EN
The subject of the following rhetorical analysis is Józef Piłsudski’s speech entitled Przemówienie na bankiecie z okazji wprowadzenia orderu “Virtuti Militari” [Speech Delivered on the Banquet of Introducing The Order of “Virtuti Militari”], made on 22.01.1920 at the first meeting of the Chapter of the Order. Piłsudski’s speech at the burial of Słowacki’s remains in the crypt at Wawel Cathedral was “a masterpiece of the art of oratorical art.” The same level of mastery can be grated to the speech delivered at the first meeting of the Chapter of “Virtuti Militari”. It is not only Piłsudski, as an author, that links the two speeches, but also the fact that both of them were delivered at important historical moments: the first one is the speech of the creator of the independent Republic of Poland, the latter – a speech of the creator of the independent Republic of Poland, who rescued the Polish state by carrying out May Coup. Still, what is the most important in rhetorical interpretation is the same outstanding ars verbis that linked them, highlighting the relativity of the opposition poetry-prose.