speaker whom the narrator meets on a journey through Central Europe. All these means of expression are a great challenge for any translator.

In their article, Irena Masojć and Jiří Muryc present a multilingual e-learning platform www.polski.info. It is innovative, interactive and user-friendly. Its aim is to facilitate access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for people with different skills, interests and needs. The platform uses modern ICT tools and allows students to learn the language from the very beginning, offering attractive exercises. It is available in several languages and caters to interested parties from many countries. The portal is designed for adults who want to learn Polish and expand their knowledge about Poland. It includes, among many things, Polish language courses at A1 and A2 levels (B1 level in preparation), a guide to Polish grammar, a dictionary with recordings of the correct pronunciation of individual words and phrases, tools for communicating with recipients and sharing posts on social networking sites. On the one hand, Masojć and Muryc refer to the broader context of the needs of potential users of this platform, especially in the area of statistics and the attitudes and recommendations of the European Union. On the other hand, they analyze prospective users’ expectations on the basis of research conducted in two neighboring countries, the Czech Republic and Lithuania. The use of quantitative and qualitative methods in the analysis of survey data has allowed the scholars to determine and compare the needs of Czechs and Lithuanians when it comes to learning Polish and to show the extent to which the structure and content of the emerging e-learning platform will be able to meet them.

This article is about the challenges associated with the use of textbooks for teaching Polish in classes for Chinese-speaking students. In the first part, which reviews the history of the development of Polish language teaching at Chinese universities, Rui Mao and Tomasz Ewertowski discuss the determinants of Polish glottodidactics in the People’s Republic of China. The flourishing of Chinese Polish studies in recent years is the result of cooperation between Poland and China as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Starting in 1954 and for a period of almost 60 years, the Beijing University of Foreign Languages was the only university center offering Polish studies. However, between 2012 and 2021, new courses were opened with Polish language in the study programs at 17 other universities. This rapid expansion has been accompanied by great challenges, one of them being the development of a variety of teaching materials. These challenges are presented here on the basis of a case study in the second part of the article, which treats of the use of
teaching materials in teaching Polish at the Shanghai International Studies University (SUSM/SISU). Although Polish has been taught at university level in China for 65 years, the Chinese publishing market does not boast of many local textbooks. For this people who know European culture well, and their emphasis on communication does not correspond to the habits of Chinese students. These and other difficulties prompted teachers of Polish at SISU to work on their own teaching materials. The third part of the article, treating of textbooks developed at SISU, discusses the following textbooks created in the above-mentioned context, Bliżej historii Polski [Closer to the History of Poland] and Praktyczna gramatyka języka polskiego [Practical Grammar of the Polish Language]. The first one has two main goals, i.e., to familiarize students with basic information about the history of Poland and to develop students’ ability to understand written texts. The book is intended for students from China. For this reason, explanations of difficult vocabulary are given in Chinese, and the content takes into account the Chinese cultural context. In turn, the Practical Grammar of the Polish Language has been developed with the intention of providing a comprehensive, accessible, and practical compendium for teaching grammar to native Chinese speakers.

This article aims to present the challenges faced by Polish language learners during the SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic and reflects on the possibilities that appeared with Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT). The research is focused on students, in an attempt to give voice to them and understand their vision of the challenges and opportunities in the virtual environment. The adopted methodology presents mixed analyses with interpretive qualitative and quantitative data, based on the application of a questionnaire with open and closed questions, both available on Google Forms from the perspective of Applied Linguistics. The data points out difficulties in implementing digital technologies, as well as specific limitations of the remote modality, but also presents new possibilities such as learning the language anywhere in Brazil, especially in places where there are no regular courses. However, it also reveals a mostly positive adaptation to the new format. These reflections suggest the need to (re)think about the transformation of the space for teaching and learning the Polish language in Brazil, according to the limits and possibilities that still need to be discussed in the face of the new context.

Language proficiency indicators (A1–C2) contained in The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (published in English and French in 2001, in Polish in 2003) are the main value and the main axis of the Council of Europe document. They were soon accepted by the recipients and applied in language-teaching methodology. Often, however, the description of skills at individual levels have been the subject of understatements and misinterpretations. This is also the case with level C2, which is often identified with the competences of an educated native speaker of a language. Iwona Janowska’s aim in this article is to give a comprehensive and updated characterization of the highest level of language proficiency, described in the CEFR (2001; 2003), and clarified and extended in the CEFR – Companion Volume (2020). Experts of the Council of Europe, while maintaining the philosophy and structure of the CEFR, modified and supplemented
the descriptor scales contained in it and adapted them to the contemporary context of language use. The description of level C2 in the 2020 document has been significantly expanded in comparinson to its original version, as it contains the characteristics of new skills and competences of the language user. The results of quantitative and qualitative analyses of descriptors for the highest level of proficiency on the scale of the Council of Europe presented in the article may be helpful in creating didactic materials and exam tests.

A review article entitled “Memory and… Care” is an in-depth discussion of the book by Sławomir Jacek Żurek Odpamiętywanie polsko-żydowskie. Szkice – Studia – Interpretacje [The Polish-Jewish de-remembering: Essays – Studies – Interpretations] published in 2021 by The Learned Society of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. The said publicaton by the Lublin-based scholar contains a multi-layered reception of the most recent findings in the field of memory studies, which at the same time purports to utilise them in the process of reading particular literary texts dealing with Polish-Jewish relations. Żurek directs his interpretative endeavour among others at: the poetic dialogue between Franciszka Arnsztajnowa and Józef Czechowicz, the ouevre of Arnold Słucki, the particular vision of Poland sustained in texts by Jewish émigré poets, and at the contemporary literary narratives regarding the Shoah, which oftentimes enter into popocultural dialogue with traditional Jewish topoi. The author’s main claim seems to be that more than 30 years of working through memory within the framework of historical, cultural and literary analyses, has not only hepled to restore correct proportions of the Polish Jews’ contribution to the Polish culture, but most of all to verify the stereotypes pertaining to the Jews’ relationships with non-Jews. The publication has been commended by scholars focused on studies of Polish-Jewish relations and the memory of the Holocaust, while the present review article is a critical discussion of theses put forward by Żurek.

The aim of this article is to characterise the system and forms of teaching the Polish language to children of
Polish emigrants in France between 1919 and 1945. The time frames are not accidental as they are marked by two important dates. 1919 marks the beginning of economic emigration of Poles to France, which lasted until the outbreak of the Second World War, while 1945 marks the end of the war. The basis for the considerations presented are archival sources collected primarily at the Polish Library in Paris and Polish and French-language publications related to the subject in question. Teaching of the Polish language to children and young people or the continuation of the Polish language education once begun in Poland was an extremely important aspect of maintaining Polish identity and allowed the Polish community to survive the difficult period of emigration. The Polish émigré community strived to ensure that teaching of the mother tongue was conducted systematically, intensively and effectively.