The introductory article recalls the basic profile of the yearbook by referring to the previously published volume Inscription. An anthology 1 and the keynote article by Professor Janusz Maciejewski. The criteria for the selection of articles for the English-language anthologies of Inscription as well as the mode of text selection are also presented here. Next, the issues covered by individual articles are briefly discussed, highlighting their relationship to the journal’s profile.

The subject of the article is an analysis of the image of a woman taking care of her mind, body and home contained in medical advice books (herbariums, e.g. Stefan Falimirz, Szymon Syreniusz, Marcin Siennik, Hieronim Spiczyński, Marcin from Urzędów, encyclopaedic compendia – Benedykt Chmielowski’s Nowe Ateny [New Athens]), created in Polish in the 16th–18th centuries for a wide audience. There were also works addressed primarily to female readers (e.g. Andrzej Glaber’s Aristotle-inspired Gadki o składności członków człowieczych [Considerations about disposition of the human body] of 1535; medical and cosmetic advice in Siennik and Sebestian Śleszkowski’s translations of Aleksei Pedemontan’s Italian Tajemnice [Secrets] of 1563; treatises on midwifery). In these, women are treated as full recipients of the text, so there is rarely an emotional or moralising tone towards them.

The article takes a closer look at the historical relationship between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Moscow during the Time of Troubles. It discusses, among other things, the Muscovite expeditions or the conquest of Smolensk, which events are interpreted from a Lithuanian perspective. It is also noted that three periods can be distinguished in the relations between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Moscow during that time: the quest for peace, the inability to control the country and the resurgence of Moscow’s power.

The subject of this article is wedding and reception songs from the King Stanisław August Poniatowski period, which the author divides into two groups: the first contains poems written on the occasion of the nuptials of specific, individually named couples, while the second gathers poetic texts of a universal character, referring to ancient models of wedding lyrical poetry. The Author identified predominant themes of this type of work: the first – comprises praise of the spouses and their families, while the second – descriptions of wedding ceremonies and ritual elements, advice and wishes addressed to the newlyweds, as well as depictions, some of them humorous, of the wedding night experiences.

The article discusses literary testimonies of balloon flights in the 18th century, which in the eyes of the people of the time rose to the rank of a kind of ‘secular ritual’. The analysis of two texts – Adam Naruszewicz’s poem Balon [The balloon] and Franciszek Dionizy Kniaźnin’s poem Balon czyli wieczory puławskie [The balloon, or Evenings in Puławy] – makes it possible to distinguish two ways of perceiving the groundbreaking event. The first work is characterised by admiration and a solemn style, while Kniaźnin’s text is humorous, which results in the desacralisation of the flight it describes.

The article raises the problem of avoiding certain topics in family conversations, which images were written by Polish novel of the second half of the 19th century. Documentary materials were taken from the works of the following authors: Stanisław Grudziński, Natalia Korwin–Szymanowska, Waleria Marrené–Morzkowska, Eliza Orzeszkowa, Bolesław Prus, and Henryk Sienkiewicz. Among them are very acknowledged authors, as well as secondary and forgotten ones. Due to such selection of sources, the phenomenon described in the article can be considered as an objective state of affairs.
The nineteenth-century novel was subjected to rigours of censorship, forcing authors to cipher (Aesop’s speech). The author proves that a moral taboo was more important in regulating the topics of conversation, which excluded speaking on some of them. The article justifies a thesis that it hindered dialogues within the family circle. This concerned mainly three areas: politics, money, and sexes (3 Ps in Polish). These areas of social life were dependent on legal regulations, which treated men preferentially. The absence of these topics in the conversations proves that the marriage did not have the democratic status of a partnership.

This article focuses on the Polish translations of Charles Dickens’s prose, with a specific emphasis on the humorous aspects. It examines the issue using the character Wilkins Micawber from the novel David Copperfield (1849–1850), considered one of Dickens’s best comic creations. A comparison of the original with several translations that differ in style: Wilhelmina Zyndram-Kościałkowska (1889), Cecylia Niewiadomska (1927) and Karolina Beylin (1989) shows that Dickensian humour is most easily conveyed through situational comedy (theatricalisation of characters’ behaviour), while it proves particularly more challenging to find Polish equivalents of verbal comedy, cultural context and the realities of the period.