A POLISH NAME IN A RUSSIAN TEXT: from observations of transfer of proper names in modern Russian mass media

The article is concerned with the way Polish proper names, especially names and surnames are presented in modern Russian media texts (paper and electronic). The analysis of texts brings one to the conclusion that the above issue, despite years of research and even more years of practice, still poses a problem. The absence of uniform conversion rules and the ignorance of existing recommendations concerning the issue result in a situation, in which the very same name and surname are presented in a dozen ways. There is also a strong tendency to transfer Polish names in Cyrillic, yet Polish surnames ending in -ski, -ska, -cki, -cka are not adapted by adding typically Russian endings -ский, -ская, -цкий, -цкая, which implies that such names are indeclinable in Russian. Besides, more and more often surnames enter a text in their original spelling, yet with no diacritics characteristic of Polish (e. g. ł, ń, ć, ź). This might lead to a situation, in which the problem of proper names conversion from languages that use diacritics will eventually disappear.