Anthroponyms in a Farmer’s Diary from the Beginning of the 20th Century (Motivation and Functional Analysis)

Abstract

Anthroponyms in a Farmer’s Diary from the Beginning of the 20^th Century (Motivation and Functional Analysis)

The paper studies the work by Andrzej Urban entitled “Pamiętnik. Nasz ród, moja rodzina i moje przy niej losy” [A Diary. Our Kind, My Family and My Life with Them], a farmer from the Podkarpacie Region who was born in Lutcza. It was published twice, in 1936 and in 2015, and not only signifi cantly enriched Polish diary literature, but also serves as a source for recently developing research into oral history. The analysis in this article is based on the second edition of the “Diary”, which repeats the text written by the author verbatim, with all its spelling, syntactic and stylistic imperfections. It is a precious piece of material for research for not only historians and sociologists, but also for linguists.
The material basis for the article are numerous official and unofficial anthroponyms occurring in Urban’s narrative. These are authentic onyms that have mostly reference, informative and expressive functions. Their use, especially referring to generally known persons in the social micro- and macro-scale, has a positive effect on the authentication of the described events. They also characterise the author of the text indirectly, showing, for instance, his somewhat deep onymic awareness and historical knowledge.