Między doświadczeniem wspólnot a samotnością. Interpretacja listownych próśb modlitewnych wysyłanych przez wiernych do Kalwarii Zebrzydowskiej w latach 70. XX wieku

The author analyses epistolary requests for prayers sent in the 1970s to the sanctuary in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska from the perspective of expressing loneliness and community identification. The article oscillates between historical and ethnological reflection, referring to „monoseology”, a coined term for a philosophical study on loneliness. The author analyses the attitudes of the faithful sending prayer requests to this sanctuary. The article consists of four parts. In the first one, the history of the sanctuary in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska is presented. In the next part, the author analyses the Kalwaria letters with supplications for prayers as a historical source and attemps to make a general characteristic of them. In the third part, starting from the perspective of the history of solitude and monoseology, the author reflects on the expression of a solitary attitude in correspondence. He concludes by showing to which two fundamental communities the senders refer - namely, the family and the Church (identified in the Polish People’s Republic as a religious-national community). Loneliness has a negative character in the correspondence, but it also expresses hope and faith in a positive change in life. Communities are perceived in the perspective of danger: the family’s disintegration and the Church’s confrontation with communism.