Nieustający wzrost dobrostanu człowieka jako gatunku zawdzięczamy rozwojowi cywilizacji, rozumianej najczęściej jako wszystko to, co ludzkość osiągnęła, szczególnie w swym wyzwalaniu się z pęt natury, uniezależnianiu się od niej i jej „ujarzmianiu”. Jednak pożytek płynący dla nas z cywilizacji jest nieodmiennie powiązany z klęską całych ekosystemów, zadomowionych w nich gatunków fauny i flory, wiąże się też z wyczerpywaniem zasobów naturalnych, źródeł energii, efektem cieplarnianym, zanikiem kultur indygennych i wymieraniem innych niż ludzki gatunków. Cywilizacja ma zatem swoje zgubne konsekwencje (...).

Czwarty numer rocznika „Zoophilologica” został poświęcony (...) zagadnieniu polowania i jego miejsca w (dawnej) i współczesnej cywilizacji ludzkiej. Jednak zasadniczym tematem rozpraw nie są tylko zwierzęta „łowne”, jak eufemizując swe praktyki wobec prawowitych mieszkańców pól i lasów, określają je cywilizowani łupieżcy, czyli myśliwi. Nie są nim nawet i sami łowcy, choć większość zgromadzonych tu tekstów ich właśnie dotyczy. Pośrednio wszakże mówią one po prostu o całej cywilizowanej ludzkości (...).

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The character of the relations between linguistic and not strictly linguistic elements of awareness is discussed upon the example of existing notions. The vocabulary material reflecting both historical and contemporary interpretations is quoted. These interpretations consider the etymology of words. The purposes of this analysis is to discover the motives which change in time, features and semantic analogies. These three elements are then consolidated in the notions of the mental and linguistic culture. Subsequently the character of relations is established (by placing the character in the artificially created space) between the state of an animal and a human. The human resembles the animal and the latter is a representative of a community in captivity and the human observing the animals becomes an element of the collective display. The information and interpretations which were collected (compared to the data from the dictionary of dreams via their semantic and mental features) make it possible to ask a question on the semantics of the mental and semantic features of the vivid experiences which are in perceptual and mental existence. These experiences shape the notions for the representatives of a specific mental culture. The notions in question are of regulating, approximate and not always realized character. These notions, especially the ones which condition the organization of the world in linguistic and non-linguistic awareness, eventually influence the semantic evolution of a language as well as the mentality of its users.

The article reviews the history of hunting in Belarus and reveals the system of traditional ideas about 
hunting, which is closely related to the categories of everyday and mythological consciousness. It demonstrates that this craft is infused with a complex of mythological representations and is associated with magical practice. One also notes a special character of the relationship of hunters with foreign forces and beings. Hunters, while remaining a part of society, are in some cases endowed with demonic characteristics and equated with the category of “knowledgeable”, with sorcerers.

The main aim of the article is to consider the presence and function of religion (in most cases, the Christian religion) in the broadly conceived hunting practices at the turn of the 21st century, as well as the presence of religious motivation and ideological commitment in the hunters’ community from the perspective of religious studies inspired by the empirical research into the human-animal relationship (known as animal studies). The hunting narrative is shown, on the one hand, as eagerly seeking legitimacy and support from institutional religion (evidenced by the patron saints of hunting, the hunting ceremonial that has close parallels in the church ceremonial, and the argument in favour of “ecological balance” and “nature management” based on theological sources) and, on the other hand, as disguising an unethical and religiously unacceptable element of the arbitrary taking of life and inflicting pain without a shadow of empathy or without respecting the right to existence of what is a vulnerable being, even more so because it is devoid of human tools and rationality. The author’s examination of the issues leads to the discussion of the hunters’ religious mythologizing of their own status which draws on the ancient origin of hunting practices in prehistoric times: a period when the human-animal relationship was not yet marked by dualistic division and ontological asymmetry. The paper ultimately aims at the analysis of the way hunting is presented in religious studies research, of the difference between the implications of hunting activities for the human-animal relationship in premodern tribal communities (which practised subsistence hunting) and contemporary industrialized ones, and of the possibility of granting religious subjecthood to animals which stems from the return to the non-dichotomous, relational and dynamic view of the world typical of hunter-gatherers’ times.

By proposing a thesis, which is consistent with the results of biological research in the human evolution, that due to the pressure of natural selection and the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens our species was equipped with a strong predatory instinct, which enables us to speak about “the hunter in each of us”, the author of the article traces its cultural expressions, demonstrating its realisations in the past. She proves that this instinct, in conjunction with the strategy of costly representation (the handicap theory) which is also peculiar to humankind, is currently realised inter alia by hunting practices, which due to their cruelty and the incompatibility with a classless society constitute a peculiar “relic of barbarity”.

The impact of human activities on the planet has accelerated the loss of species and ecosystems to a level comparable to a sixth mass extinction, the first driven by a living species. The Living Planet Index, which measures biodiversity abundance levels, was reduced by 58 per cent between 1970 and 2012. Humans have already driven at least four of nine Earth system processes beyond their safe boundaries. Hunting has lost its original function (source of food and survival of people). However, hunters invoke various arguments, including ecological and ethical ones, for the maintenance of hunting. Scientific research, however, contradicts them, for example modern hunting is blamed for the disruption of natural mechanisms regulating the size of game populations. The answer to the arguments of hunting ethics is contemporary environmental ethics, in which the fundamental value is respect for life, for every form of existence. Recent research shows that overexploitation of the environment, including hunting and fishing, has the greatest negative impact on biodiversity.

There is a growing public disapproval of the recreational persecution and killing of wild mammals and birds who share with us basic emotional experience that conveys intrinsic value to their lives. Contrary to hunters’ propaganda, both scientific research and testimonies from prominent hunters-writers demonstrate that the thrill of killing is the main and ultimate motive of recreational hunting. The majority of simple-minded hunters are satisfied by any killing, including a canned hunt. However, some recreational hunters combine the killing drive with biophilia which makes them psychologically comparable to rapists. Both the thrill of killing and biophilia are primitive drives that evolved as adaptations in hunter-gatherers. Killing for pleasure (with or without biophilia) has always been evil in terms of both intentions and consequences. At present it is also barbaric in the sense of the opposite of civilization which progressed by increasing the control of primitive drives, in particular aggression.

The author of the article discusses the history of the moral degradation of hunting in the former USSR, in Ukraine and in Russia mainly on the basis of a critical overview of the hunting press. Criticism is directed against the practice of the defence of hunting by means of squealing.

W artykule analizuję argumenty współczesnych etyków i psychologów na rzecz odrzucenia i etycznego potępienia myślistwa rekreacyjnego, określanego jako atawistyczna zabawa w zabijanie, jako praktyka oparta na czerpaniu satysfakcji z indukowania strachu, cierpienia i śmierci. Odwołuję się do teorii moralnego rozwoju człowieka autorstwa Alberta Schweitzera, poglądów psychologa klinicznego Richarda Rydera, etyki Bernarda Rollina i podstawowych tez psychologa Paula Haucka.

The feeling of security is one of the basic human needs and its disruption evokes reactions towards re-gaining the state of comfort. In order to get it, humans are willing to accept radical procedures proposed by the government and other groups/institutions of power. In contemporary Polish socio-cultural reality this manipulation method is used to justify the need of hunting which is claimed to be a method of managing threats associated with the natural environment. Clearly this is manipulation serving individual interests of lobbing groups and has nothing to do with sustainable development rules. Creating biophobia with the use of the Foucauldian power- knowledge tool is contradictory towards biophilia – indicated by E. Wilson as a human need to create bonds with the natural environment.

Miles Olson is the author of two books: The Compassionate Hunter’s Guidebook: Hunting from the Heart and Unlearn, Rewild: Earth Skills, Ideas and Inspiration for the Future Primitive. The paper consists of a critical analysis and an ethical evaluation of Olson’s particular version of anarcho-primitivism and ideological assumptions of his concept of “rewilding”. The question of hunting and the motives for Olson’s rejection of veganism are analyzed in detail.

Attempts to rationalize Man-Nature conflicts rely on the discussion limits set to the Scientific facts only (value-free science) with no emotion or opinion expressed. The number of examples presented from the field of hunting and fishery demonstrates that Science can model the population mortality or define the sustainable exploitation. However, it will not help to account for the way and reason for killing wild animals. As nowadays Nature is valued in a number of different ways, there is an urgent need to combine the traditionally separated domains of Science and Letters that is being postulated by a number of contemporary conservationists.

The article presents a study of the royal hunting practices of lunar and solar dynasties, using the great Sanskrit epics as literary sources. Both epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, criticize the devastation and destruction of the forest area brought about by the hunting king and simultaneously praise the calming impact of forest hermitages on the environment. Ample provision was made for non-participation of hounds in hunting. The analysis showed that the deforestation and the tragic fate of indigenous hunting tribes continued to be the central problem of the texts. The king required the forest area for the purposes of agriculture and economy, brahmins set up hermitages here, but the forest used to be a tribal habitat first of all. The dominant Bharata tribe formed alliances by contracting marriages with more powerful hunting communities, while for the vulnerable ones there was no room left. Dehumanized, perceived as demonic or snake-like creatures and animals, they were doomed. The forests along the route of the expansion of the Bharata tribe were cut down or burnt, often together with their inhabitants: human tribes, animals and birds.

In my paper I will try to sketch the literary implications of Carlo Ginzburg’s essay entitled Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm. The method assumes focusing on detail as the most important element in the narrative. Ginzburg’s Clues owe their name to the animal tracking mechanism by the hunter. Hunting can therefore be treated as a metaphor for the interpretation of a text in the form of signs.

The texts by V. Vysotsky feauture prominently the theme of “hunting” – for the game and for a hu- man as the game. Non-humanitarism of trailing, chasing and battue is thoroughly elaborated. This non-humanitarism as Vysotski puts it is a sign of the totalitarian system which gives no room for a free individual. Both the humans and the game are deliberately annihilated for the pleasure of the high and mighty of this world. A common Soviet human being is a parallel of the baited game.

The article is an attempt to read the early play of a German play wright Martin Sperr, from the perspective of hunting theory. In the play Hunting scenes from Bavaria of 1966, Martin Sperr shows the mechanisms of exclusion of a human being from the society. The play is set in a Bavarian vil- lage – a community on the threshold of economic, political and cultural changes, transforming from a production society into a consumer society. The economic crisis exaggerates the processes of exclusion, which culminates in the literal hunting for homosexual Abram. The article is an attempt to analyse the hunting artefact as a way to show the individual processes of exclusion from the community.

The paper deals with the problem of traumatic experiences of children and animals related to hunting from the point of view of animal studies. The subject of hunting covers usually only the ethical side of this hobby. In the defense of animals which are the object of hunting activities, the emphasis is mainly on human interference in the law of nature and its influence on reducing the local wildlife population. The article presents a topic related to the psychological aspect of hunting, which is often overlooked in the general social discourse. The subject of the survey was to present one of the aspects of the human psyche – traumatic experience as the influence of hunting on the participating children. Based on selected examples of literary works on hunting the impact of those traumatic experiences of children is outlined. The effects of traumatic experiences and the situations of transferring the trauma from one’s experience and considering it as its own are presented. In addition, the article presents the problems of traumatic experiences in animals and their suffering not only related to the somatic but also to the psychic side. Based on ethology, the hunting influence on mental suffering animals is shown with particular emphasis on those which live in the herd. The issues presented in the article are testimony to the similarity of humans and animals’ mental experiences in humans and animals.

The article of Sara Kruszona entitled The Theater of Death treats the spectacular-theatrical character of collective hunts. The author puts forward the thesis that these hunts can be read as a form of a spectacle. The starting point for consideration was the article Customs and hunting ceremonies in collective hunts, derived from the website of the Hunting Signals Group, “Hagard”. This text is a kind of a scenario of hunting ceremonies taking place during collective hunts. By quoting its fragments in his text on the Theater of Death, the author proves the thesis about the pageantry of hunting rituals. Events which take place during hunting, their organization and arrangement, whose important aspects include tradition and ritual character, interpreted as a kind of spectacle. It was similar to the ancient venatio. The author also refers to the ancient roots of performances with the participation of hunters, i.e. venatio, described by Miroslaw Kocur in his book entitled The Roots of the Theater. A particularly important argument for the possibility of considering hunting as a form of a show is the hunters’ awareness of role–playing and audience presence. This can be understood by guests invited to the hunt as well as opponents of hunting, or as a community focused on their activity and ready to criticize it. The awareness of the presence of spectators determines the obvious awareness of playing whether the hunters perform a specific social function in the spectacle called hunting. The finale of this performance, played according to a strictly defined scenario and with strictly assigned roles, is pokot. The author draws attention to the fact that the system of animal bodies and all activities related to them resemble a specific form of a spectacle – anatomical theater.

The author discusses hunting scenes in film representing a variety of genres not for their iconography, but rather for their metaphorical impact. Filmmakers use hunting as a metaphor to speak about completely different issues. They explore political topics, expose their ideological and ethical aspects, focus on instances of customary behaviour. Alicja Helman points out the link between hunting and death. According to her, people who are capable to kill animals are also capable to kill people – not only at war, but for other reasons as well. The article focuses mainly on the works which became models for later films belonging to the traditions of ethno-fiction, western, horror, and psychological drama.

This essay discusses the background and the consequences of the Polish Constitutional Court’s (TK)
judgment of 10th July 2014, P 19/13, stating the unconstitutionality of prescription as the basis for
establishing and changing borders of hunting zones. As TK has remarked, in the perspective of limitations for real property owners in their entirety, the procedure of establishing and changing borders of hunting zones should ensure participation of these owners. As a result of this judgement a new institution was established in Polish law – the withdrawal of the ground from the hunting zone, which was the effect of the sluggishness of Polish legislator. In this essay, apart from these problems, the authors also discuss the legislative proposals of new regulations of the real property owner’s legal position, including to right to object to execute hunting on his ground.

The performances: Wieloryb The Globe and Ostatnie zwierzęta show the whole scale of difficulties that accompany the entering into ethical relationships with the Other. From the point of view of traditional culture, making them is a story of stumbles, mistakes and errors that result in an uncertain encounter at best. The “exercises in empathy” designed by these performances are oriented towards the bottom-up emancipation of the excluded beings, both human and non-human once. According to their creators, it is possible only through education, not through revolution.

Agnieszka Wójtowicz-Zając’s review of Poetyka i łowy. O idei dawnego polowania  w literaturze polskiej XIX wieku by Beata Mytych. The book was published by Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, Katowice, in 2004.

Łukasz Muniowski's review of Sens polowania. Współczesne znaczenia tradycyjnych praktyk na przykładzie analizy dyskursu łowieckiego by Dorota Rancew-Sikora. The book was published by Wydawnictwo naukowe Scholar, Warszawa, in 2009.

 Ewelina Rąbkowska's review of Dydaktyka i łowy. Księga Jubileuszowa dedykowana Profesorowi Władysławowi Dynakowi. Eds. Ryszard Waksmund and Dorota Michułka. The book was published by Oficyna Wydawnicza ATUT, Wrocław, in 2016

Paulina Rydz's review of Realizm ekologiczny. Od ekokrytyki do zookrytyki w literaturze polskiej by Anna Barcz, published by Śląsk Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Katowice, 2016.

Aleksandra Kowalska's report on the EGALS seminar titled "Future of Animal Law in Europe" organized in Katowice on September 27th, 2017.

Katarzyna Trusewicz's report on the conference titled "Słowiańszczyzna z ptasiej perspektywy" organized in Poznań between October 23rd and 24th, 2017.

Anthropocen as the research subject of a transdisciplinary group [Ewa Myszkowska's report on the seminar of the “Questions of Boundaries Research Group” at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Ciążeń 20-21 January 2018].

Justyna Tymieniecka-Suchanek's notes on Гибриды и химеры человека и животного: от мифологии к биотехнологии by Magdalena Kożewnikowa, Moscow 2017