A PROJECT FOR INTERNAL COMPARATIVE STUDIES

Starting off from the history of Polish studies, the authoress draws our attention to a certain paradox. Namely, a literature that is internally dialogised and which has for several centuries been created and received by one of the most linguistically, ethnically and culturally diversified European societies, proves to have been reflected in a history of the national literature which is extremely homogenous. Juxtaposed against this approach is a project for internal comparative studies which would describe the numerousness and reciprocal influences of the literatures and cultures of the Commonwealth of Two Nations of yore, whilst also surveying the consequences of a pluralistic heritage for each of the national literatures ensuing from it, or accompanying it over a certain period. Finally, the authoress postulates that it be necessary to analyse the assumptions on nationality and identity as inscribed within Polish studies. She does so by drawing the reader's attention to the fact that national identity ranks amongst phenomena not only being assumed or accepted, but also, partly generated and defined by research procedures of literary and/or cultural history.