The literary historian surveys the field of study in its historical, academic and ethnographic development and critically examines it; the bibliographer, following the progress of knowledge in these directions, does not lay down general principles, but accepts the axioms provided by the history of literature and groups the works under consideration respectively.
Literature generalises, bibliography goes into detail; the former is like a little bee turning the sweetness of a flower into honey, the latter is like a hard-working ant carrying raw materials.
Karol Estreicher, ‘On Bibliography. Speech at the Main School in Warsaw, given on 22 March 1865, at the beginning of the lecture on this skill’, p. 5. (source: https://www.sbc.org.pl/en/dlibra/publication/edition/8232)
Literary bibliography, a discipline of humanities, has reached a crossroads, along with linguistics and literary studies. This situation is an obvious consequence of widespread digitalisation, which presents humanities scholars with the challenge of practising a field of study shaped by the IT revolution. When presenting literary bibliography in this context, we refer to a compilation of publications (code and digital), both of literary (or, more broadly, cultural) texts and of the research devoted to it as practised by linguists, literary scholars, historians, art historians, cultural scientists, social scientists, theologians, and others. We believe that the shift in the digital paradigm in the practice of science, and in particular in research, with handling of large data sets at its core, offers a unique opportunity for reflection on two areas. First, on the role and condition of literary bibliography and, more generally, on bibliographic methods and practices in the age of digital challenges. Secondly, on the achievements, contemporary realisations and projected bibliographic research carried out by philologists from Slavic countries (Western and Eastern, Northern and Southern).
In the thirtieth issue of the Poznań Slavic Studies, reflecting on the tradition, state and future of literary bibliographies, we will take a look at the state of bibliographical research and practice in the countries of the Slavic community. We would like to invite researchers who work with bibliographies in their broadest sense, as an indispensable auxiliary practice in research work and as an independent and autonomous academic discipline, to share the results of their research on the history of bibliography in their respective countries, and to present the course of ongoing research projects directly related to literary bibliographies. We wish to offer the community of bibliographers a platform to consider the possibility of consolidating the activities of documentalists working on the languages, literatures and cultures of the Slavic nations, and particularly those working on bibliographies of different types, in different genres, and using a variety of both traditional and digital tools.
A repertoire of themes and issues:
- Types, genres and methodologies of ancient (codex) and contemporary (print and digital) literary bibliographies in Slavic countries;
- Profiles of authors of literary bibliographical compendia and teams of authors of bibliographical monographs in Slavic countries;
- Slavic bibliographies of literatures, literary periods, authors, geographical-cultural regions, linguistics and literary studies;
- Slavic bibliographies of journal content (including Slavic studies/Slavic journals);
- Digital databases, digital re-editions and remediations of major literary and general bibliographies;
- National, disciplinary and scholarly bibliographic networks and consortia;
- Limitations and prospects of traditional and digital literary bibliographies;
- Training of the cadre of creators of traditional and digital literary bibliographies with a special focus on Slavonic literature;
- Possibilities for designing the architecture of a common Slavic/European/world literary bibliographies;
- The role of AI (artificial intelligence) in the creation of digital literary bibliographies;
- Literary bibliographies vs. literary biographies (biographies, life and work calendars) in Slavic countries;
- Slavic bibliographies of alternative literary circuits (samizdat, unofficial circulation, evasion of censorship);
- Bibliographies versus literary archives, archival practices;
- Printed and digital bibliographies in the work techniques of linguists and literary scholars of Slavic languages and literatures; Bibliographical compilations as an impulse for new research;
- Slavic literary bibliographies; old and new methods of comparative research;
- Slavic literary bibliographies in relation to the publication of translations (not only from Slavic languages);
- Slavic literary bibliographies in relation to new literary theories and methodologies (postcolonial studies, geopoetics, new humanities, animal studies, gender studies, ecocriticism, etc.);
- Slavic literary bibliographies in academic didactics (undergraduate, master’s and doctoral studies); undergraduate and postgraduate workshops;
- The place of bibliographical research in competitions of national and international academic agencies funding research projects;
- The interaction of bibliographic researchers and practitioners with the communities of archivists, curators of cultural heritage;
- The social importance of bibliography.
Please submit texts of up to 35,000 characters in Slavic, English and other congress languages by 30 September 2025 via the website of the 'Poznan Studies in Slavonic Studies' journal on the Pressto platform (https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/pss/about/submissions). The editorial guidelines are also provided on the Pressto platform. The article should include the author's ORCID number, email address, an abstract in English and in the language of the text (approximately 1,000 characters), keywords in English and in the language of the text, and a note about the author in English (up to 700 characters).
Please confirm your contribution to the volume by 30 June 2025.
The thematic editors of the issue are:
dr Anna Gnot
Infrastructure Czech Literary Bibliography
Institute for Czech Literature of the CAS, v.v.i.
prof. UAM dr hab. Jerzy Borowczyk
Co-author of the Polish Literary Bibliography „Nowy Korbut” volumes.