ISSN: 1897-1423 e-ISSN: 2956-4646 DOI: 10.34739/clit Punktacja MEiN: 20
Wydawnictwo Naukowe UwS, Uniwersytet Mateja Bela w Bańskiej Bystrzycy
„Boleslavínovci“. Príbeh autocenzurovanej básnickej zbierky City vděčnosti mladých synů Slovenska (1837)
The article focuses on the collection Feelings of Gratitude in which the names of future members of the secret society Vzájemnost dominate and proposes for this group of authors an alternative designation „Boleslavinians“. It refers to the initiator and the leader in the background at the time of collection preparation Alexander Boleslavín Vrchovský. The article aims to supplement and accentuate the non-monolithic model of Slovak Romanticism by emphasizing one aspect: the need to more distinctly separate and foreground, within scholarly and educational narratives, the earlier formative phase of the “Boleslavinians” – characterized by republican, democratic, Mazzinian, and Polonophile orientations – and to link it more explicitly to the broader European democratizing “wave of national romanticism” of 1830.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Postać naukowca w opowieści Walentyna Tarnawskiego Rozprawa w kontekście dyskursu maskulinistycznego
The article examines the protagonist of Walentyn Tarnawskyj’s long short story, The Dissertation, within the context of masculinity discourse in Ukrainian literature. The author maintains that the position of scholars in the Soviet Union depended on the field and background; therefore, the dominant models of Soviet masculinity fit them selectively. The literary representation of scholars in Ukrainian literature of the Soviet period was rare and reflected the dominant Soviet ideology. The late 1980s in Walentyn Tarnawskyj’s writing present a new type of scholar-character and literary expression. In the context of masculinity discourse, Tarnawskyj’s protagonist appears as a person of convoluted identity torn between his life priorities regarding academic and social status and suppressed spiritual desires provoked by an ideal woman. The author concludes by stating that Tarnawskyj’s Dissertation while breaking the socialist realist Soviet canon, may well be regarded within the tradition of Ukrainian “Chimeric” prose as well as within European classics.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.pl
Chłopaki (nie) płaczą. O (de)konstruowaniu stereotypu męskości w polskiej twórczości operowej dla dzieci
This article examines the representation of boys in Polish opera for children, with particular attention to their emotionality. Such a perspective situates the study within broader reflections on the construction of male identity in art, film, theatre, literature, the press, and advertising, as outlined in typologies of Polish academic discourse on masculinity. The analysis seeks to address the following questions: Which models of masculinity operate in Polish children’s opera? Does this genre reinforce established stereotypes in its portrayals of male protagonists, or does it subvert them by articulating alternative images of boyhood and young masculinity? Furthermore, in line with Krzysztof Arcimowicz’s conceptual framework, to what extent does Polish opera for children adhere to a traditional paradigm of masculinity, or participate in the emergence of a new one?
O męskości niejednorodnej. Powieść Harper Lee Zabić drozda
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, contemporary American writer Harper Lee, presents a series of vividly drawn images of masculine figures. The main character is a representation of what might be termed a ‘real’ man: honest, fair, courageous, determined, and casual. The other characters, despite appearing somewhat in the shadow of the protagonist, are also worthy of consideration as subjects for literary interpretation.
Ten sam, ale już jakiś inny – kreacja Herkulesa Poirota w ostatnich opowiadaniach Agathy Christie: Pojmanie Cerbera i Wypadek z piłką psa
The focus of this article is Hercule Poirot, one of the primary detectives featured in Agatha Christie’s crime novels. In examining the changes observable in his emotionality and behaviours, particular attention is given to Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks by John Curran. This book includes two short stories, variants of the previously published works, that Agatha Christie could not publish during her lifetime for various reasons. Other works by Christie as well as the television series “Poirot” (1989-2013) are also considered for the sake of context. The article aims to highlight the characteristics that are somewhat incongruent with the hero’s established persona, such as sensuality and a resurrected after many years “blind love” for Vera Rossakoff; his love for animals; a fondness for vodka and other spirits; athleticism; in addition, certain cruelty and alignment with evil. The author reflects on the motivation of both the character and the writer herself, who shaped Poirot in this particular manner.
Agatha Chrisite's Secret Notebooks by John Curran
Fikcie maskulinity v románe Aliny Bronsky Barbara neumiera
The article focuses on Alina Bronsky’s way of constructing and negotiating forms of gender-stereotyped masculinity in the novel Barbara Isn’t Dying based on the central character of Walter. This perspective raises a set of interrelated questions: how such masculinity is delineated and codified in the text, how it manifests itself in particular situations and in various interactions with other characters, and how it evolves and undergoes transformation over the course of the narrative.
In selected alternative Slovak media, symptomatic emotional-expressive lexemes were identified in public written speeches by five politically active Slovak men. These speeches exhibit characteristic emotional-expressive styles that both reveal the speakers’ own emotions and seek to influence the emotional responses of their intended audiences. The lexemes serve as markers of evaluative relationships linked to the perception and interpretation of specific events. Positive and negative emotional evaluations are often intertwined with intellectual evaluative components, reflecting the speakers’ cognitive and psychological engagement. A combined linguistic and content analysis was conducted on selected texts published in 2022. The alternative monthly Extraplus, in particular, provides space for emotionally charged and argumentative contributions, which frequently include manipulative or conspiratorial content. The study focuses on identifying emotionality in language through symptomatic emotional-expressive lexemes, which manifest in figurative and indirect expressions, idioms, as well as ironic and sarcastic constructions.
Profesor v kríze – na príklade románu Perlmannovo mlčanie
This paper analyzes and interprets the emotionality of the main character, Philipp Perlmann, in relation to other male protagonists in the novel Perlmann’s Silence (German original 1995, Slovak translation 2023), situating it within the broader context of the crisis in the academic world and the humanities, as well as the crisis of masculinity. Through the personal narrator Philipp Perlmann, Pascal Mercier reproduces several masculine stereotypes. The protagonist embodies the image of an academic undergoing both a personal crisis (the death of his wife) and a professional one (connected to the decline of the humanities). The latter, in particular, evokes a sense of shame and fear of failure, rooted in his conviction that he does not meet others’ expectations of his professional role. This pressure is further reinforced by social norms of masculinity, which define weakness, vulnerability, or insecurity as threats to male identity. Consequently, silence emerges as a significant cognitive and symbolic motif. Mercier demonstrates a profound understanding of the crisis in the humanities, exacerbated by neoliberal pressures. However, he does not propose a systemic solution; instead, he introduces the process of translation as a means of rediscovering the protagonist’s academic identity.
The paper focuses on the short story Maco Mlieč by Jozef Gregor Tajovský. It examines the author’s empathy toward the socially and personally conditioned problems of the world, as well as his poetics, that is the way of artistic articulation of the theme in the short story. The paper traces the shifts in interpretations of Maco Mlieč throughout the 20th century up to the most recent research by Marcela Mikulová. It draws attention to Mikulová’s ability to interpret previously overlooked elements of the short story, thus arriving at a significantly different and more complex interpretation. In conc-lusion, the paper discusses the didactic processing of Maco Mlieč in secondary school curricula, focusing on the possibilities that literary research proposes for the educational sphere.
Obraz a úloha muža vo verejnom internetovom diskurze
The article undertakes a discourse analysis of texts published on the website muzom.sk. These materials are examined with regard to their motivational and thematic structures, the metaphors employed in constructing images of men, and the discursive strategies used to communicate about men and their emotions. The study thus offers insights into contemporary tendencies in the conceptualization of masculinity and its associated emotional dimensions.
Emocionálnosť a biblická inšpirácia barokovej básne o zemetrasení v Komárne od Š. Korbeľa
The paper focuses on the analysis of the Baroque catastrophic poem “Memorable reflections on the terrible earthquake, which took place in the year 1763 near the end of the month of June in the Hungarian land to prove the terrible wrath of God against the perpetrators of iniquity, in which the famous and beautiful city of Komárno is especially impoverished and deprived of its glory, contained in short verses and written by one of the gardeners working in Christ´s garden. Anno 1763 die 29. Julii” by Štefan Korbeľ. The author views the poem through the prism of the emotions regarding the earthquake, the inhabitants of Komárno, as well as those attributed to the city, the whole world, and the anthropomorphically depicted God. The emphasis is laid on the origin of poetic imagery, which predominantly echoes the Biblical texts. Korbeľ considers the earthquake as a manifestation of God's wrath and punishment, but also as a test and warning for the survivors. The poet sees it as a sign of the Last Judgment and compares it to eternal torment in hell.
Michal Tallo belongs to the young generation reviving certain aspects of anesthetic poetics, which formed in Slovak poetry at the beginning of the 1990s. Anesthetic procedures are directly related to the observed aspect of emotionality in Tallo‘s work. The paper follows the male lyrical heroes from the collections Antimita (Anti-intimacy) (2016), Δ [Delta] (Delta) (2018), Kniha tmy (The Book of Darkness) (2021), and the male characters of the short story Futbal (Football) from the book Všetko je v poriadku, všade je láska (All is well, there is love everywhere) (2024). The paper focuses primarily on one element of Michal Tallo poetics, which is called "admitted affectivity." Affectivity proves specific characteristics of the author's work, which oscillate between the two extreme positions of suppressing and releasing emotions.
Od exaltovanej emocionality k l’ahostajnosti a skepse. O emocionalite postáv vo vybraných textoch súčasnej slovenskej drámy po roku 1990
Contemporary Slovak drama is dominated by male characters who are not heroes in the true sense of the word; they undergo a crisis of masculinity and can not face reality, which leads to male negativism, cruelty, and manipulation. These states, along with the structural transformation of the play and dramatic personae, unleash a wide range of emotions and a spectrum of expression. The subject of interest is seven emblematic dramatic texts from the post-1990 period by E. Maliti-Fraňová, the group of authors of the SkRAT theatre and D. Vicen, D. Gombár and M. Karásek. The article focuses on male emotions, especially the negative ones like fear, anger, anxiety, jealousy, envy, resignation, and scepticism.
Melancholia wschodniego Europejczyka. Emocjonalno-uczuciowa dominanta przedwojennych reportaży Józefa Mackiewicza
This article examines the geocultural conditions of melancholy in the pre-war reportages of Józef Mackiewicz, where melancholy takes two distinct forms. The first one is postcolonial melancholy, which has a social basis and stems from a sense of impossibility resulting from the long durée of the imposed subordination. In the text, this melancholy is expressed through the depiction of emotions experienced by men, usually from the lower social strata. The second kind of melancholy emerges in connection with the descriptions of nature, appearing as a distinctive aura of the Eastern European landscape perceived by the reporter in his encounter with the native environment.
Umelecké zobrazovanie emócií mužských protagonistov v románoch Vandy Rozenbergovej Spoločný nočný mier a Muž z jamy a deti z lásky
This paper examines the representation of the male protagonists‘ emotionality in Vanda ozenbergová´s novels Common Night Peace (2020) and Man in Depression, Children in Love (2017). The conceptual framework of the paper rests on the literary character analysis based on the exploration of the mimetic and thematic dimensions of the literary character. The analysis concentrates on delineating various forms of escapism as they emerge within the mimetic dimension of character construction. In parallel, it examines the interrelation between narrative space, personal thematics, and masculine emotionality within the thematic dimension of character analysis. Emotionality, implicitly rendered and directed inward, constitutes a central element of these novels; it not only shapes the characterization of male protagonists but also imbues the narrative space with additional layers of meaning.
Vergangenheit und Identität im Globalisierungszeitalter: Zu Martin Suters Roman Melody (2023)
This article contends that in his novel Melody Martin Suter looks to question stereotypical images of masculinity which have been perpetuated in world literature since the late 18th century. The novel itself depicts the last days of an influential Zurich businessman, who only appears to have achieved success because his life has been based on a lie: he is hiding a dark secret, but wants to go on beeing seen as a successful statesman. He publicly manifests his pain over the loss of the love of his life and makes everyone believe that he has been abandoned by his fiancée. The young lawyer he hires to sort out his estate also does not fit into the established images of masculinity. Traumatized by his father’s suicide, the protagonist chooses a poorly paid job and a romance with his employer’s niece. Suter’s Melody is therefore a perfect example of a challenging the traditional images of masculinity, which is typical of literature from the last turn of the century. The novel presents both leading male figures as antiheroes and questions the ideal of masculinity as a figment of the imagination.
Podoby hnevu v poézii 19. a 20. storočia: dehumanizačné a infrahumanizačné tendencie lyrických subjektov vo vybraných básňachslovenských básnikov
The paper deals with different depictions of the emotion of anger in the outlined historical framework of Slovak poetry in the 19th–20th centuries. The emphasis is mainly laid on poems associated with the period of growing Hungarianization and later on poems regarding WWII. The article attempts to look at anger, its function, its forms, and the oscillation of its meaning in the actions of lyrical subjects. At the same time, it suggests a new perspective on the phenomena of dehumanization and infrahumanization through various types of metaphors that refer to the emotion of anger in poetry, drawing on the theory of conceptual metaphors and the theory of abjection. Observing different forms of anger can thus reveal not only several attributes of masculine emotionality, but also how historical events affect it.
Literatura i Prawo – przegląd zjawiska, Siedlce 2017 oraz Literatura i Prawo – związki i relacje, Siedlce 2023, red. Beata Walęciuk-Dejneka, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UwS
Prawa autorskie (c) 2024 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Leksyka wskazująca na emocje w psalmie 70. na podstawie tłumaczeń poetów oświecenia – Franciszka Karpińskiego i Michaiła Łomonosowa
The article aims to present lexis that refers to emotions based on Psalm 70 of the ancient King David as translated by Franz Karpinski and Mikhail Lomonosov, two secular men who lived during the Age of Enlightenment. The analysis of these texts suggests that the fear of shame is a important emotion. Fearing defeat, they declare trust in God, who for both of them is the personification of strength and victory, hence the name ‘defender’ in translation. Lomonosov also calls God Поборник (‘defender/ master’), Зиждитель (‘creator’), Помощник (‘helper’), Покровитель (‘patron’), and Пристанище (‘shelter’). While asking for support, both translators promise to praise God, thus ascribing glorification considerable importance.
Männliche Emotionalität in der zeitgenössischen interkulturellen Literatur in Deutschland am Beispielvon Dilek Güngörs Roman Vater und ich
In contemporary intercultural literature in Germany not only the themes of novels and stories are changing, but also the aesthetics of this prose. The article aims to present a specific narrative about the feelings of the father, a former guest worker of Turkish origin, towards his surroundings. The sensitivity of this character plays a special role in this novel, which summarizes the story of a migrant family and contradicts stereotypical opinions about patriarchal orders in such families and Turkish men in Germany. However, the article analyzes not only characters’ emotions, but also the artistic form in which they are expressed. Together, they create a new post-migration perspective in the discussion about multicultural societies.
Męskość w impasie. Życie towarzyskie i uczuciowe Leopolda Tyrmanda w kontekściekryzysu wieku średniego
The article proposes a new reading of Leopold Tyrmand’s Social and Emotional Life in the context of midlife crisis, which eluded interpreters who have focused mainly on the political and satirical aspects of the work. In this context, the author examines the novel from two perspectives: ,,workcentric” or ,,textcentric” and ,,psychocentric”, assuming that it is both an artistic illustration of the midlife crisis phenomenon diagnosed in 1965, as well as a product of a similar crisis occurring in the author’s own psyche. The author is interested in the external symptoms of the crisis and its manifestations in the internal lives of the characters, including their methods of coping with it, on the one hand, and in the work’s connections with Tyrmand’s biography, on the other. Therefore, Social and Emotional Life is interpreted as a text thematizing the writer’s struggles to translate the experienced crisis into a complete literary work. The main theoretical point of reference in the article is the concept of midlife crisis proposed by the Canadian psychoanalyst Elliott Jacques.
...I ślubuję ci nienawiść, rozpacz oraz ból – przemoc w małżeństwie w powieści Mieczysława Srokowskiego Ich tajemnica
In this article, I attempt to analyze the motif of marital violence shown in Mieczysław Srokowski’s modernist novel Their Secret, paying attention to the deeply rooted social and psychological aspects of this phenomenon. In the first part of the article, I present the issue of violence, focus on the tyranny and aggression shown, briefly describe their causes, and also present a biographical outline of the author of the novel in question. The main part of the article refers to the analysis and interpretation of the characters' behavior, as well as a psychological exploration of the phenomenon of violence, which reveals to the reader the complexity of marital relations in a world dominated by men. I discuss the important motif of the fatal man appearing in the novel and reveal how man was trapped in social expectations that often led to growing conflict and aggression. In the final part of the article, I emphasize that modernist novels were not only mirrors of social realities, but also a tool for reflection on the nature of violence in marriage and its impact on individuals. This article is a source of reflection on the role of society in shaping gender identity and the construction of marriage in the era of modernism.
Obraz „Narodowego Przywódcy” i jego narodu w wybranych opowiadaniach Dmitrija Głuchowskiego
The article focusses on three distinct yet interrelated images: the „National Leader” (Glukhovsky's synonym for the president of Russia), Russians and public officials collectively constituting the contemporary Russian society. Dmitry Glukhovsky creates the president’s figure through propaganda portraits, highlighting their cultural and religious symbolism in an almost poetic manner. In Glukhovsky’s short fiction the people of Russia are presented in an opposition to the overdecorated image of the president. They are depicted as fearful and humble, afraid to „crawl out of a crack in the kitchen floor”. The third kind of characters – the public officials – are depicted as senseless and heartless individuals mindlessly following orders to satisfy their own ambitions and financial needs. Meanwhile, the backdrop for these characters is a dying homeland.
Męskość w odwrocie. O kreacjach bohaterów w Prawieku i innych czasach Olgi Tokarczuk
This article discusses the depreciation of masculinity in the 20th century by using the example of the creation of male protagonists in Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Prawiek i inne czasy (Primeval and Other Times). The author introduces the issue by describing the civilisational and moral changes at the beginning of the 20th century. He points to the disruptions in the patriarchal world order that resulted from political events such as world wars and emancipation movements. The analyses demonstrate that Tokarczuk’s novel features many male characters who represent variant types of nonhegemonic masculinity. They withdraw from the social roles assigned to them by tradition. The researcher analyses examples of weak, mutilated, degenerated, and degenerate masculinity, often subordinated. Furthermore, he notes that the creations of the male protagonists in the novel under analysis are misandrist in their descriptive parts.
Ahmadou Kourouma, Ken Bugul, Calixthe Beyala – francuskojęzyczni pisarze Afryki Subsaharyjskiej wobec dominującego języka dawnego kolonizatora
The aim of this article is to present the attitudes of three major writers of Sub-Saharan Africa towards the language of the former coloniser, which has become the main language of literary expression for many authors in this part of the world. The author bases her analysis on the work of three authors who come from the countries that were former colonies of France: Ahmadou Kourouma (Ivory Coast), Ken Bugul (Senegal), Calixthe Beyala (Cameroon). The first two writers were born in the times of European domination and belong to the „decolonisation and disillusionment generation” of writers, while Calixthe Beyala is a representative of the generation called „post-colonial children”. The work of all three represents a significant contribution to the development of literature from this part of the world. After a brief introduction in which the author explains the source of the dominance of the French language in Sub-Saharan Africa, specific examples from the works are analyzed showing the procedures the writers use to adapt the colonizer's language to African reality.
Kroniki uniwersytetu we współczesnej literaturze słowackiej: powieść Pavola Rankova Legenda o języku
The article aims at reading Pavol Rankov’s novel Legenda o jazyku (The Legend of the Tongue) as the campus novel. Set primarily in the times of Normalization in Czechoslovakia (1969-1989), the novel focuses on the university as the means of political control and interpellation of the dominant ideology after the Soviet invasion. Rankov’s presentation of the tyrannical and anti-religious nature of the Communist regime the author interprets in relation to the university as an institution of higher education that aimed to prepare the next generations of obedient Czechoslovak citizens. The author concludes that by situating the narrative on a university campus, Rankov presents a unique example of campus fiction that grapples with one of the most challenging themes in contemporary Slovak fiction: the Slovak collective memory of the recent past.
Tyrani a tyranie: kultúrny konštrukt alebo ľudská univerzália?
The article develops the thesis of anthropologist Ch. Boehm according to whom, the aversion to subordination, which is culturally prominent but also oppressed, is one of the universal human political predispositions, i.e. human universals stemming from human nature as well as one of the essential and influential driving forces of the evolution of the human species. In the human biocultural nature, not only rests the concept of the "noble egalitarian savage" but also on a no less powerful concept of the "despotic tyrant". The study tests the explanatory power of this thesis by attempting a biocultural, consilience-based interpretation of agonistic structures in the Slovak Romantic poem Mor ho! by Samo Chalupka and in the Polish Romantic poem Redut Ordon by Adam Mickiewicz. The author concludes that these poems articulate and address not only the historically specific desires of the Slovak Romantic generation for freedom but also universal features of human nature.
Męskość zwielokrotniona. „Sprawdzanie samego siebie” jako mężczyzny w Dzienniku 1954 Leopolda Tyrmanda
The article concerns Leopold Tyrmand’s Diary 1954. The starting point for the interpretation is the initial fragment of the work, in which the writer declares his desire to ‘test himself’. In the proposed reading, it is assumed that this intention concerns, at a basic level, being a man, and the efforts to achieve and demonstrate masculinity to the reader significantly animate the narrative of the diary. Tyrmand models in a postmodern way, being a man in it, mixing various male patterns, and identifying with them within three scenarios that define masculinity in his eyes (courtly, military, and Jewish). Their ‘testing’ in the work results in a peculiar effect – they do not lead to the creation of the writer's self-portrait which is to be announced, ‘testimony’, but a palimpsest in which he soon does not recognize himself.
The article is based on Ján Jessenius’s work Against Tyrants (2019). At the beginning, the author examines Jessenius’s political activity primarily during his stay in Prague, the causes and consequences of his unsuccessful attempt to gain a position at the court of the Habsburgs in the context of government-enforced centralism and Catholicism. Against Tyrants is analysed from the perspective of confrontation of the estates and absolutist model of the state. The author also examines the cultural and legislative background of the text, and above all the idea of the legal right to resist the king, which led to Jessenius’s execution as a rebel and an opponent of the king. The conclusion offers an update of the contextual metaphor of the tyrant by deed in relation to the toxicity of authority and the crisis of the elites.
„Nowy człowiek” i jego sowiecka mutacja. Nikołaj Jeżow w powieści Herkusa Kunčiusa Żelazna rękawica Stalina
The primary purpose of the article is to analyze the childhood and youth of Nikolai Yezhov, the main character of the novel Stalin's Iron Glove by Herkus Kunčius, in the context of the Enlightenment concept of the “new man”, which in the Soviet period was transformed into the idea of the “Soviet man”. The writer, using certain formal elements of Bildungsroman, creates his character as someone shaped by social factors: relationships in the family and school, the material and social status of the family, the socio-political situation in the Russian Empire, and intense ideological agitation among workers. Yezhov fully represents the “Soviet man” and Kunčius, using irony, elements of the grotesque, and black humor, ridicules the character, which is both dangerous and grotesque, discredits the above concept, while at the same time bringing out the universal dimension of figures such as Yezhov, i.e. ruthless functionaries of authoritarian regimes.