Wskrzeszenie Smoka Wawelskiego : głos w sprawie ewolucji memetycznej i obrony nietykalności nazw własnych

Abstract

The Wawel Dragon is one of the cultural symbols not only of Kraków but of the entire Poland. It has been brought up in literature as a fact, both historical and natural, for the first time by Wincenty Kadłubek (Historia Polonica, 12th century). In 19th century scientific investigations pushed it into the world of legends. Later on it became an inspiration in various fields of art, but in 2010 it surprisingly came back into the field of science as a new species of dinosaurs, Smok wawelski. On the one hand, this use of a pre-existing proper name to define a species of a fossil animal violates rules generally accepted in science, on the other, it is a very interesting phenomenon from the perspective of memetic evolution. This paper explains pathways of replication, durability and driving force of the Wawel Dragon meme and its return from a legendary to scientific existence. The authors present a thesis that thanks to semantic confusion (which is enough to blur the line between reality and fiction), this meme enabled itself a worldwide expansion, both in geographical and social terms.