The theme of the article is the concept of credentials based on the data from general and terminological dictionaries. It contains a proposal for a Russian-Polish entry article with the name of this diplomatic document (entry article as a part of a translation dictionary within the project “Diplomacy and politics. Russian-Polish dictionary survey”). The author explains the history of this term in both languages, focusing on the dissimilarity of its grammatical form both in Russian and Polish monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, which is especially visible while comparing dictionary and textual data. The material derived from Russian and Polish parallel texts (autonomous, independent of each other) is described according to the recommendations adopted for translation dictionaries – providing their users with the practical information on the usage of units (their syntactic requirements and usage conditions). The analysis also devotes ample attention to the socalled undescribed translated items (equivalents not recorded so far in Russian-Polish/ Polish-Russian lexicography). The discussion of numerous bilingual dictionaries justifi es the claim that a considerable part of collected units can be regarded as undescribed translated items (undescribed equivalents).

The aim of the article is to present loan vocabulary connected to clothes and ornaments. The Old-Believers’ dialect is subject to Polish interference on the lexical level because vocabulary is the linguistic element which is changing most rapidly. The dialect studied is situated in the Polish linguistic environment and thus it is isolated due to its lack of territorial contact with the Russian language. It belongs to the so-called Pskov group – the western Central Great Russian akanie dialects. Since the 1950s, when research into the dialect was initiated by Iryda Grek-Pabisowa and Irena Maryniakowa, the biggest increase in loan words has been noticed in the vocabulary related to health, jobs, clothes and ornaments, and the expressions used to refer to the new reality: the progress of civilisation, education, transport and agriculture. The lexemes borrowed are subject to various adaptation processes, for example, phonetic, stress-pattern, morphological or derivational ones.

The article presents 123 names of clothing in the village of Wójtowce in Podole. The collected material is divided into subgroups: names of head coverings, names of outerwear, names of underwear, names of footwear, names of shoes and their parts, names of accessories and parts of clothing, names of actions connected with clothing. Among the names of clothing there are both borrowings from the Ukrainian and/or Russian languages and Polish native words, including the words common for Polish and Ukrainian/Russian. The presented words are compared with certain Polish dialects in Ukraine (including unpublished material). In the described vocabulary Ukrainian and/or Russian borrowings constitute 37% while native Polish lexemes are predominant and make up 44%, words common for Polish and Ukrainian/Russian – 19%.

The officials behind the Soviet onomasticon development campaign chose desktop calendars, a publicly available and widely circulated printed medium, to serve as a vehicle for the propagation of the new revolutionary anthroponomy. The paper looks into the masculine names recommended for general use by Universal Desktop Calendars issued by the State Publishing House in 1924–29. Mimicking the Russian Orthodox Church Calendars, its editors proposed their readers from up to six (in 1924–1926) to three (in 1927–1929) masculine names for each day. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the total body of the existing calendar material, the paper proceeds to classify the proper names by their actual source, including: Orthodox Church calendars, Catholic canons, antique mythology, later world literature and folklore sources, celebrated names of the past, toponyms, the Slavic name corpus, and, of course, ideologized sovietisms. The general picture of the sovietisized name list is accompanied with a description of its five-year dynamics refl ecting annually introduced modifications.

In this paper I respond to Elżbieta Mikiciuk’s polemic with my article: The Brothers Karamazov: Dostoevsky’s Tainted Hosanna (“Slavia Orientalis” 2017, nr 1; the polemic was published in “Slavia Orientalis” 2017, nr 2). I use this opportunity to look at my article anew and restate my interpretative approach to Dostoevsky’s last novel as well as the line of argumentation I had decided to adopt. The substance of my response relies heavily on the point evoked several times by E. Mikiciuk, concerning my “biased” selection of citations from the novel which generates a “one-dimensional”, “manipulated”, and “false” image of Christianity as a religion that approves of an “economic” idea of God, a God from whom one has to “buy” a right to salvation. Recalling narrations of starets Zosima on the problem of involuntary suffering and death, and meditating on an indefi nite, unpredictable or highly ambiguous nature of such characters as Dymitr and Alyosha Karamazov or Smerdyakov, I emphasize the radical openness and polyphonic nature of Dostoevsky's text which allows for manifold, even contradictory readings and understandings of the same fragments of his complex works. Further, I develop a key thesis that both theological/religious interpretations of Dostoevsky’s oeuvre, as supported by Elżbieta Mikiciuk, and philosophical/ existential ones, as advanced by me, are feasible and valuable as long as they remain anchored in a close reading and do not lay claims to representing the one and only valid approach to his literary universe. The paper ends with a conclusion in which I encourage a mutually inspirational dialogue (the agon, if you will) between these two exegetic strategies. Such a dialogue seems essential for a reinvigoration of Dostoevsky’s literary work, against which one should continuously measure himself in a constant, even painful at times, sense of insuffi ciency of his/her interpretative insight facing a paradoxical, axiologically ambivalent, and strictly polyphonic oeuvre.

The author analyses neologisms of M. Sholokhov in relation to their translation into the German language. Then the quality of the translation is determined. In order to evaluate the translations three criteria are adopted: the degree of semantic closeness between the newly created units and their translation equivalents, their expressiveness and vividness. Based on these criteria the author evaluates the accuracy of the German translations.

This article describes the study of the reception of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s works by Polish and Russian readers. I have tried to identify similarities and differences in the interpretation of his novels in relation to readers’ nationality, age, education, life experiences and worldview. This study (survey) confi rmed some of the previously obtained results. It turns out, once again, that Dostoevsky is a writer who still arouses interest, his novels are popular. The study also showed that the interpretation of Dostoevsky’s works usually does not depend on reader’s nationality – Polish and Russian respondents are in agreement when it comes to their views about the books. Differences in the reception of novels can be correlated mostly with respondents faith and/or unbelief.

The article describes semantic roles of instrumental case (tvoritel’nyj padezh) in Russian and other Slavic languages. Its functions as the instrument, agent, route, temporative, vehicle, comparison, nominal predicate and object of action, and their place in human mental world are considered. Examples of izosemic (standard) and non-izosemic realization of these functions are provided. It is concluded that each semantic role is associated with the specifi c range of lexemes. The idea of interdependence or syncretism of meanings of the instrumental case is discussed. Examples from modern fi ction, where the opposition between certain functions of instrumental case is neutralized, worn off, are provided too. It is hypothesized that in certain discourse circumstances the instrumental case becomes the symbol of common dependency of noun from verb.

The article discusses the book Roizman. The Ural Robin Hood by Valery Panyushkin (2014). The author of the article points out that the novel, which belongs to a non-fiction literature, contains typical features of a reportage (i.e. the category of a participant and the category of a witness). This book also seems to be taking qualities of a narrative prose. The writer uses virtual reported speech form or presents reality from the perspective of his characters’ awareness. Such a narrative method does not lead Panyushkin to blur the boundary between referentiality and fi ctionality in his book but inclines cognitive skepticism. Neither does it neglect the “truth” of facts, nor does it interpret them, but it indicates various ways of interpreting certain events or phenomena.

The authors analyse around 300 names with ideological components drawn out from a list of around 5,000 colonies, villages, hamlets, rural settlements and khutors located in the USSR, in which Germans lived in the 1920s and 30s. These oekonyms-sovieticisms can be classifi ed into three groups: 1) those derived from the names of individuals who had achieved renown (e.g. Ленинфельд, Подарок Ильича, Роза Люксембург, Марксфельд, Либкнехтдорф, Тельман, Клара Цеткин, Кировсфельд, Калининталь), 2) those commemorating phenomena and events linked with the Revolution and the era of Soviet rule (e.g. Красная Германия, Ротвейде, Ротер Штерн, Краснофельд, Октоберберг), 3) those referring to areas of production (e.g. Счастливый Труд, Культурный пахарь, Арбейтслибе).

The author of the article makes an attempt to show borrowings from the perspective of their penetration into Polish and presents the most common and less frequent words. Special attention is paid to the usage and context of separate words in pairs (native word ~ borrowed word) in two idiolects that demonstrate the preservation of the Polish language tradition and show a new wave of loanwords as well. The author describes some word-formative peculiarities of verbs in the dialectal Polish language of Gródek Podolski. This text can be a supplement to the previous papers concerning borrowed vocabulary and morphological derivation in Polish dialects.

The history of “Études de théologie, de philosophie et d’histoire” is connected with the Work of Saints Cyril and Methodius (L’OEuvre des Saints Cyrille et Méthode), which was founded in 1855. The purpose of the Work was prayer as well as refl ection and discussion on the union of the Catholic and Orthodox Church. The founder of the Work, Ivan Gagarin, once Russian Orthodox and from 1842 a Catholic in France, gathered for this purpose a vast library in order to document the history of ecumenism and the ecclesiastical history of the Slavic countries. With time, the Slavonic Library became one of the most abundant book collections on these subjects in Western Europe. Gagarin believed that the West knew too little about the Orthodox Russia, which was an impediment to the union of the Churches. To bring his motherland closer to Western Catholics and to present problems to be faced by those who strove for the unity of the Christian East and West, Gagarin decided to start to publish a magazine “Études de théologie, de philosophie et d’histoire”, for which he needed approval of the superiors of the Jesuit Order. Due to Gagarin’s prolonged negotiations with his superiors, the magazine did not start to be published until 1857. This paper deals with the history of “Études de théologie, de philosophie et d’histoire”.

“Transcendental function” is one of the central category in Carl Gustav Jung’s Analytical Psychology. The theoretical aspects of its realization in the context of literary work are the researches object in this article. Fundament of analyze is Nikolai Gogol’s outstanding story The Overcoat.

Kazimierz Jaworski contributed to a great extent to popularising Yevhen Malaniuk’s poetry in the interwar period. Most of Jaworski’s translations of Malaniuk’s poems into Polish were published in the years 1933–1937 in the magazine Kamena in Chełm. The poet from Lublin undertook to translate less popular poems, unknown to Polish readers. He opted not to work with the Ukrainian poet’s patriotic works, familiar to Polish literary circles, and chose poems of intimate and existential nature instead. From the two collections which were known in Poland, Earth And Iron (1930) and The Earthly Madonna (1934), he selected poems which in a special way correlate with his own lyrical works from the To a Red And White Mistress (1924) collection. What deserves special attention among Kazimierz Jaworski’s translating techniques is his exceptional diligence in choosing suitable Polish semantic equivalents and in rendering an appropriate rhythm of poems. Most of his translations can be described as adequate. They are not absolute, but they convey the originality of a given work through preserving the form and contents of the translated poem in the most faithful way possible. Jaworski’s translations show his inclination to poetise and dynamise the text. The translator readily uses his own metaphors and expands phrases with emotionally charged elements. Kazimierz Andrzej Jaworski was also a tireless propagator of information concerning the most recent translations of Yevhen Malaniuk’s poetry as well as the publishing activities of one of the most valued representatives of the Ukrainian immigration in Poland.

The article portrays the motif of dream and its symbolic meanings in Vladimir Nabokov’s short story Terror, what has not been the subject of detailed research so far. It has been determined that the experience of dream in the analysed story denotes the protagonist’s attempt to escape from the surrounding world and a shift into the sphere of the unconscious (mysterious anaesthesia). Thus the topos of dream/dream fantasy in Terror implies the existence of a hero in a particular kind of chronotope, and is connected with the semantics of the passage – from demonic chaos and metaphysical terror to restoration of cosmic (microcosmic) order and to “becoming oneself” (Ricoeur). Moreover, dream in Nabokov’s text is intrinsically linked with the problem of compatibility/ incompatibility of the two worlds: the real and the oneiric one, existing in reality and reflected in a mirror, and also with the motif of a doppelganger which bears references to Dostoyevsky’s writings. Also, an oneiric image of a laughing woman is analysed in detail in the article. It has been proven that laugter (giggle) of the story’s heroine unveils ambivalent and demonic dimension of femininity and is a reference to Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades.

The article discusses the image of Volhynian Polesye as presented in Alexander Kuprin’s novella Olesya. Kuprin’s piece combines numerous elements characteristic of a Russian Volhynia text. As regards nature, this is primarily represented by the theme of wildlife. The motif of an untouched, virginal wilderness along with solitude also appears. As for the presentation of customs and morals, the themes of secluded rural life as well as the ignorance and backwardness of the local population are conspicuous. It is here that the binary oppositions typical of a Volhynia text are expressively conveyed: these include ours vs. the others, and the human vs. the devilish. In this work, mythology also features prominently. The image of Polesie shown in this text is to a large extent that of a mythical expanse where primeval forces lurk, one emanating an ambience of mystery. It is this ambience that inspires the narrator to ponder the relationship between man and nature, and to encourage existential reflection. In conclusion, it should be said that Kuprin’s novella made a significant contribution to the formation of the Russian Volhynia text at the turn of the 20th century.

The paper attempts to approach some peculiarities of the two branches of the early Slavs (Sclaveni and Antes), as the Byzantine sources of the sixth and early seventh centuries present them as being similar. Within this context the following are examined: a) the origin and ethnic identity of the Sclaveni and the Antes, taking into account certain historiographical models on the early Slavs, as well as the controversial issue of the ethnic identity of the Antes (Slavic or Iranian) and the etymology of their name; b) the material culture: under consideration are the Prague and Penkovka cultures, identifi ed with the Sclaveni and the Antes respectively, their common elements and peculiarities, their mutual infl uences as well as infl uences from other cultures; c) the political and social organization: the internal structures of the Sclaveni and the Antes, taking into account the testimony of Jordanes, Procopius and Maurice, the references in other sources to the titles of chieftains, or a kind of genealogy into the early Slavic society, as well as the treaty of Byzantium with the tribal union of the Antes are under scrutiny. The paper draws the conclusion that the Sclaveni and the Antes shared similarities, but actually were not one and the same at all, as it appears in the Byzantine sources. Furthermore, the peculiarities that appear the political-social organization and the material culture of the Antes, due to their historical and cultural evolution, are not of a degree that could dispute their Slavic ethnic and cultural identity.

An activist of two big traditions. Skaryna and Ukraine Scholarly research of Francysk Skaryna legacy has been initiated by J.V. Bacmejster in 1776 and V.S. Sopikow in 1813. Further research conducted in the XX century by Alexander Bilecki, Pavel Popov, Yaroslav Isayevich, U. Anichenko and contemporary studies of Halyna Kovalchuk, Alexandr Nauvov, Mariola Walczak-Mikolajczak and others demonstrate how important were Skaryna’s activities on the border of two big traditions. In this context it’s worth to focus on a topic “Skaryna and Ukraine” in all its depth: biographical, publishing, polygraphic, academic, bibliographical. Ukrainian episode in Skaryna’s life and his birth town of Polotsk is related to the cult of Saint Euphrosyne of Polotsk who established the fi rst female monastery and is considered a patron of female monasticism of Rus. Polygraphic context of Skaryna’s activities is tied to Western Europe. Upon the receipt of a doctorate in medicine at the University of Padua he visited Venice – one of the most prominent centers of printing and publishing including Slavic, Greek and Hebrew texts where he also mastered modern printing techniques. In Prague Skaryna used two color printing technique to publish The Song of Songs and print the title page of Biblia Ruska. In Vilnius two color printing technique has been applied to print fi ve chapters of the Bible and just one title page of Psalter.

The subject of the article are lit erary and non-literary allusions in the poem by G. Derzhaw in "To Tsarevich Khlor" entitled. They referred to the political and social events that took place during his lifetime. Some o f the allusions he explained in the Commentaries he wrote to his poems, others explain ed in an ambiguous way.