A word on two new Polish dictionaries on Slavic folklore studies and ethnolinguistics

Abstract

This paper presents a review upon two dictionaries on Slavic folklore studies and ethnolinguistics published in Poland in recent years, which reflect the variety of trends and methodological approaches in contemporary Polish Slavic studies. The first book that is reviewed is Volume V of the “Axiological lexicon of the Slavs and their neighbours”, edited by the well-known Polish ethnolinguist Jerzy Bartmiński. The reviewed volume is dwelling upon the concept of “Honor” (Lublin, 2017; edited by Peter Sotirov and Deyan Aidachich) and is an example of parallel description of Slavic system of values based upon varied comparative data. The second book that is reviewed in this paper is the “Plants in folk beliefs and customs” dictionary (Wroclaw, 2016) by Adam Fischer, one of the most renown Polish ethnographers and folklorists of the first half of the 20^th century. Most of the data for the dictionary had been already collected and processed by Fischer in the 1930s, but the dictionary itself was edited and published by the research group in the University of Wroclaw only two years ago. The dictionary provides information on 250 plant species used in folk culture.