Bieguni Olgi Tokarczuk: artystyczny obraz domu i świata

Abstract

The article is a polemic with the canonical assumption of anthropological linguistics formulated by Jerzy Bartmiński according to which the opposition and complementarity of the pair “home” and “world” constitutes the foundation of the Polish linguistic picture of the world. We argue that this claim was valid for the pre- and early modern world, and now it calls for a major reconsideration. Reading Olga Tokarczuk’s hybrydic work the article attempts to demonstrate that the opposition “home”/“world” in the postmodern context characterized by the globalization of culture, multiculturalism and general mobility of the population is strongly undermined if not cancelled. On the one hand, physical and existential homelessness has been recognized as a genuine element of the human condition, on the other hand, however, the man is becoming more and more involved in the world, develops new ways of getting to know it which goes together with greater availability of such knowledge.