Zaczątki sylwetki w prasie. Uwagi historyka języka

The beginnings of the profile in the press. Comments of a language historian Summary The author of the analysis tries to establish the beginnings of a press profile and indicate its main specific features. The basis for the analysis are the press articles published in the Warsaw press. The research showed that the first articles that were to present a person and her or his achievements appeared in the context of death notifications. Those were the profiles of well-known people (representatives of the church hierarchy, high-ranking civil servants, members of noble families). A death notification consisted of several parts: an information about the death of a certain person (time, place, circumstances of death, age), a presentation of this person and her or his achievements (forms of occupation, position, merits, advantages of character; religious practices – especially in reference to women), an information about the funeral mass. That type of a press article shows a significant affinity with other funeral forms, that is with the memorial note and obituary, and can be (from the diachronic perspective) classified to those genres.