Inscripton. An Anthology 1

The first special issue is necessarily only a small fraction of the journal's output, but it shows both its multilateralism and the growing of humanistic knowledge and methodological awareness within occasional and applied literature.

Our literary and cultural studies yearbook "Inscription. A journal devoted to occasional and applied literature" was created in the environment of researchers of Polish nobility culture of the end of the 18th century, gathered around Prof. Janusz Maciejewski (1930-2011), and dealing with editorial and textological works on occasional literature from the times of the Bar Confederation (1768-1772), the multivolume edition of which finally saw the light of day in the years 2005-2008.1 However, much earlier, in 1975, Professor Maciejewski published an article in the renowned literary studies magazine "Teksty" ("Texts" – journal of the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences), entitled “Obszary trzecie literatury” [Third areas of literature], in which he defined the scope of his research school’s interests as literary texts distinct from fine literature in the strict sense and outside of folklore (directly related to folk culture). Among the literary genres and forms of writing that fall within the research field thus defined, Prof. Maciejewski mentioned among others: inscriptions, epigrams, epitaphs, minstrel’s comedy, bourgeois poetry and epigram, letter, folk songs and songs of itinerant singers, satires and lampoons, political poetry of various historical periods. These forms of writing existed in many literary traditions of various nations, but it was only in the Old Polish tradition that such a literary genre as the gentry’s tale appeared, which was associated with a specific form of socio-political organization of the then Republic of Poland (noble democracy) and its historical fate, and at the same time was a model example of occasional and applied literature. Another form that undoubtedly belongs to the ‘third areas of literature’ is the worker’s poetry, created spontaneously under the influence of the current situation during the political breakthrough in Poland in 1980–1981, which led to events symbolically referred to collectively as the ‘fall of communism’. This compilation defines an indicative framework (both chronological and genre) of the method of research approach to occasional and applied literature which is promoted by the Napis [Inscription] yearbook. This method refers, on the one hand, to the new achievements of the theory of literature, anthropology and sociology, and on the other, to the specific experiences of Polish society, which for decades after the loss of sovereignty relied on literature as not only a source of comments on current events (in the absence of political representation and independent press), but also as a social ‘glue’ that sustains collective identity and the active pursuit of freedom.

From the Introduction by Marek Pąkciński