Św. Kazimierz w polskiej kulturze umysłowo-literackiej

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide a survey of the history and legend of St. Casimir as a figure in the Polish literary and intellectual culture of the five centuries which have elapsed since his death. The Prince, whose life was cut short at 25 by tuberculosis, was the second son of Casimir (IV) the Jagellonian. From his earliest years he was admired for his talents and virtues which inspired confidence and won the affection of those he came into contact with, as evidenced by numerous documentary records as early as 1469–1473 in which he is described as „adolescens ingenuus, rarae indolis et memorabilis Minervae”, „optime indolis, literatissimus, iusticie amator”, or „stupende virtutis et prudencie ac doctrine eximie, quibus multorum populorum' corda in sui amorem attraxerat”. His contemporaneous writers – both native (such as Długosz), and newcomers to Poland (Filippo Buanaccorsi Callimachus) – began almost at once to record his name and preserve his memory in their Latin works, with the growing general opinion (especially in Wilno, where he was buried) as to his sanctity, and with the resulting cult. The opening years of the 16th century saw the first steps in his canonisation process, accompanied by an increasing number of literary records of his life. The oration delivered by Erazm Ciołek to the Pope in 1501, the anonymous humanist treatise De Institutione Regii Pueri (11502), De Divo Casimiro [...] Carmen Elegiacum by the Swiss Rudolf Agricola the Younger (published in Cracow, 1511), and the poetry by Andrzej Krzycki (Ad Tumulum Divi Casimiri [...] Salutatio, 68 verses of elegiae distichs, and the succinct Epitaphium for him, written in 1513) initiated a series of literary works which mark the growth of a spontaneous popularity and of the legend of St. Casimir. Even the Papal Legate, Zaccaria Ferreri, who was sent out to Poland and Lithuania to conduct an examination on the case and spent IV2 years on the spot diligently carrying out his task, succumbed to the Casimirian legend, for – alongside the official documents prepared for the canonisation – he also compiled a Vita Beati Casimiri Confessoris (editio princeips, Cracoviae, 1520/21), and several poems on the Saint, including 5 breviary hymns which were published officially in the collection Hymni Novi Ecclesiatici (Romae, 1525). However, events interrupted the canonisation process when it was just about to be concluded. The deaths of Leo X and Erazm Ciołek, the general confusion created by the Reformation, and the calamitous Sacco di Roma of 1527, during which the canonisation documents were destroyed, postponed the final stage of the proceedings. Nevertheless, the cult itself continued, as evidenced in the poetry of Mikołaj Hussowczyk and Klemens Janicius, in the historians (Miechowita, Decjusz, Kromer, Herburt, etc.), and finally, after a slight initial delay, in the Polish Renaissance homiletic and hagiographie prose (Skarga and others). The turn of the 16th and 17th centuries marks the growing part of the Jesuits in the dissemination of the cult of St. Casimir in Poland and Lithuania. In May 1604 the Jesuit Academy in Wilno organised the magnificent and memorable celebrations for the Saint’s canonisation, with many of the city’s Jesuit scholars and men of letters taking part in the church ceremonies (which were described in detail in Theatrum S. Casimiri [...], Vilnae, 1604), and contributing verse, prose, and drama on St. Casimir in Polish and Latin. The masters of the college also held „poetry competitions”, with the Saint as their subject, for their students; in the same year over 90 of these poems in Latin, and one in Greek, all composed by students (including some foreigners, from Norway, Denmark, Scotland, Hungary and Sweden), were published in Theatridium Poeticum [...] D. Casimiro. St. Casimir provided a favourite subject in the 17th century for literary sermons; with such writers as F. Birkowski, A. Makowski, M. K. Sarbiewski and S. Starowolski among the numerous preachers involved. There was also Sarbiewski’s beautiful patriotic ode, S. Casimirus in Oppugnanda Polocia Milites trans Dunam Ducit and his epigram, S. Casimirus Infirmatur et a Medicis Non Curatur. Finally, there was the Polish-language poetry of S. Grochowski, K. Twardowski, E. Cieszyński, and others. However, it was drama that was especially attracted to the legend of the Saint, as the modern researcher finds in the numerous school plays in Latin on St. Casimir, performed in the Jesuit colleges both at home and abroad, of which over 10 different plays, all put on several times each up to the 1750’s, are known to-day. From the 1650’s onwards there was a significant rise in the number of Italian publications on St. Casimir, and the same period also witnessed the European renaissance of the mediaeval hymn, Omni die dic Mariae mea laudes anima, then attributed to St. Casimir, since a parchment containing its text was discovered in the coffin with his relics at its official opening. This hymn enjoyed a special popularity in Poland and was translated into Polish several times. It is still a favourite church hymn, in the version by the Romantic poet, J. B. Zaleski. After 1795 and the loss of Poland’s independence, and during the subsequent period, the Partitioning Powers – Austria under Joseph II, Russia (especially after 1863), and Prussia after 1870 and during the Kulturkampf – endeavoured to obstruct the cult of the Polish saints. However, their afforts proved fruitless, and the cult of the indigenous saints became even more widespread and a pervasive force within 19th-century Polish society, making itself felt in Mickiewicz’s Litania pielgrzymska in the Księgi narodu i pielgrzymstwa polskiego (Paris, 1832), in Jozef Bohdan Zaleski’s congenial translation of Omni die dic Mariae, and especially in the hymns found in popular 19th-century hymn books, such as those recorded in M. M. Mioduszewski’s hymnal of 1838, and J. Siedlecki’s 1878 publication.