Five Centuries of Bible Translations into Kashubian

Abstract

This paper discusses translations of biblical passages into Kashubian, which originated in the Lutheran circles between the 16th and the 19th centuries, followed by translations made in the Catholic circles in the 20th and the 21st centuries. The history of these translations has been divided into two periods: “old translations” and “contemporary translations.” The former comprise various biblical texts preserved in manuscripts and printed monuments, which came into being between 1586 and the second half of the 19th century. The fundamental texts of this period include the works by Szymon Krofey (1586), Michał Pontanus (1643), and Perykopy smołdzińskie (1699–1701). The old translations were done from German in the Protestant circles in West Pomerania. In turn, the “contemporary translations” of biblical texts into Kashubian embrace translations from the second half of the 20th century, which were produced in the Catholic environment of Gdańsk Pomerania: from Latin (Mk 4:3-20) by Alojzy Nagel (1973), from Latin (four Gospels) by Rev. Franciszek Grucza (1992), from Polish (the New Testament and the Psalms) by Eugeniusz Gołąbek (1993–2007) and my own translations from Hebrew and Greek (the Four Gospels, the Pentateuch, Ecclesiastes) prepared in 2001–2020.