Literatura staropolska wobec zjawiska niewoli tatarsko-tureckiej : studia i szkice

Abstract

The book is composed of six drafts concentrated on the Tatar-Turkish bondage in the literature of old ages (16th and 17th centuries). The first dissertation entitled Old-Polish representations of Turks and Tatars as aggressors — from the perspective of a sin shows how Polish literature, starting from Middle Ages to the end of the Baroque, built a mental portrait of a “pagan” enemy that was retained in the form of a given stereotype. Tatars and Turks were demonized by means of infernal expressions, especially ascribing a Satan feature of arrogance and aiming at annihilating Christians — to the people of God. The relationship of enemies with the sphere of evil was expressed referring to mythology, Bible, however theriomorphisms were used especially willingly, in the lead with a comparison of enemies to wolves. Further on, a historiosophic conception of Tatar-Turkish invasions as a realization of God’s plan of reprimanding and redressing a sinful congregation. The subject of interest in the next dissertation entitled A writer and bondage — Maciej Stryjkowski, Bartłomiej Paprocki were two different points of view of the phenomenon of bondage. The first of them was included in the epic poem by Stryjkowski On the freedom of the Polish Crown. The poet who travelled through the lands of the Ottoman empire as a participant of Andrzej Tarnowski’s mission from 1574 to 1575 described how difficult experience a bondage constitutes for whole congregations, in this case south-eastern Slavs by Turks. A reflection on the location of nations that lost independence was to constitute a warning for Poles who, according to the author, were also endangered by the Turkish imperialism. B. Paprocki, on the other hand, in Wretched history paid attention to the misery of individuals — people living on the south- eastern borderland of the Republic of Poland, constantly harassed by Tatar attacks and massively captured into captivity. Both authors paid attention to the cruelty of enemies and human suffering. Similar threads of the old literature concerning the tragic nature of the bondage were developed in the next article Dehumanizing aspects of the Tatar-Turkish bondage. The interpretation of bondage by old-Polish authors was presented as the state of an extreme humiliation of a human being, degradation to the level of the labour force, “goods” and “bestialization” (the metaphor of the “cattle” driven for sale). The very draft Przeważna legacyja by Samuel Twardowski. The next dissertation An image of a knight liberator in the epic poem of the second half of the 16th and 17th centuries concerns the problem of shaping a specific “version” of an ideal of a knight whose duty and service was to free jassar in the old-Polish works. The author quotes numerous examples proving what a big rank was given to the possibility of freeing from the bondage in the characteristic of rulers, leaders and knights by the authors. Some examples show that this possibility to free constituted an important criterion even when evaluating the strong (or weak) points of the Republic of Poland under the ruling of a given king. The topic of the knight is also continued in the text Marek Jakimowski — a character of the 19th century literature devoted to a literary popularity of the figure of a nobleman from Podole who came across the Turkish galleys after the battle of Cecora in 1620. After a few years of bondage he reached the galley where he was imprisoned and, having freed himself and his closest companies of bondage returned to his homeland. Jakimowski’s brave action became the canvas of many literary realizations in the 19th century. The last draft treats about the motive of a miraculous liberation willingly used especially in the religious literature (preacher’s examples) as well as works on secular issues, above all for didactic purposes in order to shape mental attitudes of people of the post-Trident era (the cult of Mary, and belief in God’s interference into the fate of the citizens of the Republic of Poland).