Przegląd Zachodniopomorski

Given the virtually unexplored realm of the image of the Pomeranian Duke Bogusław X in texts of culture and the importance of the anniversaries related to him in 2023 and 2024, the article “The portrayal of Bogusław X in historiographical texts until the end of the 19th century” delves into the depiction of Bogusław X in selected historiographical texts concerning Pomerania published until the end of the 19th century. The article analyzes the presented image of the ruler, focusing on the issue of textual fiction contained in this corpus of texts. The analysis is supported by the tools of narrative analysis in the myth-motif tradition. The article emphasizes the textual potential of the duke’s life story. The conclusion drawn from the discourse is the extensive instrumentalization of the character, which depends on the socio-political context in which a given publication operated, as well as the author’s worldview or the intentions of the publisher or patron. All the analyzed texts demonstrate symbolic reasoning from past events, reflecting on the present and future of each narrator. This results in an interaction between each sender and the recipient of individual texts, based on the belief of the respective narrators in the political agency of their stories. It also highlights the multitude of explanations for the repeated reactualization of the myth.