Analecta Cracoviensia, 1979, T. 11

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Przeglądaj Analecta Cracoviensia, 1979, T. 11 wg Autor "Schmidt, Zofia"

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    Schmidt, Zofia (Wydawnictwo Naukowe Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Krakowie, 1979)
    The dramatic story of the eleventh century Cracovian bishop, Stanislaus Szczepanowski, and the king of Poland, Boleslaus Śmiały (the Bold), has more than once provided the inspiration for literary prose. However the scarcity of historical sources available on the subject, interpreted – what is more – in a variety of ways by the scholars, has pitted the prospective novelist’s course with a mass of difficulties, confronting him with the problem of the responsibility which the writer, faced with the question of literary fiction with respect to historical facts, has to assume for the sake of “truth” as presented in his work. Hence the wide range of standpoints which the various authors have taken writing about the Saint, some making him and his conflict with the king only a marginal feature of their plot, some concentrating more on the character of the king, a figure about which history does, after all, give us slightly more information. And on the whole in the prose works dealing with St. Stanislaus – whether historical novel, short story, or literary essay – the tendency has been to portray an image of the Saint in accordance both with the author’s own convictions on the matter and with his chosen sources: a tendency thus of the closest possible approach to historical truth. Turning then to the chronicles and the legends for information for his novel, “Boleszczyce” (“Boleslaus’ Warriors”), J. I. Kraszewski shows the bishop against a background of social and political turmoil: of the lords’ conspiracy against the king and its connection with the Bohemians. So, too, does Karol Bunsch, presenting in his book, “Imiennik” (“The Namesake”), perhaps a more profound and extensive picture of the social and political situation, both in Poland and abroad, and hinting also at the efforts of his foreign enemies to discredit and even to depose the all too-successful King Boleslaus, a heart-ache to certain other crowned heads. Another example of the acceptance of the judgment of scholarship (this time from the views of the historian, Tadeusz Wojciechowski) is the cyclical “Powieść o kronice Galla” (“The Story of Gallus’ Chronicle”), by Aniela Gruszecka who also stresses the political nature of the conflict between bishop and king. On the other hand, the legends and elements of hagiography come into play in the short story by Jan Parandowski, “Msza św. Stanisława” (“The Mass of St. Stanislaus”), and in Zofia Kossak’s “Boże motory” (“Motors of the Divine”), in which both authors depict the indestructible force of sanctity. An entirely different treatment of the subject is to be found in Teodor Parnicki’s “Nowa baśń” (“A New Fable”). This author has forsaken the traditional pattern whereby the novelist follows historical facts, in favour of displaying the permanent force of human personality, a source of energy or, the use his own definition, “a source of energy which shapes the world”. He assumes that the blanks In the documents are an open invitation to the author’s imaginitive resources to concoct the most fantastic of fables. And thus he lets loose his imagination, and in the end his literary fiction becomes nothing more than the writer’s toy, leading to the utter misrepresentation of the real historical figure of the bishop. The major drawback of scarcity of historical documents may therefore be seen as one of the most important reasons why Polish prose writing has not so far succeeded in producing a picture of its Patron Saint which is both complete and deep: intellectually, psychologically, and aesthetically fulfilling. Such an image, fit to reside in the sanctuary of the national literary heritage, has been created by the most hallowed in the Polish literary tradition – poetry and drama, and its two visionaries, Słowacki and Wyspiański.