Saplicowie - Soplicowie : na marginesie pewnej odręcznej notatki w osiemnastowiecznej "Etyce chrześcijańskiej" Wincentego Houdry'ego

Abstract

The author suggests that the dispute on the name Soplica, which has been going on for years among the Pan Tadeusz scholars and lovers, should be completed with his proposal to take into account a certain handwritten note made in Latin, and placed on the end paper of the cover of a bulky copy of the first volume of Christian Ethics by Vincent Houdry (published in Venice in 1750), which states that a certain Brother Vincent Saplica - a provincial of the Bernardine Order (Observant Friars Minor) - allows “in his own hand” Brother Hyacinth (in Polish Jacek) Sawicki to “use this book in the ordinary way”. The Second World War and the times of the Communist Poland have severely depleted the Bernardine archives, so it is difficult to establish now whether that volume could still be seen in the city of Vilna in the first half of the 19th c. (in the files of documents mentioned by Father E. Kantak, the inventory lists of the Vilna library which he saw in 1930s can no longer be found). The provincial’s note bears the date of 24 August 1761, while on the title page we find another (undated) note (also in Latin) which says that the book was “the property of the Vilna Benedictines”. It is impossible to find out whether this volume ever reached Mickiewicz’s hands, he could, however, have heard of the 18th c. Bernardines, among whom one had the given name, and another the surname of the main protagonist of Pan Tadeusz (Father Jacek Sawicki after many years became the order’s provincial in Vilna, and he attained some fame, which was duly recorded in the monograph Polish Bernardines). There is no doubt that the poet gave his protagonist originally the name Jacek Saplica (and not Soplica) as is documented by the extant autograph of the poem.