The article is dedicated to the determination of the types and functions of “someone else’s word”, i.e. intertextual relationships, present in political dramas of contemporary Russian writers. The author focuses on two types of intertexts such as quotes and allusions; determines their importance to the dramatic work as a whole, and distinguishes topic-related groups of texts to which dramatists refer. The conclusions of the study incline to place the phenomenon of political drama between what is “literary” and “social”, “eternal” and “up-to-date”.The analysis was carried out on the materials of dramas such as: Putin.doc by Victor Teterin, Sentry (Часовой) by Siergiej Reshetnikov, Meat by Olga Pogodina, and Beria by Dmitry Karapuzov.

This essay examines the Nibelungensage and its filmic adaptations within the framework of the multi- perspective approach of German Studies. It is about the approaches of Casper-Hehne/ Schweiger in the sense of a synthetic approach to the concept of culture, and Nünning/ Nünning, whose terminology is extended to filmic narrations. The intertextuality of the “Nibelungen-films” and of the “Nibelungensage” is also relevant. The analysis focuses on the films by Fritz Lang (1924), Harald Reinl (1966/67), Uli Edel (2004) and Ralf Huettner (2008).

Podwaliny [Foundations], the poem written by Leopold Staff right after the war and carrying traces of a profound trauma, takes advantage of the motifs drawn from the biblical parable of good and bad construction practices (Gospel According to St Matthew, 7:24–27). In her interpretation of the poem, the author analyses the way(s) in which the biblical paradigm has been transformed, and the consequences of this procedure. Use is made of the opinions of the scholars who have reconstructed the primary function of parabolic stories, having identified in them the original forms of thinking which preceded the evolvement of abstract concepts encoding qualities.

The article concerns the history and unique nature of local names derived from exonyms, such as Alexandria, Spain and Lisbon. It describes both past and contemporary onyms, i.e. the names of housing estates, such as Little Tuscany, and apartment buildings, such as Rome, London and Mont Blanc, which are the continuations of the toponymic model launched in the past. The author embeds this model of names in a broader cultural context by referring to language universals. In addition to the rich collection of the oldest biblical names that have been transferred to present names, transfers of old names can be observed among contemporary names. In the past (in the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries), these were mainly the names of countries and, less frequently, those of cities, lands and geographic objects. Today, toponyms are usually based on the names of European cities, attractive geographic objects (lakes, rivers, islands, mountains, volcanoes) and, more rarely, states. While the names of biblical lands were fascinating and attractive in the past, they are almost absent in contemporary names, and if they are present, they concern culturally fixed images such as that of Eden. Both formerly and today, the creators of this kind of names show a longing for the creation of a new world which is no longer inhabited by God in a strictly religious dimension, but a secular one where happiness, peace and joy are sought. In both characterised spaces, the names transferred serve commemorative functions and also imitate coveted spaces which cannot be physically inhabited but can at least be imitated by their names. Formerly, they were real imago mundi representing sacred places (e.g. names such as Calvary). Today, they are created as part of the contemporary architectural tendency for coherence in planning space, names and design.

In France, as well as in other countries of the French language, the relationship between the Bible and literature mirrors the dilemma facing the European culture, a culture founded on the Greek and Roman civilization, when it was becoming Christianized. The Christians in the French speaking Europe confront the problem of 'double-fidelity': either to the Bible as the Truth, or to the Greek and Roman culture representing Art. Two trends can be observed. Some would try to prove the artistic superiority of the Bible over pagan literature. Others would attempt to show that even in that kind of non-Christian literature it is possible to observe the presence of supernatural truth. The dilemma abates and loses its importance starting with the XVIII century when literature as such emancipates and becomes an autonomous reality of esthetic character.

Unsurprisingly, in the Middle Ages, the Bible constitutes the crucial source of inspiration for French literature. Authors compose paraphrases and long poems based on Biblical motifs. There appear mystery plays, with their performance often spread over a number of days. In the XVI century, both Catholics and Protestants produce a number of translations of the Holy Scriptures. There appear poetic pa- raphrases of psalms, and also extensive epic poems adopting various Biblical threads. In the XVII century, the genre of poetic meditation appears in addition to the genres already mentioned. On the other hand, the kind of drama based on Biblical themes is in retreat; it finds refuge in the academic theater, when it becomes superseded by works of the classicist character. In the beginning of the XVIII cen- tury, some scholars try to demonstrate the religious character of the works of Antiquity.

Together with the rationalism of Enlightenment, there appears a new attitude towards the Bible. In Voltaire, the Bible is an object of attacks and of ridicule. In Rousseau, it is a paradigm for the kind of discourse that is supposed to take its place. In Romanticism, we can observe the influence of the Bible over both Christian and non-Christian writers. In the works of the latter, the poet becomes a mystagogue interpreting the old myths. The Bible influences poetry; it serves as a stylistic and esthetic model, as a source of themes and motifs, and also as a point of reference for poems in the philosophy of history with the pantheistic or else progressist and utopic message, and for non-Christian apocrypha. In Symbolism, the Bible becomes completely despoiled of its religious value. It is being used in entirely atheistic and subjectivist ways. By the end of the XIX century, and in the first half of the XX century, we observe in France some kind of Catholic renaissance. The Bible is present in the prophetic works of Le'on Bloy. It becomes the object of the exegetical work of Claudel, of the poetry of Jouve and P. Emmanuel. In non-Christian writers in loses its function of the book of faith and becomes a book of myths.

This article deals with Janusz Makarczyk’s bestselling historical romance Jafar of Baghdad, first published in 1950. Makarczyk had a varied career as a journalist, travel writer of the ‘globtrotter school’, military officer, diplomat and academic; his deep involvement with the Middle East and Arab history began in the 1926 when he was sent to the Polish consulate in Jerusalem. The life of Jafar ibn Yahya provided him not only with enough material for a gripping story of love and romance but also a pretext for painting a broad canvas of historical events and personages. Addressed to younger readers, the book is didactic in the sense that it offers them basic information about Islam (e.g. the division between the sunni and the shia) as well as lots of facts about the Arab world at the peak of the Abbasid Age (e.g. Harun al-Rashid and the struggle for his succession; rise and fall of the powerful Barmakid family, Harun al-Rashid’s half-sister Abassa; the great Islamic jurists Malik ibn Anas, Muhammad al-Shaybani and Al-Shafi ‘i; an assortment of poets and scholars, including the translator Ibn al-Muqaffa). In addition to countless allusions to the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, the narrative is encrusted with explicit and covert quotes from the Qur’an, Arabic adages and proverbs (32), the poems of Abu-l-’Atahiya and Abu Nuwas. The writer is aware that the allusions and learned references need to be contextualized in a way that is functional and that their incorporation into the main text must be handled with maximum flexibility. The great popularity of Jafar of Baghdad in its time can be taken as proof that Makarczyk did succeed in bringing the two functions of his novel, the cognitive and the aesthetic – to instruct and to please – into a harmonious whole.