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This paper examines the role of the -val-/-lav- phonological sequences which create the semantic centre of the Don Juan theme in world literature and parallel folk texts, and concentrates on the Stone Guest by Pushkin. The phonological equivalence of the Spanish cavalera/cavallero, and Buslaevic/golova/valjatisja in the Russian bylina is the most important line generating semantic and dramaturgic constructions. The sequential structure of the text accomplishes the motif of punishment/forgiveness in the relations of the three main characters (Don Juan=Diego de Calvado, Dona Anna de Solva, Don Alvar) and in the author’s final instruction the sequences collapse (provalivajutsja).

This paper examins a chapter of Lermontov’s novel which has rarely been discussed so far, and concentrates on the semantic and phonetic levels of the text. The starting point of the analysis is Pechorin’s name and its phonetic, semantic and ethymological links. Pechorin’s name includes two binary oppositions (fire-water, one’s own world-alien world), which are realized through the mythological background in the text. In the mythological cast the blind boy plays the role of the evil, the girl the role of rusalka and the narrator the role of the domovoj. The text of each chapter in the novel is constructed in the same way, therefore the analysis of Taman’ can give a clue to the interpretation of the novel as a whole.

In my paper I tried to show how difficult the translation of literary works is. The German translation mainly reproduces the meaning (besides the fact that it also contained blatant errors). But in Yerofeyevs composition the form is as important as the meaning. A word, besides its semantical meaning, also implies symbolic meaning, in terms of numbers, The problems of translation, for example in connection with numerology, start with the original title, consisting of 13 letters, which is not reflected in the German translation. And it ends with the Russian letter „Ю” the hero catches sight of, before he gets murdered (?) at the end of the poem. The Russian letter „Ю” could be an abbreviation, the English personal pronoun you or a number as well. This simply cannot be reproduced in German, where this letter does not even exist.

R. M. Rilke visited Russia twice at the turn of the century, first in 1899 then in 1900. During the months between the two trips, he even started to study Russian and started to do some literary translation. Among others, he translated the poem Vesna i noč (Spring and Night) by a contemporary poet, K. M. Fofanov into German. Compared to the original text, Rilke's translation shows considerable lexical and semantic alteration and addition, retaining, at the same time, Fofanov's rhymes. The paper intends to present some examples of the poetic word-creation so characteristic of Rilke's life-work as well as the relationship between Fofanov's poem and Rilke's early poems.

In this paper the literal translation of Goethe's poem The Forest King by the famous Russian poetesse M. Tsvetayeva in her essay The Two Forest Tzars is compared with the modern attempt to translate this poem against the background of the brilliant translation The Forest King by V. Zhukovsky, the well-known Russian poet. The predictable failure of any translation of this poem in Russian (after V. Zhukovsky's translation) is discussed in the paper on the basis of linguistic arguments.

A proverb is not just one ordinary sentence in context. Its semantic and syntactic properties, as well as lexical components are widely used or alluded to anaphorically or cataphorically in literary publications. Proverbs are typically used in context as quotations that allude to known utterances from the system of folk wisdom. It comes from similarity to quotations proper that proverbs occur in microcontexts containing lexical, syntactic and semantic indications of proverbial features. The paper researches of typical proverbial usage in Russian discourse from the viewpoint of linguistic analysis and translation rules. The possibilities and the limitations of equivalent, analogue and descriptive translators are overviewed and characterized, adequate solutions are suggested.

The author gives an overview of Russian neologisms that have occurred after the recent political changes. An analysis of the types of word formation is presented and particular attention is paid to the problems of word formation to create Hungarian counterparts of the lexical items within the given lexicon. The influence of American English, as well as the reaction of the Russian and Hungarian languages are monitored in the paper.

Transfers, Offers, Dividends and Other: the Experience of Teaching Translation and Interpretation to Postgraduate Italian Students at the University of Economic Science in Budapest. This paper examines present transformations in Russian economic terminology. The authors compare a series of Russian and Italian phrasealogical models which have no equivalence in the other language, illustrating possible translation transformations.

The Use of Translation to Improve the Linguistic and Communicative Levels of Intermediate and Advanced Russian Language Students. This paper is the result teaching experience in Bulgaria focussing on two languages with the same root: Russian and Bulgarian. The authors describe a series of teaching exercises at both beginner and advanced level designed to eliminate language interference.

The Use of Songs to Stimulate the Study of Russian in Hungary: the Songs of Vysockij. This paper outlines the prospects for changes in the teaching methodology in Hungary towards the acceptance of songwriter texts.

The paper investigates the differences between written translation and simultaneous interpretation (SI) from a pragmatic perspective. In particular, some concepts, developped by Goffman are applied to SI analysis. The starting point is the “orality” of SI, considered in terms of the physical means of transmission. SI is characterized by the folowing situational macro-traits: the phonic-acoustic means, the shared context of utterance and the simultaneous presence of the interlocutors. The paper discusses also the following points: discreteness vs. linearity, the activation of psycholinguistic mechanisms, planned vs. unplanned discourse, the impossibility of deleting (the phenomen of self-correction, redundancy and problems of performance), evanescence of the oral message, the importance of prosody, frequent recourse to non linguistic and paralinguistic means, extensive use of deixis, the importance of the phatic function and the shared knowledge of the participants.

This paper is an introduction to a field mentioned above. It tries to explain how to translate from similar languages when the translator focusses on the expressive, instead of the cognitive function of language. It also tries to define a specificity of drama translation: the stress is on the “physical” level of the translation so that the most important thing is ease of pronunciation, and not the “optical” correspondence between original and translated text. Theater plays were often translated in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro from the Slovenian and Macedonian languages; in Slovenia from Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian; in Macedonia from Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian. This paper tries to indentify typical errors in one Slovene translation of a Serbian drama Koštana; it also tries to answer the question of status of Serbian, Croat, and Macedonian drama on Slovene theater stages, and to put together its bibliography.

Exercises in Translation and Use of the Mother-Tongue. The paper analyses about forty Russian textbooks for foreigners, comparing the function of the use of mother-tongue language in each case.

Non Explicit Meanings and Characteristics of Non-Native Russian. The paper examines a number of non-native levels of spoken Russian, and analyses the errors due to interlanguage.

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This paper offers a study of the “Free Indirect Style” (nesobstvennoprjamaja reč’) in the second part of the novel “Zavist’” (Envy) by the Russian writer Oleša. The Free Indirect Style is the stylistic-syntactic method of transmitting other’s people speeches, which consists in the union of the subjective plan of the narrator with the subjective plan of the character, so that in one sentence two differently orientated speeches mutually overlap. The study begins with an introductory illustration of the Free Indirect Style, its syntactic formulation, its lexical features and its stylistic implications. After the general view of the method itself, there is the distinction of the various cycles of the Free Indirect Style which compose the second part of Oleša's novel. A cycle is dedicated to each of the main characters (there are five cycles altogether), which are linked together by the same function: revealing the inner life, the psychology, the particular characteristics of each character, and at the same time, show the attitude of the narrator (or more precisely of the author himself) towards these characters.

The picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Podgórze was painted in 1903 in Rome, blessed by pope Leon XIII on 18 April and brought in the same year to Krakow by Father Bernard Łubieński, who was greatly involved in popularising the worship of Virgin Mary related to the painting. The Redemptorists linked their apostolic work with Mary Our Lady of Perpetual Help from the beginning. The painting had already been known to the inhabitants of Podgórze, since its paper copy was hung in the parish church. A turning point in the growth of the worship of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was the introduction of the service known as constant novena, which involves group prayers before her icon on the selected day of every week­ to request some special grace.

The breakthrough of 1989 and implementation of the "Balcerowicz’s Plan’’ resulted in raising hope for determined and fast reformation of the Polish economy and state administration. From the beginning of transformation these two problems became basic for programs created by parties and political groups. This paper is an analysis of only the programs which concern projects of political transformations. Therefore, the attention is focused on such political formations as the Liberal-Democratic Congress, the Union for Real Politics, Democratic Union (Union for Freedom) or Social Democratic Party of Poland (Democratic Left Alliance). It is also worth noticing that regarding the existence of different types of liberalism. an attempt was made to describe a variety of the doctrine characteristic for a given party or a political group. Considering the role of the state in relation to the individual and the public, there were differentiated: neo-liberalism, conservative liberalism and communitarism.

The paper tries to sum up a few years' experiments concerning the participation of local communities in the programs of local development strategy creation. The conclusions and notices are made by the author although they have been drawn on the basis of papers and discussions carried out with a lot of people. Their inspiring output made the author formulate some generalization. The base of the paper is the author’s direct participation in working out local development strategies or a dozen or so communities in the Kujawy and Pomerania Districts, and particularly in Piotrków Kujawski (1996-1997), Mrocza (1998 and 2000), Czersk (1998-2000), Dobrcz (1999), Białe Błota (1999-2000) and Koronowo (2000). One of their key methodological assumptions was organizing and supporting active participation of local communities in the process of building the development strategy. The public opinion poll was carried out on larger and smaller groups of people in all the communities. The author was personally engaged in the polls and their analyses, and in at least a few programs he was also both an expert and animator ("facitator”) of the events and activities in a local community. Therefore, basing on practice and experience, the author points to the need of reflection on the usefulness of social science - its engagement and objectivity, and, on the other side, he shows an ambiguous role of an expert, e.g. in the process of formulating the mission of development and strategic aims by local communities. The paper is also based on more and more numerous specialist literature and on derivative reflection on realizing the idea of the local development strategy.

Article 12 of the press law ordering journalists particular care and reliability while collecting and using press materials as well as protection of personal goods and chattels determines the limits of freedom for journalist comments. Journalist reliability and care are strictly connected with the question of truth in the related issues. The paper contains analyses of the situations in which journalists of the Bydgoszcz press broke their duties. The presented here considerations are made on the base of the law courts’ decisions in Bydgoszcz. The investigated source material concerns acts of 37 civil matters and 9 criminal cases including the years 1984-2000. It can be stated that the described period is characterized by cohesion and uniformity of views. The assessments issued by appeal instances prove undoubtedly objectivity and clarity in judging. It may head towards stabilizing the judiciary’s views on the matter of journalist freedom.

The paper deals with an assessment of implementing the postulates of stabilizing policy in Poland in 1992-2001. A special attention is drawn to difficulties in maintaining the rate of unemployment at a natural level and to the reasons of high rate of unemployment established in 1998-2001. Basing on the carried out research, the author designs models of auto-regression which are used in the assessment of the future rate of unemployment. In this paper, there are widely applied quantitative methods, such as: Snecodor’s F-tests of significance, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and models of auto-regression including a multiple one.

The paper deals with comparative analysis of the two historic moments in which cosmopolitism was a certain recipe for life. The moments were distinct from each other of about 2500 years, but with some common characteristic features. The question concerns Asia Minor in the 4,h and 3rd centuries B.C. and the Old Continent of the late years of 2O'h century. The matter regards the Hellenic world based on the idea of Alexander the Great and the united Europe based on Shuman’s idea. Despite a large difference in time, astonishing historical and ideological similarities may help not only to analyze the present reality but also to forecast the future of the European community structure which is now being created. According to the author, the contemporary European countries have to decide fast what political form the integrated organism in statu nascendi may assume. Otherwise, the countries will share the fate of Hellenic world, a beautiful stoic blow of cosmopolitism that finished very fast and suddenly.

The subject of this paper is transformation of the Democratic Left Alliance from an election organism focusing a wide range of post-communistic groups into an organizationally uniform political party. The election coalition could start to exist as a result of transformations in the political system of the state after the breakthrough in 1989 when the political life was submitted to plurálisadon. The paper presents the main actors of the election coalition of the Democratic Left Alliance: the parties and political and social groups with a special dominant role of the Social Democratic Party of Poland, and the relations between them. Besides, it presents the development of the coalition and its election and parliamentary activities. There are also presented the ideas of a new political formation with the process of its foundation. The decade of the nineties is characteristic for foundation, development and transformation of the Democratic Left Alliance as well as for working out a partnership with a left party of a different origin, i.e. the Union of Labour, which enables us to define these years as a stage of the Social Democratic Camp formation in the Republic of Poland. It was the stage of bringing closer together and uniting different subjects of the left within its main stream focused around the Social Democratic Party of Poland, and then its internal institutionalization. Preservation of a wide formula of the Left consolidation still made its ideological-policy identification difficult, which is, as it can be predicted, a challenge for the new decade.

The political aspect of Muhammad’s activity in the age of islam creation was no less important than its mission and religious ones. Muhammad’s actions which in the paper were categorized as political secured him the possibility of spreading his dogmatic-religious ideas on vast areas of the Arabian Peninsula in a record short time. Muhammad’s emigration from Mecca to Yatrib had a decisive influence on the future of islam. It was a limit line between the two great stages in the history of the religion. Only after comparing the Prophet’s life in Mecca, where he was a missionary surrounded by enemies and danger, with that in Yatrib after immigration, where he was a leader and head of the state, we can learn how significant the immigration was for the Muslim religion and how important its political creation - a state was for its founder. The paper registers step after step Muhammad’s actions heading for creating the first in the history Muslim country starting from choosing the seat to sketching foreign and home policies through economy and an administrative structure. Not omitting education and science, Muhammad was conscious how significant these aspects of social life were.

The paper presents man as a human being who must cope with ethical problems every day and who faces new bioethical challenges. Since everyone has a right to derive his ideas and views from different systems of values, it seemed indispensable to present the controversial issues in broad outline in order to concentrate on common problems. As far as the particular ethical issues are concerned, the paper starts from analyzing the beginning of human life and its threat which is abortion. Then the author focuses on the problems concerning man’s life and its dangers that, at the same time, may save other people’s lives due to transplanting organs. Finally, the problem of euthanasia and the challenges it poses for the contemporary communities cannot be treated indifferently. The analysis of particular issues tried to show the significance of systems of values in some religions widespread and also attempted to point to legal solutions characteristic for international law and the one functioning in a given country. Finally, analyzing the problem of abortion, the paper subjects to the European judicial decision about human rights.

The paper touches on the up-to-date problem concerning the role of the public opinion in politics. The process of democratic transformation causes and must cause an increase in the role the citizens play in coping with various matters and making appropriate decisions. The thing is that those who decide should take the public opinion into consideration. Specialised institutes carry out polls pointing in this way at the atmosphere and the opinion of the pubic. Spokespersons also play their important role. In fact the efficient governing is hardly possible without knowing the public opinion, which particularly matters during the election campaign. The author takes up a number of problems regarding the poll and moulding the public opinion.

So far no thinker has seemed to define the idea called "freedom of communication” being a syndrome of contemporary times and the future society of computer science in which information tends to be the most important “matter”. No one has defined either what freedom of communication is to become or what it consists in. What are its conditions and restrictions, not mentioning its essence? The paper tries to outline the contemporary comprehension of freedom including justice and equal rights, as well as their ethic relations to communication. Freedom, justice and equal rights are currently very distinct and intensive on the Internet which is becoming more and more popular. The Internet is a comparatively new means of social communication and extremely different from others known so far. Its technological possibilities give everyone a chance of sending information to people all over the world making it generally available. However, these new possibilities bring into existence moral dilemmas not occuring before. Lots of them have already appeared with great sharpness. We should expect further problems to emerge the more so as the access to the Internet is being widespread and technological restrictions concerning the capacity of the network system seem to be gradually removed. As it results from the undertaken considerations, the problems of freedom, justice and equal rights on the Internet are very significant and current. The relations and mutual dependences occurring among the three ideas and appearing during analyses seem to be very interesting. Freedom and equal rights are supposed to be dependent on justice which, in turn, is subject to law and truth. Hence, the conclusion is that ethical reflection is of minor significance while searching for solving ethical dilemmas regarding the Internet. These problems must be regulated according to the law. It is also worth noticing that there exists an urgent need of further studies on the problem of communication ethic, particularly in the new future society of computer science.

The paper outlines the process of creating institutions of political pluralism in Turkey and discusses the origins of the present state of Turkey and political parties operating in it. The author deals with the limits of political pluralism which are practically created by the Turkish Constitutional Tribunal that has rights to solve political groups propagating postulates or acting not in agreement with the Constitution of 1982. It should be admitted that the limits of the pluralism shaped by the interpretation of the law and the judicial decisions of the Turkish Tribunal are narrowed down. Within the latest years, 15 political parties were dissolved. Four groups appealed against the decision to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The present paper presents reasons of dissolving the parties and the Strasbourg Tribunal’s assessment concerning the legitimacy of the decision. In case of the three suing parties, the Tribunal stated that the solution was not in accordance with the European Convention of Human Rights. Only one party was dissolved complying with European standards of human rights, although in this case the judges detected a series of imprecision (the sentence was voted 4 to 3).Turkey has been trying to become a member of the European Union for many years. A large team of opponents who object to integration of this state exists within the structures of the EU. One of the crucial arguments against membership of Turkey in the European Union is its failure to comply with the law. Therefore, in order to become a rightful member of the European Community, Turkey must adjust its law and, first and foremost, its practical application to the standards of human rights. This also concerns political pluralism and freedom of organizing which seem to be the most significant matters.

The paper tries to define the concept of affirmative action presented against the background of other instruments (such as positive discrimination and the politics of equal opportunity) that overcome marginalisation of social groups based mainly on racial criterion. The author also portrays a historic evolution of affirmative action from non-discrimination to preferences and compensating treatment, as well as from displacing accents from colorblindness towards race-conscious remedies. Simultaneously, the considerations have been shown in the light of present discussion on the usefulness of this kind of solutions, which, in the author’s opinion, is based on dissimilar views regarding socially significant values.

The process of civilization and cultural development at growing ecological crisis requires pro-ecological comprehensive changes in all spheres of public life. Their base should become an idea defined as “balanced development” whose essence is aspiration for harmonizing social and economic spheres of man’s life with nature. The result of the harmony comprehended in this way may influence the quality of life increasing its natural and cultural values and steering it towards justice within species, generations, and regions.The balanced development include transformations in economy, society, technique and space, all aiming at securing welfare for the present and future generations, as well as durability and variety of nature including each aspect of human life. All the processes may take place due to securing a demanded quality of environment and people’s health, nature conservation, understanding pro-ecological trends in politics and economy including rational using of natural resources (renewable and nonrenewable). The mentioned above issues in the context of the balanced development idea arc quoted by signatories of final documents at the Earth Summits in Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg.The paper presents an outline of methods of realising and achieving aims in spheres of society, politics, economy, and nature - according to the idea of balanced development included in the Declaration from Rio on Environment and Development (the Earth Charter). the Global Program of Action - Agenda 21, Political Declaration of Johannesburg on the Balanced Development, and the Scheme of Action pointing at fighting against poverty not destroying natural resources of the Earth.

In Teuta, five-act tragedy by Dimitrije Demeter which is ranked as one of the fundamental texts of the 19th century Croatian historical drama, the central point of the plot is marked by the transformation of the main character from a bold woman warrior into a submissive wife and mother. In this paper that transformation is interpreted in the light of the relationship between politics and gender roles. The character of the woman-warrior includes a number of literary layers. A particularly interesting one is that of a Diana follower from the pastoral tradition, because of the traditional links between the Arcadian and androgynous myths. The text contains clear indications of a gender inversion between Teuta and Dimitar. In literary tradition Teuta is related to women warriors who dressed in men’s clothes in order to fight for an order that was established mainly by male principles (for their homeland or religion) and ended in apotheosis. They differ from the popular tradition of carnival mannish women that are trying to turn around the existing order and are often victims of brutal punishment (Natalie Zemon-Davis). In Teuta the literary topos is clearly reversed and what we have is taming of a virtuous woman warrior. The paper offers an interpretation of such Demeter’s approach against the background of the period in which life penetrated into history (Foucault), that is, in which it was necessary to base the civil society and nation upon the concurring gender oppositions. The patriarchal principle is also connected to the purity of a nation, for which there are clear indications in the text. However, the most interesting feature of Demeter’s tragedy lies in the fact that this thesis is both laid out and questioned in it. In the second part of the play Teuta’s femininity comes across as masquerade (Joan Riviere), and her tragic end (suicide with her infant in her arms) links gender to death, rather than to life.

It is nowadays clear that Hebrew tradition must have received its material for biblical account of the Flood from some Mesopotamian sources. The XI Tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic is acknowledged by most scholars to be the prototype of biblical account, but also other opinions were presented. The paper deals with interrelationship between the biblical account and Mesopotamian document (tablet) from Nippur The Flood Story. There is shown detailed correspondence – as well as difference – of the two to proof the hypothesis that the author of Yahwistic (J) version in Genesis has adjusted the data of the document to his own needs and concepts.

Johannes Herman (ca 1435-1504), canon of the Wrocław Cathedral Chapter has been known so far from references included in the records of the Chapter’s meetings. An entry of September 16, 1502 reads that Herman presented the Cathedral with a beautifully embellished reliquary of St. Sebastian’s hand, made of gilded silver, with the intention of redeeming his soul and celebrating the Saint’s relics. Simultaneously, he was asking the Chapter to establish St. Sebastian’s feast (January 20) as dupliciter (with three readings), and proposed that the offering on that day be used to cover students’ scholarship expenses. Canons accepted the gift and promised to co-operate with bishop Johann Roth, whose duty was to establish the rite. At the Chapter’s meetings of December 22, 1503 and January 5, 1504, Herman followed up the cause. He confirmed his wish to support the students of the Cathedral School and finally stated that he would sell the reliquary to meet additional financial demands made by the Chapter. Both sides remained devided on the issue. The reason why there are no more records on the matter was Herman’s forthcoming death. The above-mentioned reliquary was kept in the Cathedral treasury; the fact mentioned in the records on the occasion of Maximilian II’ visit, then the Czech and Hungarian king, to Wrocław in December 1563. The monarch asked the Chapter to show the relics to his wife, Mary. Canons decided to show St. Jadwiga’s hand and St. Sebastian’s arm relics. In a letter of February 9, 1564 written by Wrocław bishop Caspar von Logau to the Chapter deans we read about Maximilian’s wish to purchase the relics. Other relics or a financial compensation were considered to pay for the transaction. There are no records on actual negotiations, the transaction, however, was completed as the reliquary of St. Sebastian was given by queen (later empress) Mary to Spain. Among ostensories presented by the empress as gifts and preserved at Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales in Madrid is a splendid hand reliquary in the late Gothic style which turns out to be identical with the one mentioned in the records of the Wrocław Chapter. The inscription bears the name Herman and date 1499. Cruz Valdovinos had already pointed at its two closest analogies preserved in the Cathedral treasury in Wrocław - St. Sebastian’s and St. John the Baptist’s hand reliquaries. The paper describes interdependencies of the three works of art and calls for further research, especially on tlie relation of the Silesian Gothic goldsmith’s work others primarily central European.

A new critical edition of a collection of nearly one hundred Latin prayers connected with Gertrude of Poland (ca 1025-1108), Polish princess, wife of Izaslav of Kiev, has revived an interest in this exceptional example of literature and religiousness o f the eleventh century. The multiplicity of issues connected with the prayer book requires further consideration. An example might be the iconographic concord of prayers both with the accompanying miniatures and the works of art, which Gertrude encountered in the west as well as in the east -from Rhineland, where she was educated to Ruthenia, where she stayed longest. The paper examines the issue in relation to the Marian subject matter. A problem that has not as yet been touched upon is the history o f the prayers in the centuries that followed, as a singular example from the 15th century regarding one such prayer reveals. The prayers are mostly theocentric and Christocentric in character, but in many of them the intercessive role of St. Mary is evoked. In Ruthenia Gertrude was exposed to representations of the Deesis type, characteristic of eastern Christianity. From the prince’s box in St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Kiev she saw them in a form of three tondi, situated on the arch encasing the central apse, while in the apse itself was a monumental depiction of St. Mary-Oranta, eternal and omnipotent advocate in heaven, referred to in prayers as “oratrix celorum”. Of the four prayers directed exclusively to Mary two are laudatory and supplicatory and the other two just laudatory. The latter are characterized by a sophisticated literary form, division into phrases, employment of internal and external rhymes and a number of rhetorical figures (alliteration, oxymorons). A solar epithet appears here among others (“sola pulcherrima super solem”). A lot of Marian epithets, such as the Mother of God, Our Lady and the Queen of the whole world (“Dei genitrix”, “domina et regina totius orbis”) find their equivalent in one of the five miniatures. In prayer no. 86 the praise refers not only to the significance of St. Mary as the Mother of God, but to her purely feminine and maternal functions and her role of a participant and witness to the life and passion of Christ. They find their equivalents in Marian and Christological artistic series of the time. One of them is a series of scenes on the wooden door of the church Sankta Maria im Kapitol in Cologne, made ca 1050. The church was rebuilt by abbotess Ida, one of Gertrude’s aunts, who also funded the door. In this church Gertrude’s mother, Richeza, was buried. Gertrude could see the door during her stay in Rhineland in the years 1075-1076. A number o f depictions are included in miniatures in the manuscripts from the Ottonian epoch, e.g. a Scripture-Book of abbotess Hitda of Meschede from ca 1020, with an Annunciation scene. Gertrude knew a different presentation o f this scene from monumental mosaics in Kiev. The maternity o f St. Mary was presented in many different types of the Nativity. An exceptionally extended depiction in the eastern spirit, including a reference to apocryphal texts, is shown in one o f the Codex’ miniatures. Prayer no. 86 in its Polish, slightly transformed version appeared after several centuries in the so-called Nawojka’s Prayer Book, which most probably belonged to Natalia Bninska, nee Koniecpolska (ca 1463-1531) in a manuscript from the end of the 15th century. The manuscript was lost and today is known from a copy made in the first half of the 19th century, including a copy of the old silver cover - a box from the 17th century. According to the inscription on the box it was supposed to be St. Jadwiga, Duchess of Silesia’s (ca 1178-1243) collection of prayers; a tradition which was immediately questioned. It seems, however, to possess a grain of truth. Gertrude’s Codex, having changed hands many a time, was presented to the chapter o f the Cividale del Friuli Cathedral in 1229, where it has been kept since. It was presented by St. Elizabeth, Princess o f Thuringia at the instigation of her uncle Berthold, patriarch o f Aquilea. Elizabeth was Jadwiga of Silesia’s niece and Berthold was her brother. If the prayer had not been copied at the time when Gertrude’s Codex was in Cracow (and it was there as many as three times), then it could have been Jadwiga’s relatives who had it copied. At an unspecified time it was translated from Latin into Polish for Jadwiga or for the next generations of women in Poland and the translation was transformed until the 15th century version was reached.

The late eighties and early nineties, despite other transformations, engendered an interest in liberal ideas as far as their intellectual and practical aspects were concerned, which was affected by both subjective and objective conditions. One should emphasize that the renaissance of liberalism was perceived in the latter part of the 20th century. After a long period of crisis, its ideas and their application became of great interest with politicians as well as political philosophers and the ideologists. At the same time, liberalism, in its classic interpretation, has never been a trend strongly existing in the consciousness of the Polish society. It was mainly a historical background that decided about such an opinion: a weak development of capitalism, political culture of the fight for the nation’s independence, and Poland’s dramatic history in the 20th century. The interest in liberalism also found its reflection in programs of political parties set up after 1989, and particularly those of "oppositional genesis”. The leading parties were: the Union for Real Politics and the Liberal Democratic Congress. It ought to be emphasized that liberal ideas were also reflected in program proposals of those political parties who identified themselves with such political ideas, e.g. the Social Democracy for the Republic of Poland and the Democratic Left Alliance. One should also pay attention to the fact that liberal ideas are differently interpreted, which may reflect global discussion on liberalism. On one hand, there could be noticed some tendencies to follow its neo-liberal character (e.g. the programs of the Liberal Democratic Congress), and on the other, one may perceive a tendency towards applying liberalism to the Polish conditions and social expectations. The evolution of the idea in the programs of the Democratic Union may illustrate this fact, which has been presented in this paper.

The paper presents the participation of the united Germany in the process of building the inner society of the European Union, included into the third pillar after the Treaty of Maastricht. The first part presents the achievements of the Community, and the other - the Union. The paper concentrates mainly on initiatives and activities of Germany who strongly promotes this kind of co-operation. To the most important belonged: projects on establishing Europol and Eurojust, the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the EU, and other initiatives concerning common policy of visa, asylum and immigration. The Treaty of Maastricht, the Treaty of Amsterdam and two German presidencies in the nineties are assumed by the author as points of reference in the characteristic of the German Federal Republic’s involvement into the spheres of the Union co-operation.

The church from the beginning of its missionary work tried to substantiate it. Among other things, missionaries kept in their archives artifacts which proved the culture of peoples or nations they evangelized. Not only did they try to preserve local culture but also supported its development. The treasures of culture they collected and kept, in time proliferated and created impressive collections, the cataloguing and exhibiting of which served missionary education. The paper commences with showing the contribution of the church to the preservation of culture of evangelized nations, then it elaborates on the animation and educational role of missionary exhibitions and closes with formal and educational aims which should be accomplished by museums and missionary collections.

Through an analysis of coats of arms of various monastic communities we recognize their goals and spirituality. These generalizations apply as well to the two coats of arms presented in this paper, which have been used by the Camaldolese Order. In order to understand a message of signs used by a congregation one should refer to its beginnings, founders and history over the centuries. Heraldic research based on historical context and monastic legislature enables us to follow the forming of charisma and its evolution. It enables us also to learn about the value and importance of monastic life and hence, the richness of the Church.

A Camaldolese painter, Father Venanzio da Subiaco (around 1570-1659), was active in Poland from 1624 to 1632, when he stayed in the hermitages at Bielany, near Cracow, and at Rytwiany. His name has been familiar to Polish scholars since 1871 (L. Zarewicz), and in 1952 his first brief monograph was written by Witold Urbanowicz, devoted, however, merely to his achievements in Poland. The monograph was later supplemented and verified by other researchers (J. Z. Łoziński and T. Przypkowski, W Kret., A. Ryszkiewicz, A. Małkiewicz). Venanzio’s work accomplished in Italy remained iong unknown. It was only in 1995 that Lucilia Conigliello organized an exhibition in Poppi featuring 14 paintings by Venanty, which she discovered in a Camaldolese hermitage and coenobium in Camaldoli. In the catalogue she discussed his 34 Italian works. In a catalogue of another exhibition of the Baroque art in Castentino (Poppi 2001), Conigliello included a short monograph of the painter, presenting his art both from the Italian and Polish period. The aim of this paper is to present a critical overview of the present state of research on Venanzio. His art created prior to joining the Order in 1618 remains unknown. As a Camaldolese monk he worked almost entirely for the congregation and sporadically for people connected with it, which limited the iconography of his paintings to religious themes. The artist’s preserved works include three sets of mural painitng (Monte Rua, near Padua, Bielany, Rytwiany) and 50 oil paintings, 10 of which are in Polish monasteries. Their style bears influence of Caravaggio and is characterized by certain conservatism. The artist was also inspired by the paintings of great Renaissance masters, especially Titian, through the mediation of graphics. An important contribution of Venanzio was creating an iconographical canon of the Camaldolese church painting decoration, which was accomplished by the artist during his stay in Poland and transplanted in the churches o f the Order in Italy. He achieved this thanks to the pressure from the rich founders of the Polish monasteries, who demanded - contrary to monastic rules - to give churches a splendid architectural form and rich decoration.

The aim of the analysis is to present a development of the human rights idea in the common legal system that is being created. The analysis concerns the Charter of Fundamental Rights proclaimed in 2000, being a document providing compliance with basic rights in the European Union order. Particular chapters emphasize that the Charter does not create new regulations but only gathers the existing ones, those already respected or at least observable, and puts them in one document. The paper also shows a significant role of general commissioners who are able and have courage, validating their opinions, to apply rightful solutions, though not in force officially. Another problem concerns issues which, in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, seem to be innovative or may become controversial in the future. As a summary, it was pointed that the birth of the Charter was justifiable, even if it is only journals of laws formulated in other legal acts.

The problem of social justice is presented as one of the most frequently analyzed issues in the political philosophy of the mid-20th century. Different opinions on this subject amount to interpreting fundamental relations between liberty and equality. Both classics and many representatives of modern liberalism take the analysis of the above issues as a point of reference for their further philosophical investigations. In this paper, the author considers the category of social justice to be a form of fundamental ethic judgment, applying to the effect the community and their political organization have on the situation of social subjects. The essence of the judgment is correlated with axiological partiality of the subject estimating the situation. However, political philosophy assumes boundary criteria which determine the specificity of individual dimensions on the axis: social justice . social injustice. The aim of the analysis is an attempt to present such circumstances in the prospect of representative philosophies of modern liberalism.

The second part of the present paper begins with the description of Poland's Liberation Day - 22nd July. Both the 1st of May and the 22nd of July were celebrated nationwide according to precise guidelines made by the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party. One should not forget that a serious of events also took place in particular regions of the country, including Bydgoszcz and its surroundings. Therefore, the next chapters describe anniversaries and jubilees characteristic of our Province. They were, among others, the celebrations of ten centuries of Włocławek and a hundredth anniversary of Julian Marchlewski's birth, as well as the quincentenary of the 2nd Toruń Peace Treaty. In this way, the decision-makers of that region wanted Julian Marchlewski - a great revolutionist - to become widely known. The example of Toruń shows clearly what methods the communist authorities used: the celebrations of the 2nd Toruń Peace Treaty were appointed at the time when the Church celebrated a Millennium of Poland.s Baptism. The final chapters of the paper concern the Millennium of Baptism in Bydgoszcz Province and how the Church prepared to this celebration. It can be clearly seen that the city's authorities made the realization of the plans difficult for the Church party. A refusal to crown the painting of Heavenly Mother with a Rose in the Old Town Square in Bydgoszcz seems to be an explicit example. Another problem concerns "Te Deum" of the parishes. According to the Episcopate.s plans, each parish in Poland was to celebrate the jubilee as a thanksgiving for Poland.s Baptism Millennium. The celebrations were called "Te Deum" and usually took place on the day of the annual church fair or the church consecration. The paper gives a wide description of the two Bydgoszcz parishes: Mother of Incessant Help and the Parish Church. The study ends in describing central celebrations of Poland.s Baptism Millennium in 1966 which were held in Toruń and Włocławek. Yet again the ceremony proved the organization success of the Church party and, most of all, showed the Church.s strong position in the then communist Poland.

A membership in the European Union was a strategic aim of Poland on the turn of the last century, an expression of an aspiration for the greater part of a society to the participation and attendance of Poland at the European structures, which decided on our civilizing future. A role of the media and education in preparing the Polish people for the membership in the European Union was a case of priority. The issues concerning the EU were an important and exposed subject of the transmission in the national media, especially in the period of accession and referendum negotiations. In the years 2000 - 2004 only few terms made such a career as a term "Europe" in a public discussion. As a result of poor information about the costs and benefits of the accession to the EU structures, the media took a key role in informing the society. Together with nation-wide press, it was the local press that was shaping the European consciousness of citizens in an expressive way. It constituted a factor of integrating the local societies. It also often emphasized the values integrating the local community, being a counterweight to potential alienation in the future European structures. The press tried to create the citizens conscious of their role in making decisions on joining the EU or staying out of it. Its image was presented in this paper on the basis of two newspapers issued in the West Pomeranian Province. To sum up, it must be admitted that only some of the media carried out the profound analyses concerning the European topics. It seems that the media did not make the whole use, for different reasons, often beyond their control (e.g. financial), of the possibilities of bringing nearer and interpreting the process of European integration to the Polish public opinion.

The paper shows the current debates about globalization with special emphasis on the most controversial issues such as the impact of that process on the global welfare and economic development of the individual countries and the rise of transnational corporations which have become in some spheres more influencial than nation states. It focuses on not only one, positive aspect of globalization while entirely neglecting the negative one. This article examines various approaches to globalization and various definitions of that concept. The enormous number of such definitions and the mounting volume of literature on globalization has brought about such a paradoxical situation in which the more we read about globalization, the less clear we seem to be about what is means and what it implies. There are various types of globalization which are discussed in this paper including economic globalization, cultural and political one. While economic globalization refers mostly to changes in capital and labour flows, production systems and trade in goods and services, so political globalization refers to the changing global context of political awareness, processes and activity. It also can be perceived as a growing tendency for managing globalization and finding global solutions for the global problems which creates globalization. The open question is to what extent globalization can be considered as a process which has weakened nation states due to the growth of economic power of transnational corporations and other alternative international organizations and movements. The effects of globalization are the most visible in trade and capital flows, but they go beyond. Unfortunately they are evaluated not only on the basis of available historical experiences, facts and statistical data but also depend on the ideological background of a given author. There is no doubt that globalization has removed many barriers hindering the economic development in the global scale and has a huge potential to expand freedom, democracy, innovation and social and cultural exchanges. However, globalization has reinforced mostly the strong countries and societies and further weakened the weak ones. Therefore it should be reformed or humanized in order to secure sustainable economic and social development if not for all people in the world so for the majority of people.

Muslim fundamentalism is not only a religious but also a social and political phenomenon. Political science considers it both a political ideology and a social movement. Since we have been observing an increase in its popularity for a few dozen years, it is worth considering what makes a lot of Muslims follow this fundamentalistic ideology. The author tries to answer the questions: who an average fundamentalist is, what education he obtained and what attracts him to the fundamentalistic movement. The author also describes the social basis of fundamentalism, which will permit us to find why this ideology is so popular. The author considers poverty as a catalysing factor but he also points to transformations in Muslim societies concerning modernity, such as globalisation, political centralisation, urbanisation, massmedia widespreading, or migrations. Neither does he miss antiAmericanism as an important mobilising factor. The other part of this paper concerns the so called "Muslim terrorism" and its relationship with fundamentalism. The author takes note of the necessity to differentiate between the both concepts and presents the two streams of fundamentalism: terrorist (salafijja dżihadu) and "peaceful".

Retrospective consideration of the priest Józef Tischner.s writing permits us to describe him as a philosopher of liberty. He considered this idea as a determinant of humanity and a basis of creating a new political realty during the political system transformation. At the same time the idea of liberty as a fundamental value shaping a sense of a human being.s dignity was a subject of lively discussions. Concepts clashing with each other presented this idea in different ways. There appeared opinions absolutising a human being.s liberty with reference to individualism which derived from the tradition of J. Locke.s classical liberalism. In turn, others indicated that man should restrict his freedom for the sake of communitaristic superiority of common good over the individual one. Other opinions warned against freedom as an unfortunate gift that would destroy a human being. Tischner based his view of freedom on personalism and courageously propagated a necessity of using it to form institutions of a democratic legal state. His critical look at new political subjects and institutions as well as on a changing role of the Catholic Church is essential in this paper. The timeless character of Tischner.s proposals or suggestions in the issues of institutions or political systems is still open and may be used as an important voice in a discourse concerning the directions of political transformation.

The Second Ecumenical Council (also known as the First Council of Constantinople), held in Constantinople in 381 AD, is in many ways unique in the history of ecumenical councils. Its uniqueness lies, among other things, in the scarcity of written sources describing this event. No documents from the Council are extant. All that has remained is passing references by fifth century historians and chance remarks on the Council in letters. An important, although rather singular, source on the Second Ecumenical Council is St Gregory of Nazianzus’s autobiographical poem. We can also rely on the documents which were the fruit of the Council: the canons, the Symbol and a letter written to the Emperor Theodosius I at the conclusion of the Council. The information included in these documents is not entirely coherent. This paper aims to reconstruct the proceedings of the Council on the basis of the available evidence.

The contemporary state has evolved from the ancient Greek Polic and Roman civitas through the latter transformations of feudal state. At present due to the progressing globalization the state has been weakened and has been losing some of its vital functions and prerogatives. Some of those functions have been taken over by the transnational corporations and the international organizations such as the World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund. The decline of the contemporary state is also reflected in its inability to fulfill the aspirations of its citizens and to defend effectively the interests of the nation.There are various definitions and concepts of the desired role of the state. All of them shape a highly idealistic picture of the state which is incompatible with the existing reality.There also are some controversies over the tasks,which the shate should perform vis a vis the market as well as to what extent the state power should be decentralized or centralized.There are also discussions whether the state should be weak or strong. The fact is that an increasing number of the contemporary states are on the brink of bankruptcy. This paper tries to explain the reasons why some states are declining dechining and what should be done in order to stop that decline.

Author’s ambition is arousing interest of forms of reception of the Middle Ages, which there are in scientific literature, popular lecture and general, social awareness. From the title of this paper it appears that a starting point for consideration of tendencies present in polish modern historiography (for such I consider the historiography of the latter part of XX and the beginning of XXI) should be some consequences of the late polish Romanticism: with attempts of revision but also with acceptance of its critical scientific achievements. A model of history made in the nineteenth century in Galicia under the influence of a romantic vision of the polish past may be treated as a moderately coherent entirety. In this model an idea of primitive Slavic control of commune, an opinion of strangeness of the state system or feudal were of paramount importance. Literary (romantic but also modernized e.g. semkowiczowska) visions of Prepiast, ancestral Slavic, archaized and stylized according to notions of Slavic civilization as younger (it is one of elements of romantic view on history accepted strangely enough also by polish historical neo- and postromantics), with an integral element of German danger became a part of polish, universal, historical thinking and historical education.