Odżytek – zapoznany termin polskich nauk o kulturze

Edward Burnett Tylor’s (1832–1917) Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, one of the most important books in the history of anthropology, was published in two volumes in 1871. The Polish translation, published between 1896 and 1898 (t. 1–2) was based on the third, revised English version (vol. 1–2: 1891). It was made by Zofia Antonina Kowerska (1871–1946) and published under the title Cywilizacja pierwotna; badania rozwoju mitologji, filozofji, wiary, mowy, sztuki i zwyczajów. Jan Aleksander Karłowicz (1836–1903) was responsible for the realisation of the project. Actualising in the linguistic and cultural context, Tylor’s terminology became one of the fundaments of cultural theory reflection. In this paper I explore the problem of translation of chosen terms introduced by Tylor, namely survival and revival. The former (Polish: przeżytek) proved crucial for the evolutionistic thought and it is directly associated with it. As for the latter, however, modern Polish readers of Tylor’s writings, as well as the authors of textbooks on the history of cultural sciences, fail to notice its terminological character. On the basis of a comparative analysis of excerpts from Primitive Culture and Cywilizacja pierwotna, I argue that the word revival has only been terminologized on the English academic ground (being complementary to the term survival), while in Polish tradition/Polish ground it has failed to become part of specialist language and has ultimately fallen into oblivion.