Abstract

The article discusses the concept of race, which was used in the Polish novel in the years 1870–1930. At that time, the concept became very popular in the language of the intelligentsia. The analysis showed the existence of three types of categorization of race: a) ethnic (it included the semantics of the past, space, tribalism, heredity; it positively valorized OUR MEN and negatively STRANGERS), b) socio-cultural (categories of heredity, family, kinship, sphere, custom, tradition, it was responsible for solidifying SOCIAL HIERARCHY), c) aesthetic (the category of race in the character description concerned the face, arms and legs; the racial parts of the body positively valorized the character; aestheticism was based on frequent comparisons to the sculpture, the ideal of BEAUTY became the Hellenic type.