This article concerns the beginnings of Polish expedition literature inspired by mountain exploration with particular emphasis on high mountains (in this case, these are primarily the peak parts of the Tatras). It is entirely devoted to the fundamental work on the Tatras, which is considered to be a collection of essays by the famous Enlightenment writer and geologist Stanisław Staszic published in 1815 titled O ziemiorodztwie Karpatów i innych gór i równin Polski (The geological formation of the Carpathians and other mountains and plains of Poland). It was created as a result of Staszic’s exploration of the Tatras in 1802, 1804, and 1805. Although the essays collected in it largely focus on the field research conducted by the scholar in both the mountains and lowlands, they also contain many comments on moving around the Tatras. Staszic writes, among other things, about conquering successive peaks, coping with glaciations, observing weather changes, camping style, and relations with highlanders – guides. The text also includes daily dates and sometimes information about the hours of setting off on the trail. The aforesaid elements bring some fragments of the essays closer to the form of an expedition itinerary. Staszic himself, as an explorer of the Tatras and the author of the first Polish work describing the Tatras, was considered as the “father” of Polish Tatras mountaineering, and his work functioned for many years as a type of Tatras guide for tourists visiting them.

The article deals with the findings of Domeyko’s expedition to the Cordillera near Santiago in the early months of 1842. The author argues that the economic purpose of the expedition, that is, finding silver and copper deposits, is one of the many themes taken up in the memoir of the time. We reflect on Domeyko’s fairly consistent balance between personal and professional issues, reported in My Travels. Particular attention was given to passages in Domeyko’s text where he thematises his attitude to the mountains or to his own travel writing.

Mountains occupy a prominent place in romantic mnemotopi. For historical and political reasons, mountains became a mnemotope in Polish literature of the 19th century (exile literature), especially the Caucasus mountains. The variety of memorial themes in Caucasian texts is enormous: from the motif of memory of the “beginning” (biblical, mythical), geological “fossil memory” through the historical memory of humanity, individual peoples and nations (here, among others, the “memory” of the Caucasian lineage of Poles), the foundational memory of the exiled community, to poetic and prose (auto)biographies treated as a form of memory (mimetically “imitating” the structure of memory, arranged according to its rules and order), and generally crowned with the “memory (of) death.” Also noteworthy is the metaphor of the “hill of memory” (from the poem Kaz-beg by W. Strzelnicki), directly identifying the genius loci of the Caucasus with memory. These mountains are permanently embedded in Polish collective memory, in the history of Poland written on the basis of the individual experiences of witnesses and victims of tsarist terror.

In the Romantic era, mountains began to be perceived as an area of special spiritual experience. Inspired by romanticism, nationalists also had a particular fondness for the mountains. The first to become interested in the Tatra Mountains were Slovak nationalists (“budziciele”). The Tatra Mountains are mentioned in the Slovak national anthem, and the National Climb to Kryvań takes place every year in August. Polish interest in the Tatra Mountains developed slowly and flourished at the end of the 19th century. The Tatra Mountains, and in particular their highest peaks, were also an important element of the border dispute between Poland and Czechoslovakia after World War I. The competition for the national identity of the Tatra Mountains ended only when Poland and Slovakia joined the European Union.

In recent years, the mountain seems, finally, to be appropriating in literature the space that the percentages (of inhabitants and territories) here in Italy would have deserved for a long time. The phenomenon that this study seems to bring out is that, in correspondence with the passage from traditional, “heroic” mountaineering to a universal and sporting one, a literary turning point is also noted in the approach to the peaks and the climbing towards them. Mountaineering is transforming from an individual to a collective phenomenon and the movement called Nuovo Mattino acts as a go-between for what will be the revolution of sport climbing; on a literary level, the answer is the birth of a mountain narrative that shuns the individual to open up to the community and proximity, in which the novel gradually imposes itself.

The article draws inspiration from the experience of cycling in the Grecanic Area: a region on the southern slopes of the Aspromonte Mountains in southern Calabria inhabited in the past by speakers of the Greek-Calabrian language (Grecanic, Greco) and now very sparsely populated. Taking as my starting point the uniqueness of the Grecanic landscape and the fact that interactions with it have been central to previous researchers of this region, I would like to propose a new practice of embodied cultural studies and Grecanic activism: cycling facilitated by media platforms. I use the tools of autoethnography and data derived from Strava to consider the possibilities of cycling as a method of producing engaged knowledge about the Grecanic Area and constituting a researcher's identity. In my reflections, I am accompanied by Bruno of Cologne, Franco Cassano’s philosophical postulate of andare piano, as well as by poems by Giovanni Favasuli and Salvino Nucera.

Poles for many reasons could not participate in pioneering expeditions in mountains over 8000 m.a.s.l. It was due to political and financial obstacles. Only in the 1970’s did Polish mountain climbers start reaching the highest mountain ranges in the world, gett­ing the first successes and international fame. The exploration of mountains was held only in the summer season, many Himalayan mountaineers believed that climbing in the wintertime was almost impossible, and that the mountains were inaccessible. The first conqueror of Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary, claimed, that there shouldn’t be any life above 7000 m.a.s.l. in the winter. Poles proved that the exploration of mountains in the winter season could become the new form of Himalayan activity. They showed a new way and direction in Himalayan expeditions.

This work examines three diary-like books by Rafał Fronia (Anatomia Góry. Osiem tysięcy metrów ponad marzeniami, Rozmowa z Górą and Skalny Pielgrzym). It explores how extreme conditions impact relationships within a team of Polish climbers who may have nothing in common except their passion and goal. The study also includes a genealogi­cal classification of the novels and an analysis of the narrative, showing the author’s balance between individuality and community – as defined by Dariusz Dobrzański and Andrew Mason.

The increasing development and tourism in the mountains have caused significant ecological degradation. This paper explores the historical, architectural and environmental impact of human activity, as a new anthropogenic layer, into once pristine wilderness. Through a case study – Demänovská Valley in Slovakian Low Tatras – the research
traces expansion of infrastructure since the early 20th century, planned mass recreation in the late 20th century, and their impacts on landscape transformation. The research highlights the ongoing conflict between economic conflict and environmental conservation. Despite efforts to protect the valley, rapid construction continues of unrestrained development on this fragile mountain ecosystem.

Mountain literature, or the mountain themes addressed in literature, touches upon issues that are – by their nature – rather fleeting and which constantly elude large, exhaustive and full syntheses. It seems to us that “talking about mountains” is more commonly done in short, episodic forms, which are an element of a larger – most often unfinished – whole. In any case, mountain activity, contact with the mountain space, is not only a sporting and exploratory activity, but also an extremely culture-forming one, and we would like to focus on this aspect in this text.

The article offers an overview of Alpine imaginaries from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century. It traces the main stages that led from the monts maudits to the eroticisation of mountains and the overtourism of the 20th century, via the foundations of a new relationship with wilderness previously laid by the Enlightenment and the subsequent romantic mystical immersion in nature. While landscape perception and the conception of nature are subject to changing patterns of evaluation, evolving ‘sense control’ and cultural and social contexts, the fact that the various attributions of meaning to mountain societies and landscapes originated from outside the Alps remains a constant in this centuries-long process.

In the article, the author compares Hans Bellmer’s concept of the physical unconscious with Sigmund Freud’s concept of the unconscious, pointing out the similarities and differences between the two. The starting point is the former’s theoretical treatise titled Little Anatomy of the Physical Unconscious, or Anatomy of the Image (translated by J.M. Kłoczowski), in which he presented the assumptions of his approach. The author points out that we are dealing here with an interesting modification and a supplement to the theory presented in The Interpretation of Dreams. It is also noted that in both cases the source of inspiration was the phenomenon of female hysteria, albeit inter­preted in different ways. In Bellmer’s case, this phenomenon is key to understanding the actual significance of the way in which he creates the female bodies of his dolls, ignoring all principles of anatomical structure.

In the writing of Michele Mari, the body always serves as a starting point for scholarly interpretations of past literature. The transfiguration of the theme of corporeality occurs on two foundational levels of the literary work: the narrative and the verbal levels. On the verbal level, through archaisms, lists, and neologisms, the semantic field of corporeality arises as a lexical extension of the alienated characteristics of the depicted bodies. On the narrative level, the representation of the monstrous, abnormal, or deformed body as a carrier of symbolic meanings appears as an image of the chaos of untamable Nature or as a reflection of the animalistic side of human identity. The monsters in Mari’s work are intertextual references to European heritage literary figures, interpreted in a grotesque manner.

Czesław Miłosz, as a representative of both Polish and world poetry in China, has gained recognition among Chinese poets who appreciate his verses for their ability to connect poetry with reality. This concept is a key element of his poetic theory. Although Miłosz is an inspiring figure for some Chinese poets, the overall reception of his work in China remains limited. The article analyzes the situation of translations of his works as well as the opinions of Chinese readers about the poet. Miłosz’s image in China is complex, and his works are interpreted in the context of local experiences and values. The author attempts to answer the question regarding the distinctive image of Miłosz in the eyes of Chinese audiences, leading to a conclusion about the significance of his work in the international literary discourse.

This paper investigates the visual apparatus of Czech history textbooks published between 1990–2017. This time span covers the period following the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the subsequent political regime change, extending through to the end of the 2010s. The interpretation of the Second World War plays a key role as it also shapes the reflection on later periods, including the communist regime and the Cold War, as well as the desire to identify commonalities in the development of the two halves of Europe – Western and Eastern – within the broader European discourse. The paper focuses on analyzing the images that constitute what may be called the visual “catalog” of the specific Czech experience during the Second World War. It examines which images are commonly shared across textbooks and which ones differ and explores the potential reasons behind these choices. Particular attention is also given to the issue of the iconicity of the photographs featured in the analyzed texts.