Volume 63, Issue 3

The article deals with the notion of so-called converse reflexives, illustrated from Slavic and Baltic. It is argued that, though the notion of reflexive converses, i. e. pairs of converses formally differentiated by the reflexive marker, is uncontroversial, that of converse reflexives as a subtype of reflexives (middles) and a distinct gram-type in voice typology, is mistaken, as the converse effect is the result not only of the reflexive derivation but also of several other factors, viz. argument conflation and complement-modifier indeterminacy. Basically, the so-called converse reflexives are just anticausatives.

The article gives a first overview of the history of the Polish-German legal translation from the end of the 18 th century to the present. On the basis of ca. 120 published law translations – a sub-genre of legal translation – from Polish into German the text analyses the question whether and in which manner the aims and the intended addressee of these translations have changed during the last 200 years. The analysis shows that, depending on the historical and political circumstances in every period of Polish history, the aims and addressee of these translations have changed in several aspects.

The study deals with the problems in the translation of the historical terminology of cold weapons and firearms of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from the 17th to 19th centuries. It describes the theoretical and practical historical specificities of the translation of scientific texts in the German – Slovak language pair. The short theoretical introduction is followed by an analysis of the various language phenomena and difficulties encountered in the translation from the source language to the target language, and justification of the solutions.

The essay deals with the role of proper names in the construction of literary spaces using the example of Stanisław Lem’s ‘The star diaries’. This is preceded by an overview of literary names in general and previous proposals on some classifications of literary names according to their structure and functionality. Based on Hans Krah’s thoughts on the aspects of spatial concepts in the literature, examples are shown of how literary names constitute the world space in ‘The star diaries’. The analysis makes quite clear, that this is achieved by an interaction of the different features and functions of literary names.

My paper has two aims: first to examine the place of early modern Ruthenian sacramental confession within the disciplining of attitudes enforced by the modern state and church upon the conduct of daily life. Second, to explore its contribution to the creation of a new relationship between the private sphere of conscience and the public sphere of politics and laws. In this study, I turn to homilies, sacramental treatises, and confessional manuals to reconstruct a “genealogy of confession” that takes into account both its disciplinary function as a means of preventing transgression and its role in stimulating the birth of an independent normative sphere for conscience.

Within the last fifty years the phenomenon of the border has been scholarly described many times. In scientific works one can find many phrases like ‘crossing borders’, ‘arranging borders’, ‘perceiving borders’ or ‘experiencing borders’, which indicate dealing with the notion of borders in a metaphorical sense. Yet literary research rarely refers to the meaning of real topographical (not metaphorical) borders in literary texts. In this article the author makes an attempt to answer the question of the meaning of borders and their function in the plays ‘Night’ ( Noc ) and ‘Waiting for a Turk’ ( Czekając na Turka ) by Andrzej Stasiuk. The notion of theoretical deliberation by Sigrun Anselm is the starting point for this discussion. She presents two basic functions of the border: it can be a place of mediation (Ort der Vermittlung) or a place of destruction (Ort der Zerstörung).

Vladimir Odoevsky’s story Salamandra combines the knowledge of sources from two different traditions—Finnish mythology (the Kalevala) and alchemical treatises of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They meet in the motif of the Sampo that is interpreted by Odoevsky as a mythological version of the alchemical vessel. Odoevsky thus perceives the mythological text as a source for spiritual knowledge. He connects the mythological sources with the literary tradition of novels and short stories on elementaries.

In Karamzin’s ‘Letters of a Russian Traveller’ the narrator displays a strong inclination to confound his readers, to irritate and to provoke them. Under the surface of his sentimental style we encounter persistent violations of norms generally accepted in eighteenth-century Russian society, including the Petrine ethos of service and the relationship of official to private values. The narrator frequently ignores traditional morality. He depicts suicide not as a mortal sin, but as a human catastrophe. The same goes for norms of marital fidelity and social hierarchy; venerable concepts like ‘love of the fatherland’ and ‘historical greatness’ are reinterpreted. The latter phenomenon is especially striking: in 1790, while Russia was fighting two wars (against the Ottoman empire and against Sweden), the Traveller constantly displays a love of peace, implicitly condemning Catherine II and her bellicose foreign politics. A concluding digression touches upon the striking political difference between the youthful and the mature Karamzin.