It has become a common saying in the history of literature that Sienkiewicz in his literary creativity stepped out from the treatment of the Polish Jews. Though he failed to create an expressive Jewish character in his fiction, he devoted many texts to Jewish problems. In the first part of the paper, the authoress discusses or lists in chronological order the texts in question (including one unpublished so far), while in the second part - also chronologically - presents the Jewish press opinions on our most popular 19th and 20th century writer, as well as the reactions of the Polish press to them and to the issue generally referred to as 'Jews on Sienkiewicz'. An attempt was made to present the evolution of the author of Trilogy on the Jewish society inhabiting Poland from the stereotypical picture of 'non-productive shady businessmen' living at 'our' cost to regarding the Jews as a valuable denominational minority the assimilation of which must be worked on.
(Titlw in Polish - 'Jaka epistema? O metodzie, kryteriach i przeslankach filozoficznych krytyki literackiej wielkiej 'trójcy powiesciopisarzy' okresu pozytywizmu'). The article is devoted to a reconstruction of the literary critical method as seen in the Polish Positivism writers. An attempt was made to characterize the method from the point of view of its relationships with the philosophical context of the epoch. Analyzing the critical papers by Prus, Orzeszkowa, Sienkiewicz, and others, the author tries to reconstruct the epistemic basis which shaped the positivist literary critical discourse. The discourse in question reveals certain assumptions (centered around the category of 'realism' and its connotations) of metaphysical and epistemological nature, and also referred to a number of procedures used in natural sciences. Positivists called for e.g. application of an objective method of literary text analysis; they also explained phenomena with the help of casual connections, tried to search for general laws, attempted to asses the reality present in a literary work through the prism of its links with the truth of reality verified in intersubjective experience, and made up a specific mode of subjectivity.
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Sienkiewicz's idea of 'borderland adventure' may be represented in two ways: as a fictional recording of the adventures of heroes and as an ideological 'adventure' of the writer. The beginning of the story contains descriptions of the prairie found in 'Listy z podrózy do Ameryki' (Letters from the Journey to America), which is associated with a literary picture of the steppes (the steppes which the writer knew from his readings of romantic literature and not from life experience). Following Kazimierz Wyka, the author interprets the idea of 'borderland adventure' as an element of Sienkiewicz's obsession with the theme of 'the journey' carrying on in space and time. In the context of this adventure, the important aspect the author discovers is that of the myth of the 'Wild West' and the typical conventions of the American 'western'. These reflections on myth can be later found in the 'Trylogia'. After return to his home country, Sienkiewicz, because of American experiences, continued his historical interests, which resulted in the writing of 'Niewola tatarska' (1880). The style of the short story reminds one of diaries written by the old polish nobility and it takes place on the Ukrainian steppe and in Crimea. From 'Ogniem i mieczem' (1883), the writer remains committed to his idea of 'borderland adventure' following the model of Walter Scott and his literary convention of the history-adventure novel. In 'Ogniem i mieczem' the 'journey' takes historical meanings in the judgement of Chmielnicki's uprising. On this background Sienkiewicz adds the fictional thread of love and adventure. Another way he has portrayed the lands of Lithuania, on which was inscribed the 'nobel nest' – 'zascianki laudanskie'. Lithuania lies in a different imaginary space than Ukraine, less 'borderland' and more strongly connected with the 'centre'. Sienkiewicz's 'borderland adventure' was not only the fictional-historical adventure, but also an intellectual 'adventure', an attempt to tackle the theme of a multinational and multicultural Commonwealth. He builds a popularly valued model of the Polish-Lithuanian state, which was lost in the past, but may return in the future..
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