Humanities and Cultural Studies

The beginnings of contradances in Europe

Anna Pawlak — 2024-05-29

The aim of the article is to present the beginnings of contredances in Europe. It presents the results of extensive data analysis and library research. This topic is popular among researchers, especially in England and North America. In Poland, however, there are no synthetic studies of contredances. Contredance is a figure ballroom dance popular mostly in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The article presents the formation of the style from the end from the end of the 16th century to the mid-17th century. The first source documents containing a description of the choreographies originate from the years 1651–1728, when they were appearing in England and France. A huge role in the development of this dance style was played by the Playford family, who practically monopolized the publishing market of dance manuals in England for over seventy years. The article discusses the history of publications, the historical background and the substantive content of subsequent editions of The English Dancing Master. It also shows how this style reached the French court, from where it spread throughout Europe. The article summarizes the characteristics distinguishing contredances from other styles of dance and presents the stylistic changes they underwent along with their justification in the socio-cultural changes of that period.

The apotheosis of a Silesian miner

Andrzej Fretschel-Hojarski — 2024-05-29

Director Kazimierz Kutz’s third instalment of the legendary Silesian Trilogy, The Beads of One Rosary, chronicles the destruction not only of the historic architecture of Giszowiec (Katowice), but also the tragic downfall of the ﬁlm’s protagonist, a retired coal miner and socialist labour hero, Karol Habryka. The following article examines his status as a non-mythical but not pure scapegoat ﬁgure and thus as a victim of the successful collective persecution carried out by the Communist regime in Poland. When studied in tandem with the Girardian theory of victimization, in particular, as applied to the biblical story of Job, Habryka’s death restores peace to a community fraught with discord, leading in turn to his deiﬁcation by the persecutors, a mechanistic process favoured by totalitarian systems in times of crisis.

The Moomins, quest and pilgrimage — elements of medieval chivalric romance and Old English elegiac poetry as motives in "Moominpappa at Sea"

Karolina Pasiut — 2024-05-29

Whilst the Moomin family sails away the a deserted island, Tove Jansson transforms their sea voyage into a metaphorical journey from the safe space of Moominvalley into the mercy of the sea, transcending the bodily experience of moving away into metaphysical changes in them. The motives of the transitional processes resemble themes and settings of a medieval chivalric romance and Old English elegiac poetry. The paper aims to present and analyze how Moominpappa, Moominmamma and Moomintroll, as depicted in the novel Moominpappa at Sea, 1965, assume the roles characteristic of the literary tradition of the medieval and Anglo-Saxon ancient narratives so that the perspective on the text may go beyond its usual scope and facilitate new reading. Thus, the readers follows questing knights, sometimes knights-errant, pious pilgrims and ancient heroic warriors transferred into the twenty-century Finnish novel where the characters strive to better themselves.

Cultural experience of the borderland in artistic activities

Magdalena Ciemierkiewicz — 2024-05-29

The article is a post-conference study of selected art works in the context of the history of Poland’s southeastern borderlands and the theories that are the reference point for the works discussed. The chosen method of autohistory is a way of description proposed by Gloria E. Anzaldúa, an American researcher of Mexican origin. It consists of a description of reality that takes into account the individual’s own perspective, but presents a broader socio-political context. The text is written from the perspective of a visual artist from the Podkarpacie region in Poland.

Mural art in Spanish Galicia

Antonina Wróbel — 2024-05-29

This paper analyzes the situation of Spanish Galicia, which has historically been subject to Castilian culture, and where many murals with local themes are currently being created. The main thesis of the presentation is the assumption that the use of mural art in public spaces can be considered a form of expression of cultural difference and even a new dimension of cultural resistance in the region. In order to show this process, a definition of resistance is offered which serves as a starting point for the discussion of the most important, which then allows me to discuss the most important events in the history of Galicia in the context of the use of broadly understood art. My research was done during a private trip to Galicia in February 2023, during which I made photographic documentation of the murals. In this paper, I analyze their content using Serge Moskovici’s theory of social representations to show how they relate to Galician identity.

Foreword

Wacław Rapak — 2024-05-29

Redakcja „Humanities and Cultural Studies” proponuje swoim czytelnikom kolejny numer, trzeci w roku 2023. Nowy numer otwiera artykuł Anny Pawlak poświęcony, jak czytamy w tytule, Początkom kontredansów w Europie. Autorka podejmuje próbę syntetycznego przedstawienia podjętego zagadnienia, gdzie kontredans, dawny taniec figurowy, cieszący się wielką popularnością przy spotkanich towarzyskich w wieku XVIII i na początku XIX wieku, formował się jako osobna choreografia od końca wieku XVI do połowy wieku XVII. W swoich wywodach autorka powołuje się na pierwsze dokumenty źródłowe, które zawierają pochodzące z lat 1651–1728 opisy tego towarzyskiego tańca. Analizowane źródła pochodzą z Anglii oraz Francji i pozwalają autorce przedstawić cechy charakterystyczne kontredansu i zmiany stylistyczne, jakim wówczas podlegał.
Autor drugiego proponowanego artykułu przenosi czytelnika w inną problematykę i inny kontekst. Andrzej Fretschel-Hojarski poświęca uwagę filmowi Paciorki jednego różańca, który jest, jak pisze, trzecią częścią legendarnej Trylogii śląskiej autorstwa Kazimierza Kutza. Przedmiotem proponowanej analizy jest status głównego bohatera filmu jako „nie-mitycznego ale nieczystego” kozła oﬁarnego prześladowań ze strony reżimu komunistycznego w Polsce. René Girard i jego teoria wiktymizacji jest w tym przypadku narzędziem prowadzonej interpretacji filmu.

(fragment Słowa wstępnego)