Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, sectio FF – Philologiae
The mission of Annales UMCS Sectio FF Philologiae is to publish thematically and methodologically diverse articles within the research area of the humanities, mainly in the field of literary studies and linguistics (both in the area of Polish and neophilological studies), as well as cultural studies. The biaannual volumes of our journal cover multidisciplinary approaches to the humanities in various aspects. Annales UMCS Sectio FF Philologiae is a biannual journal open to both experienced scholars and young authors who are at the beginning of their academic career. The journal is thus an excellent platform for an intergenerational dialogue and the presentation of different points of view on the topics discussed in each volume. By inviting authors, reviewers and members of the editorial board from internationally renowned academic centres abroad conducting research in the humanities, we are also concerned with the internationalisation of the results of research conducted in Poland. Since 2018, scientific articles have been published thematic issues that present selected literary, linguistic and cultural phenomena. From 2021, this magazine is published only in electronic version. MEiN points: 70 ISSN: 0239-426X e-ISSN: 2449-853X Submitted articles rejection rate : approx. 20%
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Copyright (c) 2025 Agnieszka Muchowska http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Emotions in Literature, Culture, Language – Introduction
The article presents the content of issue 2 of "Annales UMCS. Sec. FF" from 2025.
Copyright (c) 2025 Monika Gabryś-Sławińska, Carrie Helms Tippen http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Embodiment of National Emotional Memory in Folklore and in Ukrainian Romantic Prose (on the Example of the Emotions of “Fear” and “Grief”)
The article describes the essence of the concept of folk emotional memory. For the first time in Ukrainian literary studies, the features of the artistic functioning of the emotions of “grief” and “fear” in folklore (using examples of Ukrainian folk proverbs, sayings, fairy tales) and samples of Ukrainian romantic prose are considered (works by Panteleimon Kulish, Levko Borovykovsky, Ivan Barshchevsky, Marko Vovchok, etc.). The study also identifies a three-level structure of the embodiment of “fear” in the literary texts of Ukrainian Romanticism: spiritual fear, demonophobia, and existential fear, etc. To achieve the aim of the study, genetic, comparative, and comparative-historical research methods were employed, along with methods of analysis, synthesis.
Copyright (c) 2025 Iryna Terekhova http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“[...] now our hearts are bound with a double bond.” Letters of Helena née Dzieduszycka Pawlikowska to Paulina née Ratajska Dzieduszycka as a Testimony of Sisterly Friendship and the Beginning of the Two Women's Marital Histories
The aim of this article is to present a manuscript set of letters by Helena Dzieduszycka (Pawlikowska from 1859) to her friend and future sister-in-law, Paulina Ratajska (Dzieduszycka from 1860). The correspondence, which forms part of the Pawlikowski Archive, has been treated as a story unfolding over time (1856-1860) about the emotions of two friends caused by changes in their personal lives that they experienced almost simultaneously. Firstly, the analysis of the letters provides insight into a remarkable love story involving two couples, in which, apart from the author and the addressee, an important role is also played by their fiancés, and later husbands: Mieczysław Dzieduszycki and Mieczysław Pawlikowski, distinguished representatives of Galician families who contributed greatly to Polish culture. secondly, it allows for the reconstruction and evaluation of the picture of the feelings, expectations and needs of young women from the noble and landed gentry of the second half of the 19th century that emerges from the letters. This sketch is a starting point for the publication of the correspondence between Mieczysław Dzieduszycki and his wife Paulina, author of columns, stories and humorous sketches written under the pseudonym Paweł Sas.
Copyright (c) 2025 Maria Katarzyna Berkan-Jabłońska http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Everyday Life During the War from an Intrahistorical Perspective: Peace in War of Miguel de Unamuno
The article analyzes Miguel de Unamuno’s novel Peace in War with the aim of drawing attention to the crucial role that everyday routine plays in times of war. The intrahistorical perspective adopted in the Spanish writer’s work, closely connected with the principles of the new historiography, enables a detailed description of daily life in the Basque city of Bilbao during the Third Carlist War (1872–1876). Unamuno – who witnessed those events as a child – portrays how, despite the siege and bombardments, people sought to maintain a normal life: they did their chores and even organized social gatherings and dances. Contemporary sociological and psychological research confirms that human beings can effectively endure traumatic experiences by preserving their everyday routines.
Copyright (c) 2025 Elżbieta Joanna Bender http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Dreaminess as a Malady of the Will: Remarks on Prus’s (and Plato’s) Life Ideals in the Margins of Bolesław Prus’s Novella Z legend dawnego Egiptu
Drawing on literary theory and history, philosophy (including the history of philosophy, anthropology, epistemology, and ontology), as well as historical and social sciences (notably psychology and sociology), the author analyzes Bolesław Prus’s novella From the Legends of Ancient Egypt as an allegorical reflection on the concepts of power, responsibility, and spiritual harmony. The study juxtaposes Prus’s notion of the life ideal with Plato’s tripartite model of the soul: reason, will, and emotion. Ramesses embodies the will subordinated to the common good, while Horus represents dreaminess and emotionality, which – lacking the force of action – lead to failure. Inspired by Platonic thought, Prus argues that only an integrated personality can contribute to the formation of a just society. Although set in ancient Egypt, the novella serves as a commentary on the political realities of Prus’s own time, using the historical setting as a means of circumventing censorship. The article offers a profound analysis of ideals as formative forces shaping both the individual and the state. It presents Prus as a coherent and modern thinker who, drawing on ancient insights, seeks to illuminate for his contemporaries – and for us – the paths toward meaningful (perfect, useful, and fulfilling) individual and collective life.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sylwia Aleksandra Karpowicz-Słowikowska http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Three Reymontian Fantasies in the Novella Szczęśliwi
The novella Szczęśliwi was written while Reymont was working on the railway. The author's most important fantasies are visible in the work: alienation, which he felt as a kind of stigma, the Christmas Eves spent alone because of it, and the dream of remaining forever in a peasant environment. These three fantasies are specific torments that Reymont struggled with. The writer's emotionalism caused him to constantly describe his fate as a state of misfortune. The article reconstructs the genesis of the novella together with previously unknown facts, which facilitates the connection of the text of the novella with the writer's diary notes, refers to the state of research on the text, analyzes components of the fantasies, indicating a strong connection with Reymont's biography. Several hypotheses are also put forward, including the transfer of literary fiction from the novella Szczęśliwi to Reymont's authentic autobiography, which allows us to ask about the credibility of his biography.
Copyright (c) 2025 Dorota Karolina Samborska-Kukuć http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In the Autobiographical Triangle of Experience and Emotion. Around Komediantka
The article characterises Władysław S. Reymont's provincial acting career and its literary representation in Komediantka. By referencing excerpts from the writer's correspondence and diary notes, the article highlights the similarities in experiences, emotions, and struggles of the unfulfilled actor and the novel's protagonist, Janka Orłowska. In the context of theoretical considerations related to the concept of the autobiographical triangle (M. Czermińska), the article explores the complex relationship between the author's biography (Reymont), the fictional character (Orłowska), and the novel’s self-narrative strategy. Within this “triangle,” numerous analogies emerge between the writer's biography and the life experiences of the aspiring stage performer, which in turn shape the depiction of the novel’s fictional reality.
Copyright (c) 2025 Anna Sobiecka http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Images of Women's Work in Witold Wirpsza’s Komentarze do fotografii
The article is an analysis of two lyrical works by Witold Wirpsza included in the volume Comments on Photography. Using John Berger's category of non-expressive photography, the techniques of manipulation carried out by the poet on two photographs from the exhibition “The Family of Man” are shown. Each time, he established a kind of “hidden field” that modifies the image, giving it a completely different meaning. This new meaning was finally interpreted thanks to the category of trepidation (Angst), whose author is Martin Heidegger.
Copyright (c) 2025 Cezary Mateusz Zalewski http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Paranormal Themes, Censorship and the Change of Values in Communist Poland
This paper focuses on two interrelated processes of change: the evolution of the censorship’s attitude towards paranormal topics and the changes in the system of values, in particular during the last two decades of communist Poland. An examination of the archival records of the Main Office for the Control of the Press, Publications, and Public Performances and an analysis of the content of press articles and books concerning paranormal topics reveal that, from the 1970s onwards, Poland underwent transformations similar to those described by Inglehart in The Silent Revolution (1977), i.e. a shift towards postmaterialist values, although the dynamics and conditions of this process were different than in the West. Paranormal issues and various esoteric practices fitted well with new developments such as the need for individual autonomy, increasing concern for physical and mental health and a deepening ecological awareness.
Copyright (c) 2025 Monika Bednarczuk http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Media, Justice and Rhetoric: The Case of Christian Ranucci
This article examines the media coverage of the Christian Ranucci case (1974–1976) as an emblematic example of how journalistic discourse can shape judicial outcomes in France. Drawing on Lloyd Bitzer’s theory of the “rhetorical situation” and Chaim Perelman’s concept of the “universal audience,” the study highlights the ways in which the media constructed a climate of fear and vengeance that undermined judicial impartiality. Particular attention is given to the rhetorical mechanisms which transformed the trial into a media spectacle. The analysis demonstrates that while media reporting aims at transparency and public education, its sensationalism and urgency often collide with the rationality of legal proceedings.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marta SOBIESZEWSKA http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Father of the Homeland and Abandoned Daughter. The Emotions in Natalia Ginzburg’s The Manzoni Family
The biography of Alessandro Manzoni, one of the most influential writers of Italian Romanticism, is well known to his readers. This is the starting point for Natalia Ginzburg, an important 20th-century writer, in her work La famiglia Manzoni [The Manzoni Family]. The author, known for addressing the complex relationships between family members, describes an interesting and varied perspective in the text which, although focused on Alessandro’s destiny, also sees the individual characters participating equally in the story. In doing so, Ginzburg highlights their emotions. This article aims to describe the uniqueness of the relationship between the writer and his daughter Matilde. Their original correspondence shows a lonely and sick young woman seeking the attention and love of her famous father. The analysis of the history of Alessandro and Matilde Manzoni starts from theoretical considerations on literary genres, recognisable in Ginzburg’s work, together with the concepts of trauma, memory and post-memory.
Copyright (c) 2025 Katarzyna Kowalik http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
When Metaphor Becomes Flesh: Reconceptualizing Synaesthetic Metaphors in Becoming Animal
This paper explores David Abram’s non-fiction work Becoming Animal, highlighting, how his extensive use of metaphorical language reveals and enacts the embodied character of human experience. The physical dimension of metaphor invites the reader to sense the protagonist’s carnality as resonating within their own body, and through this heightened bodily awareness, to experience a reciprocal exchange with the world – a process frequently conveyed in the text through synaesthetic metaphors. This article argues that our very embodiment enables a natural union of the senses, thereby challenging the Aristotelian model of five distinct senses and calling into question the status of so-called synaesthetic metaphors – since, grounded in lived experience, they may no longer be either strictly “synaesthetic” or merely “metaphorical.” The paper employs conceptual metaphor theory as its primary framework, complemented by phenomenological insights from Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
Copyright (c) 2025 Agata Walek http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Anthropo- and Zoomorphic Materializations of Emotions in Zerocalcare’s The Armadillo Prophecy
The first part of the article is devoted to a brief introduction of the figure of the Italian cartoonist, who is little known to the Polish audience (we only have two translations of his comics, and this article is the first text in Polish about his work) and the context of the publication of his first full-length graphic novel – an example of auto-fiction. The main part of the article is an analysis of the depiction of emotions in The Armadillo Prophecy which, using deductive methods, aims to identify the techniques of imagery most frequently used by Zerocalcare, and to distinguish the categories of characters appearing in the text. The author uses an interesting procedure of physical emanation, introducing anthropo- and zoomorphic materializations of emotions accompanying the main character (author’s alter ego). The article ends with a conclusion, which aims to find points of contact between Zerocalcare's literary works and the modern science of emotions. The author concludes that in his comics Zerocalcare describes his own method of dealing with difficult situations that is the observation from the position of a spectator, how his automatic reaction clashes with the analytical sphere, which is presented in the form of a physical emanation (anthropomorphic and zoomorphic materializations of emotions).
Copyright (c) 2025 Paulina Kwaśniewska-Urban http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Tasting Anxieties: Food and Emotion in Black Mirror
The article analyzes the functions of food in selected Black Mirror episodes as an affective body and a matrix that organizes emotions, social relations, and power structures. Its aim is to show how food in science fiction can reveal mechanisms of power and shape affective relations. The starting point is Sara Ahmed’s affect theory, which describes emotions as forces circulating between bodies. The article also draws on Lauren Berlant’s concept of “cruel optimism,” arguing that food functions as a vehicle for unfulfilled promises. Analyzing the episodes “Fifteen Million Merits,” “Nosedive,” and “Be Right Back,” the article shows that eating – or the lack of it – becomes a figure of social norms and emotional alienation, contributing to research on food in science fiction narratives.
Copyright (c) 2025 Joanna Łapińska http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Those Who Feed Others: Representation of Meat Industry Professions in Comme une bête by Joy Sorman
Comme une bête by Joy Sorman (2012) falls within the realm of sociological literature, which aims to depict man at work. Telling the story of a teenager who decides to become a butcher, the novel highlights the specificity of meat-related professions, discredited by contemporary society, which celebrates the animal cause while disdaining physical labor. Drawing on studies in the sociology of literature and on ecocritical theories, this article aims to examine the literary representation of professions perceived as coarse and dehumanizing, as well as to reveal a reflection on the relationship between humans and animals and on carnivorism. This reflection is developed here to rehabilitate a job that is hard, thankless, but crucial for providing for the food needs of the population.
Copyright (c) 2025 Anna Maziarczyk http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Girlhood Archive of Affective Violence: Anna Ciarkowska’s Pestki as Emancipatory Autofiction
The aim of this article is to analyze Anna Ciarkowska’s Pestki through the lens of contemporary feminist theories. The concept of autogynography, which prioritizes female subject and (quasi)autobiographical or autofictional texts, provided a context for these considerations. In Pestki, “affect” had a significant impact on narrative, metaphors and language. This claim enables an examination of the corporeal subjectivity presented in the book in relation to the contested social norms and desired body image. The book highlights women’s attempts to articulate experiences of exclusion, while possible emancipation lies in a relational and coalition-based politics.
Copyright (c) 2025 Anita Głowacka http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Collective Grief Storytelling as a Form of Social Media Therapy @GhenghisKhan01
Grief autobiography is a form of storytelling where the narrator tells personal stories of hurt and loss. Art-based research is used to explore the author’s personal grief and how it is implicated in the grief of @GhenghisKhan01 and that of other netizens. This article examines @GhenghisKhan01’s tweets about grief as an intersection of social media grief storytelling and therapy as referential to the author’s personal loss. This study analyses @GhenghisKhan01’s autobiographical tweets of 19 March 2022, about the death of his father and other responses to similar autobiographical tweets that others tweeted under his, forming a thematic thread of responses to grief and loss that has 4,355 retweets, 837 quotes, 13.7k likes, which represent the content of participatory grief autobiographical narratives. This study accounts for how the researcher is implicated in this grief. The study examines the style and functions of Twitter grief storytelling from a referential point of view. This study conclude that autobiographical grief narratives shared on social media as posted by @Ghenghiskhan01, serves as a medium for both personal emotional expression and collective mourning.
Copyright (c) 2025 Onyekachi Peter Onuoha http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Names of Regional Trains (Traction Units) in Lower Silesia and South Moravia
The aim of this study is to collect, analyse onomastics and compare the names of trains serving regional traffic in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship and the South Moravian Region. Both regions have recently carried out intensive purchases of rolling stock. The new vehicles have been given names: in Poland, names derived from Polish monarchs (anthroponyms were transferred), while in the Czech Republic, names of grape varieties (chrematonyms) and names of wine appellations (microtoponyms) have been used. The author examines functions of the collected porejonyms, compares the names and is interested in the differences and similarities. Additionally the author seeks answers to the questions of who and what purpose such proper names serve, and for what purpose such names are given to regional trains. Furthermore, the author concludes that the analyzed porejonyms primarily unite local communities (residents of the areas served by these trains).
Copyright (c) 2025 Piotr Tomasik http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Frame Analysis as a Tool for Decoding Emotion Concepts
This study develops a theoretical and methodological foundation for applying frame theory to the analysis of emotion concepts. Based on Lawrence Barsalou’s frame theory, three theses are formulated and justified: First, the key to analyzing emotion concepts lies in the contextualization of the emotion words that represent these concepts. Second, the frame approach is suitable for decoding emotion concepts from context, but it poses methodological challenges. Third, these challenges can be addressed through corpus-linguistic methods.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ni Yan, Deming Kong http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Monika Gabryś-Sławińska http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0