LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL IMAGE OF HAMLET IN POLISH BORDERLAND (KRESY) REGION, IN SELECTED LITERARY WORKS

Polish novels, that were written on the verge of nineteenth and twentieth century and in the first half of the twentieth century, are valuable and credible sources that can be used for the research on the question of the linguistic and cultural differentiation of the yeomanry villages and estates. These works of literature reveal the images of life and communication between members of the yeomanry class. The researched novels were created by famous Polish writers, Eliza Orzeszkowa, Maria Rodziewiczówna and Czeslaw Milosz, who are also unchallenged experts on reality of the North-Eastem 'Kresy' (Borderland). Three literary visions of the yeomanry estates, that represent three regions: Grodno/Hrodna ('Nad Niemnem' and 'Bene nati' by Eliza Orzeszkowa), Kowno/Kaunas ('Dolina Issy' by Czeslaw Milosz) and Samogitia/Zmudz/Zemaitija ('Dewajtis' by Maria Rodziewiczówna), are confronted willi the available case studies, containing historical-cultural and sociolinguistic characteristics of the Polish communities on the terrain of the former North-Eastem Borderland. The aim of the analysis was to select the constitutive linguistic, cultural and social factors, that characterize the inhabitants of the yeomanry villages and estates regardless of their territorial affiliation. The other goal that is connected with this paper is to recognize their otherness caused by historic, geographic and environmental conditions.