Образ Польши и поляков глазами русских в контексте писем-соболезнований

A condolence letter is characterized by conventionality and it has a stereotypical composition.Apart from words of sympathy expressing support and understanding the analysed materialincludes such contents which are not directly connected with the given literary genre. Thesecontents considerably violate the compositional features of the genre and constitute interestingresearch material presenting the picture of the Poles and Poland in the eyes of the Russians afterthe president’s plane crash in Smolensk in 2010. The picture of the Polish nation is positive whichis partly connected with the given literary genre requiring positively evaluative expressions. Thepresented picture is to a large extent based on the ethnic, historical-political, religious and socialcontexts. It is only the historical-political context that contains the elements with the negativeconnotations, but at the same time it seems to be the starting point for reevaluating and buildingnew relationships between nations