Iberic and Slavonic Literatures - Contacts and Comparisons

1
Iberian and Slavonic Cultures:

Contact and Comparison
3
CompaRes Lisbon 2007
Iberian and Slavonic Cultures:
Edited and with an Introduction
by
Beata Elbieta Cieszyska
4
Reviewers:
Annabela Rita (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
Francisco Javier Juez Glvez (Complutense University of Madrid, Spain)
Halina Janaszek-Ivanikova (University of Silesia, Poland)
Hugh Denman (University of London, United Kingdom)
CompaRes
Is a press mark of the International Society for
Iberian-Slavonic Studies CompaRes
Mailing Address:
Rua Arnaldo Ferreira, Bloco 2, 5 Andar, Letra A 1750- 413 LISBON PORTUGAL
E-mail: compares.compares@gmail.com
Website: www.iberian-slavonic.org
Tel.: 00 351 961088814
NIF: 507 985 311
ISBN 978-989-95444-0-6
Chief Redactor: Beata Elbieta Cieszyska
Language review: Antonia Melvin
Editing and Printing: CompaRes; Remedia: Dolina 35,
85-212 Bydgoszcz, Poland
5
Contents:
Introduction:
Beata Elbieta Cieszyska:
Work in progress: Iberian-Slavonic Comparative Research
in Portugal and in the world....................................................................................................... I
I. National literatures in comparative perspective
Petar Petrov (University of Algarve, Portugal):
Portuguese and Bulgarian literatures from a comparative viewpoint ............................... 11
II. Reading the Other
Anna Kalewska (University of Warsaw, Poland):
Cames as a Romantic Hero: biography as the model for heroism
in the literature of Romanticism in Poland ....................................................................... 27
Sonja Koroliov (University of Halle/Wittenberg, Germany):
Spanish romance and the Russian Other: a reading of Bloks Carmen cycle .............. 46
Pau Sanmartn Ort (University Complutense of Madrid):
Two Formalist Readings of Don Quixote: Viktor Shklovskys Cervantine Prose ............. 55
III. Travel and its fruits
Eva-Maria von Kemnitz (Portuguese Catholic University, Lisbon, Portugal):
A vision from the other bank. Maria Danielewicz Zielinskas contribution
to the history of the Polish-Portuguese cultural relation ................................................... 73
Gerhard Seibert (Institute of Tropical Research, Lisbon):
500 years of the manuscript of Valentim Fernandes,
a Moravian book printer in Lisbon ................................................................................... 79
Adam Kucharski (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toru, Poland):
The Image of Portugal and its Inhabitants in Old Polish travel accounts
and reports of diplomatic missions (16
th
- 18
th
century)................................................... 89
Justyna Galiska (Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland):
Athanasius Count Raczyski an Expert in Portuguese Art ............................................. 107
Kevin Windle (Australian National University in Canberra, Australia):
Russia in 1908: the view from Manila. Teodoro Kalaws Hacia la tierra del Zar ..... 114
Sergey Mikhalchenko (Bryansk State I.G.Petrovsky University, Russia)
The Historians of the Kiev University and Iberian Researchers
end 19
th
- 20
th
Century ..................................................................................................... 127
Wojciech Tomasik (Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland):
The Spanish Civil War in colonial discourse (A General Walter case study) ............. 131
Pau Freixa Terradas (University of Barcelona):
Aspects of the Reception and Image of Gombrowicz in Argentina ................................ 138
6
IV. Translation Study
1. Panoramic views
Arijana Medvedec (Jean Piaget Institute, Lisbon, Portugal):
Croatia and Portugal: meeting points through literary translation ................................. 149
Barbara Pregelj (University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia)
Kritof Jacek Kozak (University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia):
Mapping the Literary Contacts Between Spain and Slovenia ........................................ 173
Alejandro Hermida de Blas (University Complutense of Madrid, Spain)
Patricia Gonzalo de Jess (University Complutense of Madrid, Spain):
The Translation of Czech and Slovak Literature in Spain ............................................. 185
Larissa Semenova-Head (Moscow Linguistic University, Russia):
Recent changes in the orientation and quality of translations of literary works
from Russian into Portuguese and from Portuguese into Russian ................................. 205
2. Detailed studies
Jacek Pleciski (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toru, Poland):
Terramoto (The Earthquake) Vitrio Kli: the imaginary world,
reality and the problems of the translator ........................................................................ 213
Jn Zambor (Comenius University, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava):
Slovak Reception of Romancerro Gitano by Frederico Garcia Lorca ........................... 222
Zlatka Timenova (University Lusfona, Lisbon):
Antnio Ramos Rosa in Bulgarian: (un)successful encounter? ................................... 231
Jacek Wjcicki (Polish Academy of Science):
Work in Progress Polish Enlightenment Translations of Voltaires Poem
on the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 ................................................................................. 239
V. Inspirations and diffusions ideas, topics and forms
Jos Eduardo Franco (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
Christine Vogel (University of Mainz, Germany):
The Monita secreta. The Influence of a Polish Anti-Jesuitic Best-Seller
in Portugal and in Europe ............................................................................................... 261
Danuta Knstler-Langner (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toru, Poland):
The Spanish Inspiration of Polish Seventeenth Century Literature ............................... 285
Ewa Cybulska (Polish Academy of Science, Toru, Poland):
Mystical Motives in Polish Seventeenth Century Poetry in Context
of Spanish Culture of Meditation.................................................................................... 292
Olga Rousinova (European University at St-Petersburg, Russia):
Lisbon and Petersburg: to the problem of mirroring eschatological concepts ............... 302
VI. Linguistic Perspectives
Barbara Hlibowicka-Wglarz (Maria Curie Skodowska University,
Lublin, Poland, Camoes Institute Poland):
Lusitanian-Slavonic relations: a linguists perspective ................................................... 315
7
Jaroslava Jindrov (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic):
Presentation of INTERCORP project of Czech National Corpus Institute ................... 316
Hanna Jakubowicz Batoro (Open University, Lisbon, Portugal):
Bilingual Acquisition Revisited. Implications of a Polish-Portuguese Case Study.
Twenty Years After ............................................................................................................ 321
Gueorgui Hristovsky (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
Ernesto dAndrade (University of Lisbon, Portugal):
Why do Bulgarian and Portuguese unstressed vowels behave
almost in the same way? .................................................................................................. 332
I
Beata Elbieta Cieszyska
Work-in-progress: Iberian-Slavonic
Comparative Research in Portugal and in the World
The recognition and deconstruction of the Iberian-Slavonic research area is a
response to the new political and cultural dimensions of Europe and the world, which
are struggling between affirming Nathan Glazers statement that We are all multi-
culturalists now
1
and questioning (or announcing the end of) multiculturalism
2
.
One important determinant of Iberian-Slavonic Studies is the approximation
between the Iberian Peninsula and the former Eastern Bloc countries, as well as
Yugoslavia (of the crucial Slavonic component), extension of the European Union
by the Slavs, new waves of immigrants. In the new Europe, therefore, it is impor-
tant to promote meeting points between cultural macrostructures, in this case, bet-
ween those of Slavs and Iberians.
The meeting of those two European cultures traditionally seen as distant and
even opposed, brings benefits of finding the new and deepening the old perspec-
tives for both comparative research and cultural experience. The Iberian-Slavonic
project tends to respond to the new methodological directions of the post-modern
comparativism, the one based on likeness and difference in the world of differ-
ence
3
. The wide formula: Contact and Comparison brings chances of recognising
contacts and points of comparison between those two cultural areas. This bridg-
1
See Nathan Glazer, We are all multiculturalists now, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997,
MA
2
See e.g.: Rainer Baubck, Farewell to Multiculturalism? Sharing values and identities in societies of
immigration: http://fra.europa.eu/fra/index.php?fuseaction=content.dsp_cat_content&contentid=
3eef28e28362a&catid =3eef0a23b85ae&search=1&frmsearch=multiculturalism&lang=EN, Is-
sue_12
3
See David Miller: Comparativism in a World of Difference .The Legacy of Joseph Campbell to the
Postmodern History of Religions, in The Joseph Campbell Foundation Newsletter, 2 (1994), 6-12, and
in Common Era: Best New Writings on Religion, ed. S. Scholl (Ashland: White Cloud Press, 1995),
168-77; Charles Bernheimer (Ed), Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism, Balti-
more, London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995
II
Iberian and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Comparison
ing of two European macro regions will also cover meetings in various configura-
tions of particular groups or nations from the Iberian and Slavonic worlds. At the
same time, staying within the binaries (Iberian-Slavonic), the project goes beyond
their limitations, creating a larger comparative perspective for every binary-based
topic.
4
At this stage there are still very different methodological issues: binarisms
and antibinarisms, attempts to underline the cross-cultural routes of the analysed
matter or rather its national (and mostly more static) nature. It seems that the
future task of the Iberian-Slavonic comparativism will be to cross geographical and
methodological boundaries, seeking the Iberian-Slavonic dimensions of the con-
temporary cultural production and, at the same time, its European and worldwide
connections. The multicultural dimension of this phenomenon, as well as its refe-
rences to changing identities are yet to be examined.
The perspective of Iberian and Slavonic countries also introduces the possibili-
ty of looking at contemporary Europe through its extreme points, what may con-
tribute to its new image as cultures no longer peripheral but in every case more
c e n t r a l.
The formula Contacts and Comparison was first applied during the Iberian-
Slavonic conference at the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon, 18-20 May,
2006. The purpose of that Conference was to recognise the diversity of contempo-
rary research interests in Iberian-Slavonic contacts through the centuries, and to
discuss points of comparison. There were papers on all areas of Iberian-Slavonic
studies, but especially in literature, history, art and linguistics. Within the area of
contacts between Iberian and Slavonic cultures, preference was given to Cross-
cultural influence on both micro and macro-levels; Picturing the Other Images of
Slavs and Iberians in Literature or Art; Reading the Other Studies in Travel and
Interpretation; Language and Culture Translation studies, Influences between
languages. In the field of Comparisons of Iberian and Slavonic Cultures special
attention was paid to literary and cultural perspectives on historical events; Evolu-
4
We may observe, next to the cultural conception of Iberian-Slavonic studies, some particular
binarisms, created from the point of view of Iberian countries: Portugal or Spain, i.e. appearing in
seminational bilateralism, as two separated subjects of a relationship with all Slavs (in Spain as
the Slavic World, in Portugal as the Eastern European countries), or national, referring to
individual Slavonic countries. The example of the former could be the conference: Spain and the
Slavic World, at the Complutense University, Spain, resulted in a publication: Espaa y el mundo
eslavo: relaciones culturales, literarias y lingsticas (Coordinator and Editor), Fernando Presa
Gonzlez ; (Co-editors), Tania Lleva, Agnieszka Matyjaszczyk Grenda, Alejandro Hermida de
Blas, Madrid: GRAM, 2002. The latter consists of countless bilateral seminars and colloquia.
III
tion of literary motives, genres and styles (Epochs, Periods and Cultural streams);
the roles of men and women in each culture; and comparison of individual artists
or works. Within the area of crossing Language and Culture, there was emphasis
on comparisons of translation issues and language systems. Seeking for complexity
of real contacts and imaginary or intellectual meetings between two analysed cul-
tures also indicated the horizon of that first Iberian-Slavonic project.
The Conference brought many revelations about Iberian-Slavonic issues, and
showed the need for an institutional base from which to promote Iberian-Slavonic
Studies in Portugal and in the world. There was also a need for a platform for
particular groups of interests, linked and willing to undertake various research within
the Iberian-Slavonic area.
This inspired the creation of CompaRes International Society for Iberian-Sla-
vonic Studies, established in Lisbon on 15 January 2007. CompaRes became the
first organization dedicated to such studies in Portugal and in the world. The found-
ers of the Association came up with the name CompaRes, which combines two
Latin words: the substantial res and the verb comparare. The latter, in addition to
compare, indicates the other significant to accompany and embrace. This mean-
ing inspired the new Society for Iberian-Slavonic Studies. The logo of CompaRes
refers to the seal of the Teutonic Knights, substituting, however, by a book, the
coats of arms of two knights sharing there the same horse. That shared horse,
symbolising the same destiny, expresses the determination to bridge the Spanish
and the Portuguese, and all of the Slavonic cultures.
As a new organisation for the promotion of Iberian-Slavonic Studies, Com-
paRes is to be a base for smaller, disciplinary sections, which are the branches of
the CompaRes research tree. According to that structure, the Association has
established two complementary lines of conferences, meant to cross each sections
achievement with the general directions of Iberian-Slavonic comparative research.
The main CompaRes meetings will concentrate on crossing borders and reviewing
the Iberian-Slavonic research in the series entitled Iberian and Slavonic Cultures in
5
. The second line will inspire molecular conferences, on
themes to be determined by the study groups.
CompaRes research intersects with other European cultures, focusing on how
they recognise and reflect on the roles of Iberians and Slavs. European culture is to
be recognised in its macrostructures and levels of identification within the multi-
Introduction
5
The first line example could be the conference organised at the Faculty of Letters, University of
Lisbon, 26-28 April, 2007, subtitled: Towards Crises and Prosperity.
IV
cultural community. The realisation of that line would associate CompaRes with
other institutions seeking new visions of the present cultural meetings in Europe
and for Europe
6
, comparing and making Iberian and Slavonic options and projects
visible. This is an opportunity for the Association to benefit from multiculturalism,
offering also Iberian-Slavonic perspectives for todays discussions about multicul-
turalism.
First, and in like with the European perspectives, CompaRes objects cover two
complementary areas of Iberian-Slavonic studies. The first is cross-cultural re-
search focused on ways to interpret widely understood texts of each other cul-
ture, the second is the search for the renewing cultural dislocation. The former
tends to show how the Iberian-Slavonic Studies devoted to such contacts and com-
parisons may add new perspectives to the relativisation of the traditional reading
of the Other in Europes historically and culturally changing situation. The per-
spectives of linguistic and translation studies are essential in the new European
language and cultural reality. With the so called Lisbon strategy
7
the need to
approach different language spaces from a cross-cultural perspective is revealed
and supported. But, there is obviously much more than only a practical, communi-
cative level, for there are still so many scars and misunderstandings, and the trans-
lation process could be one possible cure. In this context it is very important to
translation in todays united Europe as a meeting of the memory of the One with
the memory of the Other; the translation becomes both the Third and the New,
not only uniting the previous two, but even benefiting from them
8
. That explains
why one of the most important activities of CompaRes is both the promotion of
literary translation among Iberian-Slavonic languages, and constructing a particu-
lar theory of Iberian-Slavonic Translation studies.
The second complex matter within the main CompaRes objects is the idea of
renewing cultural dislocation
9
, which accompanies academic initiatives in the
new European reality. It requires the redefinition of visions of the relationship
6
The realisation of this line will be the co-organised by CompaRes International Congress Ideas
of/for Europe, Chemnitz, Germany, planned for February 2009.
7
And being nomen-omen, as it was Lisbon where the first Iberian-Slavonic Conference took place.
8
That idea of todays European objects of translation was presented by Manuel Frias Martins from
the Portuguese Association of Translators, during the conference Towards Crisis and Prosperity,
Lisbon, 26-28 April, 2007 in his paper entitled Reading the Other in Translation (to be published).
9
This term was inspired by the title of the collection: Deslocalizar a Europa. Antropologia, Arte,
Literatura e Historia na Ps-Colonialidade, Ed. and with an Introduction by Manuela Ribeiro
Sanches, Lisbon: Livros Cotovia, 2005
V
between Others and Themselves in the process of real, culturally and artistically
directed meeting. Therefore the objective of CompaRes is to connect research and
cultural events for the benefit of Europe. For that reason the first line of confer-
ences at the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon was connected to Iberian-Sla-
vonic expositions, poetry evenings, legends, music, dinners and cultural meetings,
also intended to lay the foundation for Iberian-Slavonic multilingual anthologies.
The idea of compatibility of both cultural and research projects became one of the
characteristics of Iberian and Slavonic activity, one that was based in the new Euro-
pean reality.
In search of the mythic unity of yet divided Europe, the idea of promoting
Iberian-Slavonic multicultural meetings attached to academic events offers new
options to those two European cultures.
10
The traditional architecture of Europe
still bears witness to the existence of the complex but yet identification with the
ethnically based family language and culture groups, seen as the first, macro struc-
tural degree coming after the national identification (the Slavs, the Iberians). There-
fore the advantage of meeting the Other is to recognise ones own national, as
well as the wider, ethnic and cultural context. Uniting towards the Third (Iberian
or Slavonic) is one of the CompaRes projects aims. There are still scars to be healed
within these two ethnically based groups, as well as the whole sets of cultural ster-
eotypes. If into that journey to meet the Third we take our home enemies, also
abroad we could look at/for them as enemies. There may, however, also arise a
tendency to create the new relationship between such understood owns. As we
see our own group culturally united towards the Third
11
, the new perspective on
the referred baggage renovation arises.
12
10
When looking at the approximation of the Slavs and Iberians in that way one of the goals sought
is to perform the kind of dislocating carnival- applying some components of the Bakhtins
model to redefine the old, living stereotypes. See his reading the Gargantua and Pantagruel by
Rabelais: Rabelais and his world. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1941.
11
This uniting tendency, in this case towards the topic of the Third, could be observed on both
Iberian Peninsula and the Slavonic countries. The excellent example of the former is that of the
SEDERI Association activities. Previously only a Spanish Association of the British Renaissance
Studies, from 2003 became enlarged to Spanish and Portuguese Studies. As for the Slavonic area
we may notice the tendencies to look at the Slavonic countries as one towards Europe, in the
activity directed by the International Committee of Slavists, especially in the field of a literary
comparativism.
12
Iberian and Slavonic Cultures in Contact and Comparison: Towards Crisis and Prosperity (FLUL,
Portugal, 26-28 April, 2007).
Introduction
VI
As it appears to be the right time for the European communities to apply the
rule of renovating cultural dislocation, in Iberian-Slavonic events often seems to
be the cultural component of meetings, helping to recognise and express the old
stereotypes in order to create new relationships. Therefore the idea for/of Com-
paRes the International Society for Iberian-Slavonic Studies, is to associate cul-
tural activity inspiring and offering the opportunity to cross national and cultural
borders with the stream of research and cultural events, giving a European and
worldwide perspective to all its activities
13
.
* * *
This collection consists mainly of papers delivered at the first Iberian-Slavonic
International Conference, Iberian and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Comparison,
held from 18 to 20 May, 2006, at the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon, Por-
tugal.
The book offered to riders opens a new methodological approach to national
literatures in comparative perspective. Petar Petrov (University of Algarve, Portu-
gal) discusses Bulgarian and Portuguese literatures. Petrov shows horizons for com-
parative analyses of both Slavonic and Iberian literatures in Portuguese and Bulgar-
ian literatures from a comparative viewpoint.
The next section presents three examples of cultural meeting between the Sla-
vonic and Iberian worlds. That part, Reading the Other, studies the way of reading
the text of one culture (widely understood) by the reader of the other. The first
example, by Anna Kalewska (University of Warsaw, Poland), situates a reading of
the Portuguese poet Luis de Camoes life within the Polish romantic tradition in
Cames as a Romantic Hero: Biography as the Model for Heroism in the Literature
of Romanticism in Poland. The next two studies examine the contemporary reac-
tions of the Spanish texts. Sonja Koroliov (University of Halle/Wittenberg, Ger-
many) shows Bloks poetic approaches to Bizets Carmen, in Spanish Romance
and the Russian Other: A Reading of Bloks Carmen cycle, identifying the con-
temporary text as a meeting and admitting the Other. The last article, by Pau
Sanmartn Ort (University Complutence of Madrid, Spain), Two Formalist Read-
13
It brings another new option for research aprojects of Iberian-Slavonic area, as it is also a process
requiring its own methodology and auto-review.
VII
ings of Don Quixote: Viktor Shklovskys Cervantine Prose in literary theory shows the
crystallisation of the theoretical school through reading the literary text.
The next section of the volume presents a similar perspective to reading the
Other, adding, however, to the literary interpretation some cross-cultural studies,
which focus on cultural meetings. This part, Travel and Its Fruit opens with two
articles characterised by the spirit of homage. The first of them pays tribute to
Maria Danilewicz Zielinska and presents works of that well known Polish writer
and historian of literature, a Second World War emigrant. She eventually moved
(after the London period) to Lisbon, when she spent last 30 years of her life
14
,
contributing to the research on the Polish-Portuguese contacts and comparisons.
The description of her work is prepared by Eva-Maria von Kemnitz (Portuguese
Catholic University, Lisbon) and entitled A Vision from the Other Bank. Maria
Danielewicz Zielinskas Contribution to the History of the Polish-Portuguese Cultural
Relations.
In a similar spirit of paying tribute although in different cultural context, is
article by Gerhard Seibert (Institute of Tropical Research, Lisbon, Portugal). His
study, Valentim FernandesManuscript 1506-2006, focuses on the works of a
Moravian book printer in Lisbon during the Renaissance. Fernandes work presents
itself as a doubled fruit of travel as not only he was a traveller from Bohemia, but
also his manuscript reveals itself as a collection of fruits of his travels to Africa.
The next chronologically ordered six studies of the same section, refer to trave-
lling, mostly in Europe: Adam Kucharskis (Nicolaus Copernicus University, To-
run, Poland) article shows Ancient Polish travel literature on Portugal in The Ima-
ge of Portugal and its Inhabitants in Old Polish Travel Accounts and Reports of Diplo-
matic Missions (16
th
-18
th
century); Justyna Galiska (Polish Academy of Sciences,
Warsaw, Poland) analyses the impact and role of Portuguese art on the private and
public life of a Polish diplomat in Count Athanasius Raczyski an Expert in Portu-
guese Art; Kevin Windle (Australian National University in Canberra, Australia)
describes the last years of imperial Russia in the Spanish Literature of the Philip-
pines in Russia in 1908: The View from Manila. Teodoro Kalaws <Hacia la tierra del
Zar>; Serguey Mikhalchenko (Bryansk State I.G. Petrovsky University, Russia)
shows the adventures of Russian travellers to the Iberian Peninsula at the turn of
the 19
th
and 20
th
centuries in The Historians of the Kiev University and Iberian Re-
14
The perspective of paying tribute was also indicated by the time of the Lisbon conference Contact
and Comparison, held on the third anniversary of Maria Danilewicz Zielinskas death.
Introduction
VIII
searchers (end 19
th
-20
th
Century). The next article, by Wojciech Tomasik (Kazimi-
erz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland), describes the Polish Communist gen-
eral Karol Swierczewskis mission in Spain as a basis of soc-realistic ideology:
The Spanish Civil War in colonial discourse (A General Walter case study). Finally,
Pau Freixa Terradas (University of Barcelona, Spain) found a complex relationship
between Witold Gombrowicz a Polish writer and a Second World War refugee,
and Argentinean elites in Aspects of the Reception and Image of Gombrowicz in
Argentina.
The books fourth section is focused on Translation Study, grouping articles
according to two different perspectives. Articles that have a more panoramic over-
view, and that depict relationships between Slavonic and Iberian countries through
translations are Croatia and Portugal: Meeting Points through Literary Translation by
Arijana Medvedec (Jean Piaget Institute, Lisbon, Portugal); Barbara Pregelj (Uni-
versity of Nova Gorica, Slovenia)/ Kritof Jacek Kozak (Koper University of Pri-
morska, Slovenia) in Mapping the Literary Contacts Between Spain and Slovenia;
Alejandro Hermida de Blas (University Complutense of Madrid, Spain) and Patri-
cia Gonzalo de Jess (University Complutense of Madrid, Spain) in The Transla-
tion of Czech and Slovak Literature in Spain; Larissa Semenova-Head (Moscow
Linguistic University, Russia): The Recent Change in the Orientation and Quality of
Translations of Russian Literary Works into Portuguese.
The second perspective of that section presents Detailed studies focused on
particular translation cases. That part opens a translators personal experience of
Jacek Pleciski (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toru, Poland), elaborated in his
article Terramoto Vitrio Kli: The Imaginary World, Reality and the Problems of
the Translator. Jn Zambor (Comenius University and Slovak Academy of Scienc-
es, Bratislava, Slovakia) assessed translations of Lorca poetry in his Slovak Recep-
tion of <Romancerro Gitano> by Frederico Garcia Lorca. An inquisitive element
enters this section in Zlatka Timenovas (University Lusfona, Lisbon, Portugal),
critical analyses of the well known Portuguese poet translated into Bulgarian:
Antnio Ramos Rosa in Bulgarian: an encounter with(out) success?
The section concludes with Jacek Wjcickis (Polish Academy of Science) arti-
cle, Work in Progress Polish Enlightenment Translations of Voltaires Poem on the
Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. His analysis raises some questions that are reiterated in
the fifth section: Inspirations and Diffusions Ideas, Topics and Forms. This section
is a collection of articles on the 17
th
and 18
th
century receptions of Slavonic and
Iberian events or texts in comparative perspective. Jos Eduardo Franco (Univer-
IX
sity of Lisbon, Portugal) and Christine Vogel (University of Mainz, Germany) look
at The <Monita Secreta>. The Influence of a Polish Anti-Jesuitical Best-Seller in
Portugal and in Europe; two subsequent studies deal with Spanish school of medita-
tion and religious tradition that influenced Polish Baroque culture: Danuta Kns-
tler-Langner (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toru, Poland) elaborates The Spa-
nish Inspiration of Polish Seventeenth Century Literature, when Ewa Cybulska (Polish
Academy of Science, Poland) focuses on the Mystical Motives in Polish Seventeenth
Century Poetry in Context of Spanish Culture of Meditation. This group closes with
an article by Olga Rousinova (European University at St-Petersburg, Russia) that
refers to architectural ideas and projects relating to disasters of 18
th
century Eu-
rope in her comparative article, Lisbon and Petersburg: to the Problem of Mirroring
Eschatological Concepts.
The last section of the Iberian and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Comparison,
called Linguistic Perspectives, opens a short introductory reflection: Lusitanian-Sla-
vonic Relations: A Linguists Perspective by Barbara Hlibowicka-Wglarz (Maria
Curie Sklodowska University/Camoes Institute, Lublin, Poland), referring to her
speech given during the Opening Session of that first Iberian-Slavonic conference.
Two subsequent studies explore language acquisition: the first, by Jaroslava Jin-
drov (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic), presents an innovative peda-
gogical project at her University, Presentation of INTERCORP Project of Czech
National Corpus Institute, the second, by Hanna Jakubowicz Batoro (Open Uni-
versity, Lisbon, Portugal), approaches the category of bilingualism in a Polish-Por-
tuguese child in Bilingual Acquisition Revisited. Implications of a Polish-Portuguese
Case Study. Twenty Years After.
The last article of this section (and of the book) closes The Iberian-Slavonic
Circle, opened by Petar Petrovs comparative article, a study by Gueorgui Hris-
tovsky (University of Lisbon, Portugal) and Ernesto dAndrade (University of Lis-
bon, Portugal) reintroduces a Luso-Bulgarian perspective, this time a linguistic
one. Their article Why do Bulgarian and Portuguese Unstressed Vowels Behave Al-
most in the Same Way? offers a comparative analysis of Bulgarian and Portuguese
phonological systems.
The electronic version of Iberian and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Compar-
ison will be posted on the CompaRes website: www.iberian-slavonic.org. Thus all
riders will be welcome to comment on ways of making the Iberian-Slavonic dia-
logue more informative and fruitful.
Introduction
X
Acknowledgments
The Conference Iberian and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Comparison was
an excellent fruit of international co-operation between both research and diplo-
matic institutions of Slavonic and Iberian countries. The Centre of Slavic Languag-
es and Cultures of the Department of Romance and General Linguistic and the
Centre for Comparative Studies represented the Faculty of Letters, University of
Lisbon. The Organising Committee consisted of Beata Cieszynska and Kelly Basil-
io, in co-operation with Elisabete Marques Ranchhod and Gueorgui Hristovsky.
The research team relied on the support and help of the representation of autho-
rities of Slavonic and Iberians Countries in Lisbon: the founder of the conference,
The Embassy of Republic of Poland, acting in co-operation with the Embassy of
the Republic of Bulgaria, the Embassy of the Czech Republic, the Embassy of the
Republic of Slovenia, the Embassy of the Slovak Republic, the Embassy of the
Republic of Croatia, the Embassy of the Russian Federation, and the Embassy of
the Kingdom of Spain. The organisers also would like to express their gratitude to
the conference sponsors: Imparte, Ltd; Banco Espirito Santo, Centralwings and
Pingo Doce.
9
I. NATI ONAL
LI TERATURES
IN
COMPARATI VE
PERSPECTIVE
11
Petar Petrov
(Algarve University, Portugal)
Portuguese and Bulgarian literature
from a comparative viewpoint*
1. To examine and compare literary production in Portugal and in Bulgaria
may seem at first a strange purpose, considering the methodological proposals that
currently dominate comparative literature studies. In order for the idea to gain
entire sense, we must, first of all, formulate the problems posed by the more di-
vulged comparative procedures and the consequent contributions to the field of
Comparative Literature. More precisely, we must turn our attention to certain the-
ories which open perspectives in order to establish parallels between the litera-
tures which we intend to analyze.
As is known, within comparative literature there are two doctrines which have
gained ground in the Western world and that continue to find supporters in spite of
the fact that they differ in their interpretation of the literary phenomenon and in
their method of approach. We refer to the French school of comparativism, which
was consolidated with the advent of the historical-philological method and whose
objectives were summarised in 1931, by Paul Van Tieghen, in the first manual on
the subject, entitled La Littrature Compare. Making a distinction between Na-
tional Literature, General Literature and Comparative Literature, its author con-
ceived the latter as a more analytical course and responsible for the investigation
of the relationships between two literatures, of the so called binary contacts.
These are causal reciprocities between works and authors which are subject to
examination in the field of crenology, understood as the study of sources and
influences, and of fortune, connected with the success obtained by a work or an
author, with incidence in intermediaries, translations, editions, etc.
* Text elaborated within the Project Comparative Literature, Rhetorical Studies, Literary Theory and
Criticism of the Centre for Linguistic and Literary Studies of the Algarve University, financed by
the F.C.T. and subsidized by F.E.D.E.R.
12
The second proposal for comparativism was created, in mid-twentieth centu-
ry, by the former member of the Prague Circle, Ren Wellek, following the princi-
ples enounced by the North American new criticism. Opposing Van Tieghems the-
oretical model, its main purpose was to condemn the causalist principle of tradi-
tional studies of sources and influences in favour of an analysis centered on the text
and not on outside data. Based on a formalist view of literary analysis, Wellek
disputed the historicist tendency of the French school of comparative literature, its
commitment to a reductive Positivism and underlined its complete ignorance re-
garding the contribution of literary theorization in the field of Poetry (See Wellek,
1994). On the other hand, Henry Remak, in a 1971 essay (Remak, 1971), sought to
better define the model of the so called American school. His main idea was that
the comparativist should also study the relation between Literature and other fields
of knowledge, such as Art in general, Philosophy, History, Social Sciences, Reli-
gion, etc. The concept of Comparative Literature under this model does not have a
well defined methodology because, according to Remak, the subject should admit
all methods of approach. As a consequence of this openness, the investigator must
search his own principles of study, from the concrete works that are object of his
analysis. This position paved the way for a comparativism centered on multidisci-
plinary procedures, which allowed the launch of a new phase in the field of Com-
parative Literature which currently includes the so called Cultural Studies.
We may easily conclude that the theoretical offers of the French and North
American schools cannot supply leads into the comparative study of the Litera-
ture of Portugal and Bulgaria. In the first case, the limitation is evident: there are
no real and established contacts between writers and literary productions, nor be-
tween authors of both countries, which allow to establish filiations and determine
imitations or inspirations in both directions. In what concerns the formal and multi-
disciplinary aspects, they also lack efficiency and even accuracy, due to the fact that
they have not been able, so far, to point to any methodology in the field of Compar-
ative Literature.
2. In our opinion, there are two forms of comparative study, formulated by
investigators in Slavic countries, which represent an undeniable contribution to
overcoming the restrictions of the above mentioned theories. We are referring to
the Russian investigator Victor Zhirmunsky and the Czech investigator Dionyz
Durisin, whose theories are among the most productive, because they offer possi-
bilities for establishing new methodological strategies. The consistency of their
13
National literatures in comparative perspective
methods results from the critical review of concepts contained in the Philological
tradition, integrating them in tendencies guided toward the understanding of the
literary phenomenon. More exactly, they allow to see the literary text in its semiot-
ic and communicative complexity, whose axiological, rhetorical and ideological codes
allow to try more dynamic and flexible procedures (See Petrov, 2000, pp. 37-39).
Zhirmunskys theoretical proposal comes following the research initiated in
East European countries after the IV International Congress of Slavists in Mos-
cow, 1958, and also the Sofia Congress of 1963, and became more visible in the IV
Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association of Belgrade, in
1967. In this Congress, the Leningrad scholar developed a hypothetical reasoning
in the sense of renewing the issues of Comparative Literature in the terms of a
more Marxist type of investigation. This tendency was meant to oppose the positiv-
ist view of the French school and, more expressly, the American formalist model.
Based on the works on folkloric subjects made by A. Vesselovsky, Zhirmunsky
adopted as a basic principle the understanding of Literature as a product of socie-
ty. In his concept, there is regularity in literary development through time, which is
conditioned by the also regular historical and social development of Mankind. In
this regard, Zhirmunskys main concern was to distinguish the so called analo-
gies or historical-typological similarities that always correspond to similar situ-
ations in social evolution, whose presence may be verified in Literatures with no
contacts among themselves. On the other hand, the similarity between literary facts
may come from the presence of direct contacts from a cultural point of view. It is
therefore crucial to distinguish, in each Literature, the typological analogies from
the actual influences. Generally speaking, both are connected: an influence only
becomes possible if there is an inner need of the receiving Literature to absorb
foreign elements during its evolution. In other words, each influence is a historical-
ly conditioned fact determined by the internal development of a certain national
literature. Several examples corroborate Zhirmunskys theory, the most convinc-
ing of which underline the appearance, in literatures that are independent of each
other, of analogical currents, movements, types and individual works (See Zhir-
munsky, 1994; Nitrini, 2000, pp. 47-51).
Returning to Zhirmunskys ideas, D. Durisin furthered the distinction between
similarities caused by contact relations and literary similarities determined by
historical-typological affinities, i.e., by analogies. In the first case, the presence
of characteristics of a foreign literature in the formation of the receiving literature
may be studied from two points of view: from their external contacts, that is,
14
influences that are exercised and factually proven, and the point of view of inter-
nal contacts, seen as the adaptability of a certain literature to the implementation
of migratory repercussions. The latter become concrete in two ways: in the form of
integrants (reminiscences, filiations, adaptations, inspirations, etc.) or differen-
tiators (parody, satire, etc.). As for typological analogies, they may also be dis-
tinguished according to the degree of intensity and causal conditioning, which may
be social, literary or psychological in nature. The social-typological analo-
gies, for instance, refer to facts of a contextual nature, reflecting the ruling ideolog-
ical paradigms of a certain historical context. The literary analogies are related
with the specificity of the verbal artistic artefact and their study overlaps the field
of Theory of Literature. There may also be psychological affinities, not as impor-
tant, as in some artistic features that emerge as characteristic traits in some literary
periods (See Durisin, 1984; Nitrini, quoted work, pp.89-99).
Returning to our starting point, we may infer that the theoretical contributions
of Zhirmunsky and Durisin offer chances to compare literatures that are distant
from each other, as is the case of the literatures of Portugal and Bulgaria. These
chances may be found in the possibility of establishing similarities and differences
between literary currents and periods from analogies of a social-ideological and an
aesthetic-literary nature.
3. The examination of the proposals to analyze per period the Literatures of
Portugal and Bulgaria indicates certain affinities between the different movements
that occurred in the XIX and XX centuries. This because, for historical reasons,
the new Bulgarian Literature began to form only from Romanticism, since, be-
tween 1396 and 1878, the country was under Ottoman domain. The contextual
premises that are in the basis of the advent of the Romantic tendency in Europe
are well known: it originated from the rise of the capitalist State and the economic,
political and social progress of the bourgeoisie. Although these processes are eas-
ily verifiable in Portugal, that is not the case in Bulgaria, because the new social
and economic order only started to evolve after independence. So, Portuguese
Romanticism is closer, in its ideological indoctrination, of European romanticisms,
as may be seen in its greatest authors, Almeida Garrett and Alexandre Herculano.
The former successfully cultivated poetry, prose and theatre, with all the charac-
teristics of the so called romantic spirit, where idealism, sentimentality, egocen-
trism and melodrama are brought together in an original form. The latter became
famous for introducing the historical novel and for a poetic art centred in reli-
15
gious experiences, the wonders of nature, the hope and suffering of the Portuguese
Man.
Well, in Bulgaria, romantic Literature is almost entirely related with the for-
mation of a national conscience, within the context of an empire made of several
nations, as was the Ottoman Empire. Hence its particularity that is restricted to the
valorisation of popular tradition as opposed to a cultured imposed by the domina-
tor. Poets such as Naiden Guerov and Petko Slaveikov, among others, praise ele-
ments of folkloric roots, seeking to underline ethical and aesthetic aspects of a
people still subjugated by a feudal regime. The theme of national history, for ex-
ample, appears in the romantic poems of Dobri Tchintulov and Gueorgui Sava
Rakovski, as well as in the dramatic work of Vassil Drumev. In parallel with this
concern, ideas of independence appear in the romantic-revolutionary poetry of
Liuben Karavelov and Hristo Botev, to quote the more well known authors, invest-
ed in apostles of freedom and confident in a future free from oppression.
The romantic schools are followed by Realism and Naturalism from the mid
XIX century and are a result of the extraordinary advance of the exact and human
sciences, which permitted the advance of the materialistic spirit. In Portugal, new
elites are formed, as was the case of the 70s Generation, whose representatives,
Antero de Quental, Oliveira Martins, Ramalho Ortigo, Tefilo Braga, Gomes
Leal and Jaime Batalha Reis, underwent the difficult task of integrating the coun-
try in the environment of scientific and social progress that was blooming in Eu-
rope. In this ideological context, the realist writers appear with the task of critically
analysing the mores, in a reformist perspective, assuming anti-idealistic and anti-
romantic attitudes. What they are interested in is the material reality and its dis-
passionate, objective observation, with the intention of denouncing the negative
aspects that affect the community. Choosing narrative as the genre most adjusted
to their doctrinal principles, the nineteenth century realists sought to portray sev-
eral aspects of social, political and cultural life and focused on analyzing the vices
within the bourgeois family nucleus. Hence the dominant themes of the move-
ment, such as the role of education in human behaviour, the degradation of amo-
rous sentiment, unbridled ambition, adultery as an escape from an empty and mean-
ingless existence. On the other hand, Naturalism will introduce determinism, due
to its ideological basis, positivism, essentially materialistic and anti-metaphysical.
So, factors such as race, background and historical moment will lead naturalist
writers to choose subjects related to hereditariness, the influence of environment
and of education, as is seen in Ea de Queirs, the most well known Portuguese
16
writer of prose. In his novels of the realist/naturalist phase, for example, the posi-
tivist spirit and new aesthetics found their full embodiment. These are narratives in
which the attempt to inquire Portuguese society by applying a method of analysis
that completes realism with parascientific procedures in order to explain, as well as
describe the observed phenomenon, is clearly visible.
In Bulgarian Literature, the Romanticism of the 1840s and 50s gives way to
the realist spirit that is developed mainly from 1878 onward. Many of the romantic
writers evolve by adopting methods of the new aesthetic, such as Karavelov and
Botev, and their work generally takes on the character of the existing movement in
other European countries. However, the specific context of the country in the final
quarter of the century creates features that distinguish Bulgarian Realism from the
Realism of more developed countries. This happens due to the new emerging real-
ity: capitalism in Bulgaria, in its initial stages, assumed a more backward and brutal
quality, characterized by a particularly savage exploitation that deepened social
injustice and accentuated the inequality among the classes. These aspects will be
the favourite subjects of writers after independence, that is, almost all literature
invested in denouncing the poverty and misery in which most of the Bulgarian
people was immersed. Being unable to condone the moral and cultural degrada-
tion of the ruling class, writers became a living conscience of the time. They wanted
to demystify the way of life imposed by the bourgeoisie, the avarice of the new
politicians, the evil that corroded social life, as is the case of the work of Todor
Vlaikov, Mihalaki Guerorguiev, Anton Strachimirov, in his earlier phase, Aleko
Konstantinov and, already in the XX century, Elin Pelin and Iordan Iovkov, among
others. We must refer the name of the most important writer of the time, Ivan
Vazov, whose work, evolving in a time of great national tensions and catastrophes,
exemplifies a realism that evokes the problem of the anti-popular nature of the
oligarchy in power, that has no ideal other than the accumulation of wealth, and of
the representatives of the bourgeois class, accused of being selfish and parasitic.
Considering all of the above, one may verify that analogue processes in the
historical and social development in Portugal and Bulgaria created ideological con-
ditions for the appearance of literary productions of a romantic and realist nature.
In what concerns literary-typological analogies, these are situated in two planes,
that of semantic information and that of technical-formal strategies. In the context
of Romanticism, for example, it is possible to confront the manners of manifesta-
tion of the national ideal in both literatures, in the several literary forms of the
lyrical, narrative and dramatic. On the other hand, during Realism, we may estab-
17
lish parallels between different techniques of treatment of the subject matter, es-
pecially in prose, circumscribed to codes of representation, action, rhetoric and
pragmatic codes in individual literary works.
4. From the last decade of the XIX century and until the eve of the Second
World War, the realist/naturalistic aesthetic will be replaced by the literary move-
ments known as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Neo-Romantism, Decadentism, Sau-
dosismo and Modernism, which started to have a major role in Portuguese Liter-
ature. The latter, for instance, existing between 1915 and 1939, had two periods,
the first essentially renovating, whose representatives, especially Fernando Pessoa,
Mrio de S-Carneiro and Almada Negreiros, evolved from Symbolism to a futur-
istic vanguardism, and the first of these authors also went through the phases of
Paulismo and Interseccionismo. The work of the first modernist generation,
influenced by the European vanguards of the early XX century, revolutionized
Portuguese Literature and unequivocally marked later artistic productions. Liter-
ary production evolved differently in the same period in Bulgaria: only Symbolism
will have its followers and only in a very late phase, only in the first two decades of
the century. Its importance at a national level is undisputable, although the move-
ment was not as expressive within the context of European modernisms. Most writ-
ers who cultivated the new aesthetic continued to adhere to a more traditional
discourse, related with Realism, and some symbolists presented an eclectic body of
work or divided in phases, incorporating nineteenth century elements and elements
typical of modernist paradigms. In this aspect, we must mention the names of
Pentcho Slaveikov, Teodor Traianov, Hristo Iassenov, Nikolai Liliev, Dimtcho
Debelianov and Gueo Milev, whose writing reveals influences from Parnasianism,
Symbolism and Expressionism.
However, there are two literary movements that followed modernist tenden-
cies which developed almost simultaneously in both countries, which present clear
affinities from a semantic-pragmatic and technical-formal point of view: Portu-
guese Neo-realism and Bulgarian Socialist Realism.
Historically, Neo-Realism, which appears in Portugal in the 1940s, was moti-
vated by socio-political factors of a time which saw the disastrous consequences of
the 1920s economic crisis, the appearance of totalitarian regimes in Europe and
the start of the Second World War. Generally speaking, the new movement was
associated to the worldwide antifascist resistance and represented an opposition to
Salazars regime. The theory of Neo-Realism found space to manifest itself in mag-
18
azines and newspapers, having persisted from the mid-thirties to the mid-fifties.
Unlike nineteenth century Realism, ruled by a positivist thought, its followers will
defend a Marxist conception of the literary phenomenon and the social role of the
writer. For the movements theorizers, such as Mrio Dionsio, Manuel Campos
Lima, Joaquim Namorado, Raul Gomes, Rui Feij, Armando Bacelar, etc., litera-
ture is a form of the individual gaining awareness and a means of intervention in
social and political life. Considering the pedagogical-didactic role, the writers mis-
sion is to demystify the socio-economic contradictions, by presenting the flaws of
the system responsible for human degradation. In this regard, the movement will
openly oppose the disengagement of the literary tendency that immediately pre-
ceded it, the Portuguese Second Modernism, seen as morally absent due to its
socially gratuitous psychology.
Defending an engaged art focused on the real problems of their country, neo-
realists, mainly in the narrative form, but also in poetic production, as is demon-
strated by the publication of a collection of books, between 1941 and 1944, by Fern-
ando Namora, Mrio Dionsio, Joo Jos Cochofel, Manuel da Fonseca and Car-
los de Oliveira, among others. The choice of fiction is in consonance with certain
programmatic orientations that, considering the axiological concerns of historical
materialism, required a greater objectivity in the treatment of the dialectic of eco-
nomic and social change. In this way, Neo-Realism will favour themes related with
the oppressed classes, particularly industry workers, and one of its basic character-
istics will be to denounce several forms of alienation, seen as the deprivation of
attributes and rights inherent to human beings. An illustration of this fact is the
fictional narrative of Alves Redol, Afonso Ribeiro, Manuel da Fonseca, Soeiro
Pereira Gomes Mrio Braga, Romeu Correia and Carlos de Oliveira, that offers a
somewhat complex portrayal of the different social conflicts, based on the exploi-
tation of Man and the consequent class awareness of its characters. This way, the
literary compromise practised by neo-realist writers also outlines a new dialectical
view of the individual, replacing the view of traditional XIX century humanism.
This time, the intention is to see the system as responsible for social injustice and
to regard Man as a determining factor of change through Mans revolutionary ac-
tion. This confident attitude towards the potential transformative power of the
historical subject, in the sense of solving inequalities by destroying an order and
creating a new and fairer one, will be called New Humanism, camouflaging the
words socialism and Marxism during Salazars dictatorship (See Torres, 1977;
Reis 1983).
19
In tune with the assumed ideological coordinates, the neo-realists of the 1940s,
or of the so called first phase of the movement, were also directly influenced by
foreign works and authors, especially Soviet Socialist Realism. In effect, the New
Humanism of the Portuguese movement is identified with what was demanded of
Russian writers who, after the 1917 Revolution, produced a combative literature of
Marxist affirmation. In the early 1930s, Socialist Realism will become the official
state aesthetic credo of communist power and, in 1934, in the Congress of Soviet
writers, ideologues such as Jdanov and Radek will present the main principles of
the new artistic current. According to these ideologues, the assumption of the
Marxist-Leninist ideology and the direct knowledge of life are the foundation of
literary creation, because they allow the writer to represent, in a truthful way, real-
ity in its revolutionary development. As a consequence, they rejected all artistic
manifestations with traits of subjectivity and formalism, typical of the aesthetic
theories of Art for Arts sake, on behalf of a literature that saw society and the
Man of the future. This way, the followers of Socialist Realism will see literature as
having mainly didactic functions and Realism will see it as a superior aesthetic,
valued more for its content than for its technical-formal expression (See Reis, op.
cit.; Barrento, 1978).
After the Second World War, Bulgarian Literature also saw the rise of a new
movement, which will dominate the artistic scene until the mid fifties. Historically,
Socialist Realism in Bulgaria has its predecessors, in the 1920s and 30s, in the
context of a monarchic-fascist regime, created in 1923 and which will last until the
end of the World War. This is the so called September poetry, of a revolutionary
nature, and the well known proletarian poetry, whose major representatives were
Hristo Smirnenski, Nikola Furnadjiev, Nikolai Hrelkov, Hristo Radevski and Nikola
Vaptzarov. After 1944, engaged literature assumes an unparalleled importance due
to the rise to power of the Communist Party and the proclamation of the Socialist
State. So, from 1948, literary life is led under strong party guidelines that will claim
the cultural monopoly under the rule of the Marxist-Leninist aesthetic. In this con-
text, the superior method of artistic representation will be Socialist Realism, a model
followed both by already consecrated writers and by the younger generations. Bul-
garian literary tradition is reinterpreted: revolutionary poets are sanctified and the
writing of others is often silenced. A considerable part of the work produced be-
fore or at the time is catalogued as belonging to a bourgeois orientated literature,
and only literature close to realist paradigms is valued. The literary process in course
is channelled in order to obey certain thematic and pragmatic prerequisites. The
20
most frequent issues are related with the support of the Party in power, the leaders
of the Soviet Union, the construction of a socialist society, the condemnation of
imperialism and its agents, with the review of national past under the view of class
struggle, according to the theory of historical materialism. In the attempt to be-
come closer to the new artistic demands, most writers, because they romantically
believed in the socialist ideals or due to conformity or careerism, start to produce
work with a strong ideological component. The poets and prose writers Vesselin
Andreev, Emil Manov, Gueorgui Djagarov, Mladen Isaev, who were related with
the antifascist struggle and resistance, create inspired by the profound changes and
by the belief in economic and social reconstruction. In the years after the war,
another generation of poets appears, influenced by social development, those who
praised the new transformations, such as Ivan Radoev, Pavel Matev, Naiden Valtchev
and Penio Penev. In the field of prose, the novelists Gueorgui Karaslavov, Stefan
Ditchev, Pavel Vejinov, Kamen Kalltchev, Andrei Guliachki and Stoian Tzekov
Daskalov, with narratives of a strong militant tone, with messages of intervention.
The 1950s also marked the appearance of the so called epic novel, whose affir-
mation and great acceptance is due to three important writers of prose: Dimitar
Dimov, Dimitar Talev and Emilian Stanev (see Gueorguiev, 1984; Igov, 2005).
The work of all the aforementioned authors paid tribute, to a greater or lesser
degree, to the contextual impositions of a State that valued an engaged and anti-
aesthetical literary art. In this regard, Bulgarian Socialist Realism presents typo-
logical analogies, from a semantic-pragmatic viewpoint, regarding the literary rep-
resentation of Portuguese Neo-Realism. More precisely, the common ideological
program, identified with dialectical materialism, established a thematic repertoire
that aimed to underline the transforming role of the individual, his class awareness
and consequent disalienation, as well the strong conviction that Socialism repre-
sents a superior stage of historical evolution, seen as a more just order, free from
oppression and from the exploitation of Man by Man.
5. It is undeniable that artistic compromise, as defended and practised by some
followers of Marxist Aesthetics, led to the corruption of a considerable part of
Realist literary production, due to the way in which it was presented. Due to their
character, the program orientations of Portuguese Neo-Realism in the 1940s, for
instance, necessarily led to a mainly pragmatic concern with the projection of the
literary message to potential readers. By assuming the didactic function of art, many
writers of prose gave relevance to the components of content, namely the construc-
21
tion of type characters and the description of social spaces, the stage of class con-
flicts, which led to the configuration of so called closed plot novels. Also as a
consequence of the principles of the writers engagement and desalienation, all
formalistic deviations were avoided which, by blocking individual artistic creativi-
ty, undermined the chances of aesthetic renewal.
The same type of limitation is present in Bulgarian literature of a realist and
socialist nature, whose characteristics, due to the context in which it was produced,
soon revealed that it was not, as was claimed, an engaged literature, but simply an
artistic expression orientated in order to meet political demands. In fact, the posi-
tions defended by the main soviet theoreticians, about the role of the literary phe-
nomenon, the vision that should support it and the way of representing reality,
show their profound contradictions and ignorance regarding the workings of the
verbal artistic artefact. One of the most common mistakes was the dichotomy es-
tablished between form and content, a fact that reveals a lack of vision about the
dialectic involving both components of the artistic phenomenon. On the other hand,
the valorisation of semantic substance and the contempt for the essence of expres-
sion, often led to the imposition of rules regarding speech and subject, which con-
tends even with the very theory of dialectical materialism on art. We may, there-
fore, state that not only the neo-realists in Portugal, but also the followers of So-
cialist Realism in Bulgaria, intent on their mission of enlightenment, often gave in
to simplistic and documentary style solutions, reductionisms that would be over-
come at a later stage.
The abandon of the rhetoric of the concrete in both movements happened
mainly in the 1960s with the publication of a narrative fiction that showed innova-
tions in all aspects of the verbal artistic artefact. More precisely, this is the emblem-
atic prose of authors whose writing initiated a new paradigm, currently known un-
der the name of post-modernism, such as Alfredo Margarido, Artur Portela Filho,
Almeida Faria, Jos Cardoso Pires and Augusto Abelaira, in Portugal, and Iordan
Raditchkov, Ivailo Petrov, Diko Futchedjiev, Gueorgui Markov and Nikolai Hai-
tov, in Bulgaria. It must be noted that the affirmation of post-modernist literary
code came after certain ideological conditions were established as a result of polit-
ical, economic and social evolution in both countries in the past thirty years. We
are referring to the context of the decades subsequent to the Democratic Revolu-
tion of April 25
th
, 1974, in Portugal, and that of the 1990s, after the collapse of the
socialist regime in Bulgaria, in 1989. The abovementioned events allowed both
societies to enter the so called post-industrial age and the triumph of certain theo-
22
ries, such as that of the end of ideologies, as a result of the undermining of the
modern values of the great metanarratives or of histories of emancipation. In
the cultural scene, there is an epistemological and ontological crisis that is, after
all, the legitimation crisis of traditional classical humanism, whose basis was se-
verely affected and credibility destroyed. In the purely literary domain, the post-
structuralist phase begins and the amplification of certain vanguardist, neo-mod-
ernist aspects becomes the main characteristic of typological analogies. So, the
productions of Portuguese and Bulgarian writers present, today, similarities due to
the use of strategies of experimentation, hostile towards established canons and
hierarchies, the configuration of ambiguous, allegorical, hermetic and metaphori-
cal styles. On the other hand, ludic, carnival-like qualities appear, and produce
undetermined, hybrid or polyphonic texts. Textual fragmentation is also widely ex-
plored, particularly the violation of chronological time, and importance is given to
language, focusing on the code, with the corresponding self-awareness and self-
reflection of the author. There is also a deliberate use of intertextuality, parody
and pastiche, as well as of genealogical deconstruction, the incorporation of ele-
ments of paraliterature in texts of a scholarly origin (see Petrov, op. cit., pp. 290-
292).
As may be concluded from all of the above, the activation of the aforemen-
tioned techniques does not allow us to uphold the idea that a homogenous literary
movement, with well established aesthetic features. What does exist is a great het-
erogeneity of themes and an eclectic discourse, also revealing different artistic atti-
tudes, such as transgression and negation of the current status quo or of a neo-
conservative, revivalist view, with no faith in the future. So, in order to compare
Portuguese and Bulgarian literatures, produced in the post-modernist era, the pro-
cedures should be channelled towards comparing parallel tendencies or individual
productions, in their similarities or differences, and this analysis should focus nec-
essarily on the three aspects of literary semiosis: semantic, syntactic and pragmatic.
Bibliographic references:
1. Barrento, Joo (org.), 1982, Realismo, Materialismo, Utopia, Morais Editores, Lisboa.
2. Durisin, Dionys, 1984, Theory of Literary Comparatistics, Veda, Publishing House of the Slovac
Academy of Science.
3. Gueorguiev, Emil, 1984, Balgarskata Literatura v Evropeiski Kontekst (Bulgarian Literature in a
European context), Nauka I Iskustvo, Sofia.
23
4. Igov, Svetlozar, 2005, Kratka Istoria na Balgarskata Literatura (Brief History of Bulgarian Litera-
ture), Publishing house of the Saint Clement of Okrida University, Sofia.
5. Nitrini, Sandra, 2000 (2
nd
ed.), Literatura Comparada, Edusp, So Paulo.
6. Petrov, Petar, 2000, O Realismo na Fico de Jos Cardoso Pires e de Rubem Fonseca, Difel,
Lisboa.
7. Reis, Carlos, 1983, O Discurso Ideolgico do Neo-Realismo Portugus, Almedina, Coimbra.
8. Remak, Henry, 1971, Comparative Literature: Its Definition and Function, in Comparative
Literature, Method and Perspective, Carbondale, London/Amsterdam, Southern Illinois Univer-
sity Press.
9. Torres, Alexandre Pinheiro, 1977, O Neo-Realismo Literrio Portugus, Moraes Editores, Lisboa.
10. Van Tieghem, Paul, 1931, La Littrature Compare, A. Colin, Paris.
11. Wellek, Ren, 1994, A crise da Literatura Comparada , in Coutinho, F.E. and Carvalhal, T.F.
(Ed.), Literatura Comparada: Textos Fundadores, Rocco, Rio de Janeiro.
12. Zhirmunsky, Victor, 1994, Sobre o estudo da Literatura Comparada, in Coutinho, F.E. And
Carvalhal, T.F. (org.), Literatura Comparada: Textos Fundadores, Rocco, Rio de Janeiro.
(Translation from Portuguese
by Ana Rocha de Carvalho)
25
II. READING
THE
OTHER
27
1
Maria Strzakowska, The story of Cames in Poland 1572-1972 (Z dziejw Camesa w Polsce
[1572-1972]), Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny XIX (4/1972), 377.
Anna Kalewska
(Warsaw University, Poland)
Camoes as a Romantic Hero:
Biography as the model of heroism
in the literature of Romanticism in Poland
To Professor Barbara Hlibowicka-Wglarz
and The Cames Institute of UMCS, Lublin, Poland:
After the third partition (1795), the Respublica disap-
peared from the map of Europe, but it survived in the minds
of its inhabitants.
Contrary to the brand of Romanticism which in many
countries was identified with a withdrawal of the individual
into his own world, Romanticism in Poland acquired an ex-
tremely activist character and was clearly a consequence of
many ideas of the Enlightenment.
Czeslaw Milosz: The History of Polish Literature
The maritime epic of the Portuguese, Os Lusadas, was published in 1572, on
the eve of the historic disaster that struck Portugal: King Sebastians death at Al-
ccer-Quibir (1578) and the take-over of the Portuguese throne by the Spanish
Habsburgs at the time of the Iberian Union (1581-1640). Its praise of Vasco da
Gamas Indian expedition (1497-1499) appears to have sounded the death knell of
Portugals golden age.
1
Cames epic continued to have a wide appeal in Europe over several centu-
ries. Os Lusadas was translated into Spanish (1580), Italian (c. 1595), English (1655),
~
28
French (1735 and 1776), Dutch (1777) and Polish (1790). The poem attracted the
attention of commentators as well as stimulating interest in the author and his
country. In France, Os Lusadas became known in versions by Du Perron de Cast-
era (1735), then by dHermilly (1776), whose work was revised by the famous critic
La Harpe. It was the latter prose translation that Jacek Idzi Przybylski found dur-
ing his European travel in 1785, and it provided the inspiration for his
Polish version of the poem. The Polish author might have also consulted the
original text. Jacek I. Przybylskis Luzyada was written in thirteen-syllable verse
lines; he did not preserve the division into octets, and the poem betrays the influ-
ence of Voltaires La Henriade. The translation was a pioneering work, being the
only translation of Portuguese literature in Poland before the publication in 1911
of Lettres portugaises, which Stanisaw Przybyszewski attributed to Mariana de Al-
coforado.
Jacek Idzi Przybylski was a Cracow erudite intellectual and a Professor at the
Cracow Academy someone who translated into Polish not only the classical epics:
the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid, but also modern epic poems Voltaires, Gessners
and Miltons. However, Przybylski was frequently criticized for his hasty and defec-
tive productions, and it was not his contribution as translator that popularised
Cames poem. It was rather the fact that familiarity with Os Lusadas as high,
erudite reading matter became an indispensable element of literary education in
Poland in early nineteenth century.
2
Cames work was read and analysed in Polish
schools of the pre-Romantic age. The poem was commonly regarded as a master-
piece with Cames as the foremost epic poet of modern Europe. It was seen as a
mixture of Christian beliefs and Greek and Roman myths, and criticized under the
influence of Voltaire.
3
Those Polish pre-Romantic poets who analyzed Os Lusadas
(Filip Neriusz Golaski, Franciszek Ksawery Dmochowski, Ludwik Osiski and Jzef
Korzeniowski) noted following Voltaire the ridiculousness of the machine de
merveilleux (machine of the marvellous) and the original episodes, both those at
sea and the lyrical ones, in particular the story of Adamastor and Ins de Castro.
2
Jzef Bachrz, The story of Luis Cames fame in nineteenth century Poland (Z dziejw polsk-
iej sawy Luisa Camesa w XIX wieku), Pamitnik Literacki LXVII (3/1976), 42.
3
on ne sera plus surpris que Gama dans une tempete adrsse ses priers Jsus-Christ, et que ce
soit Vnus qui vienne son secours. Bacchus et la Vierge Marie se trouveront tout naturellement
ensemble. (). A parler serieusement, un merveilleux si absurde dfigure tout louvrage aux yeux
des lecteur senss. Il semble que ce grand dfaut et du faire tomber de pome; mais la posie du
style, et limagination de lexpressions, lont soutenu. Voltaire, La Henriade Pome par... Avec
les notes, suivi de lessais sur la posie pique (Paris, Imprimrie de Pierre Didot, 1801), 289.
29
Jacek I. Przybylskis translation accompanied by a life of Cames invited
the readers to learn the Portuguese poets life history and to nourish patriotism.
The poem became part of Polish literary heritage.
In the period of Romanticism in Poland (that is after 1822), the author of Os
Lusadas was invoked more often than the work itself. He came to be associated
with a romantic hero a unique individual who has a gift of prophecy and can
discover some divine, human and national truths. The authors life was thus re-
garded as an integral part of his writing. As Jzef Bachrz has pointed out, the
boundary between Cames life and Os Lusadas was being blurred
4
. The shape
of Cames life story and some reflections about geniuses who remained unknown
in their lifetime point to familiarity with the second French translation, in turn
based on part historical and part mythical biographies written in Castilian, such as
Manuel de Faria e Sousas Vida del Poeta (Madrid, 1639), and in Portuguese, such
as Severim de Farias A Vida de Cames (1685 published together with the first
edition of the Portuguese poets Rimas). This life story would subsequently come
to be re-mythologized in Poland, thus completing the model of the national ro-
mantic hero.
Polish Romantic poets stylised the Portuguese poet-cum-traveller in two char-
acteristic dimensions: Cames as a poet and sailor, the example of rebellious, fear-
less, victorious and prophetic heroism (Seweryn Goszczyski
5
); proclaiming ro-
mantic-revolutionary watchwars, The Romantics placed a high value on excep-
tional or extraordinary individualism, attaining peaks generally inaccessible to
ordinary people by heroism of thought or deed
6
.
Cames as a forgotten, scorned genius, who is dying for his motherland and in
a home for the ill and neglected poor, since being forgotten in ones lifetime was
the lot of many great men (Ignacy Szydowski, Fryderyk Halm and Julian Korsak);
the Romantics, too, proclaimed the necessity to fight against political slavery, de-
manding the right of freedom for nations deprived of it, having been forcefully
4
J. Bachrz, op. cit., 53.
5
Seweryn Goszczyski (1801-1876) belonged to a revolutionary, clandestine organization and lat-
er became one of the Belvederians who set off the insurrection of November 1830 in Warsaw
with their attack on Belvedere Palace, the residence of Grand Duke Constantine. After this, he
functioned as a radical writer and activist in the Galicia of the Hapsburgs, and finally, he joined
the Great Emigration in Paris, where he allied himself with the radical democrats. Czeslaw Mi-
losz, The History of Polish Literature (University of California Press: Berkeley Los Angeles
London, 1984), 249.
6
Julian Krzyanowski, A History of Polish Literature (PWN Polish Scientific Publishers: Warszawa,
1978), 221.
Reading the Other
30
incorporated into powerful foreign state organisms, such as the Russian, Ottoman
and Austrian empires, the Kingdom of Great Britain or Prussia
7
; should also be
added: the Spain of Kings Phillips from the Hapsburgs, which incorporated Portu-
gal in the years of 1581 - 1640.
Owing to poetic transformations and ideological adaptations that answered
the needs of the historical moment in Poland (after the last of three partitions,
sounding the death knell of the countrys greatness), Cames appeared in Polish
Romantic poetry as a national symbol in an exotic guise; as someone appropriat-
ed from the history of Portugal, which started to bear a close resemblance to our
own on account of an analogical loss of independence and national sovereignty to
a neighbouring empire. The patriotic content of the literary myth of Cames deter-
mined the above-mentioned two dimensions of his figure in Polish Romantic poet-
ry which we shall now present, as well as adding an interesting example of hero-
ism, given by Aleksander Przezdziecki.
Following Homers Odyssey sailors were presented in literature as symbols
of striving to achieve goals; the imagery of sailing was related to mans struggle
against fate. Both Adam Mickiewicz in his early writings and, subsequently, other
Polish Romantic poets again used the motif of sailing as a symbol or an allegory of
the situation of the artist. Seweryn Goszczyskis egluga poety (1825; A Poets
Sailing) is a good example.
8
The poem consists of eleven stanzas in which the
poet describes a boat trip, is dreaming and reflecting on the nature and the destiny
of a genius. In the ninth stanza, there appears a quiet and brave Lusitanian sing-
er, who set out to discover new lands, was not afraid of storms or thunders, sang
his song without heeding adversities, and was hopeful of poetrys and the nations
immortality. Cames legendary rescue from a shipwreck in the Mekong delta and
his saving of the manuscript of Os Lusadas naturally captured the Romantics im-
agination. Cames life story was fairly popular among Polish poets, as it was relat-
ed to the theme of the Romantic as prophet, but above all as an example of the
heroic and patriotic attitude. Goszczyski sees the Portuguese poet as the very
model of sacrifice for ones homeland while the poem as a whole serves to recall
Polands (Rzeczpospolitas/Respublica) former glory: What the Poles had been /
The last ones, at the last moment
9
, as well as encouraging Poles to forgo their
7
J. Krzyanowski, op. cit., ibid.
8
Seweryn Goszczyski, egluga poety, [in] Dziea zbiorowe Seweryna Goszczyskiego (The Collect-
ed Works of Seweryn Goszczyski), ed. Zygmunt Wasilewski (H. Altenberg: Lvov, 1910).
9
Ibid., 81 (the closing line of the poem).
31
personal gain and happiness and only think of the noble cause, or cautioning them
not to lose their souls or national memory. The Singer of the Lusians is killed by
thunder during a storm at sea, which one must regard as poetic licence. Owing to
that commendable death in the depths of the sea the Portuguese were covered in
glory as heroes of the tragic maritime history (a histria trgico-martima).
Maria Danilewicz-Zieliska found some influences of Os Lusadas in the
poem by Seweryn Goszczyski and in Adam Mickiewiczs Kartofla or in the writ-
ings of Euzebiusz Sowackis (the father of Juliusz).
10
Cames epic most certainly
was a motif inspirateur of two of Juliusz Sowackis poems: A Journey to the Holy
Land from Naples (Podr do Ziemi witej z Neapolu) and To Micha Rola
Skibicki (Do Michaa Roli Skibickiego).
However, Cames death in the ocean and his being crowned with a laurel
wreath, as imagined by Goszczyski, were unique as far as Polish images of the
Portuguese poet are concerned. The true legend of the Lusitanian bards death
in a home for the poor was invoked more often:
Co ty uczyni swoim, Camoensie
e po raz drugi grb twj grabarz trzsie
Zgodziwszy pierwej?
(What did you do to your people, Cames,

That a digger again your grave shakes
Having starved you first?)
11
asked Cyprian Kamil Norwid in a poem written in Paris in January 1856, and de-
voted to such famous world heroes as Socrates, Dante, Columbus and to famous
Poles, Kociuszko and Mickiewicz, a military leader and a poet respectively. This
frequently quoted poem refers to the moving of Cames remains from a humble
grave in St Annas Church to a symbolic tomb in the Lisbon Hieronymite monas-
tery (O Mosteiro dos Jernimos).
In 1822, Ignacy Szydowski published in the Dziennik Wileski (a Vilnius Dai-
ly) an ode entitled Fame, or Cames the Portuguese Poet (Sawa, albo Kamoens
10
Maria Danilewicz Zieliska, Cames or the triumph of poetry (Cames, czyli triumf poezji),
Znak 5-6/354-355 (1984), 680.
11
Cf. What did you do to your people, Camoens,/ That the sexton had to cover your grave twice,/
After you had starved?. Cyprian Norwid, What Did You Do to Athens, Socrates, http://
www.mission.net/poland/warsaw/literature/poems/socrates.htm (accessed May, 7, 2006).
Reading the Other
32
poeta portugalski
12
), which was preceded with a short life of Cames, based on
Sismonde de Sismondis De la literature du midi de lEurope (1813, vol. 4), in which
the poets life is shown as an attempt to turn words into deeds and at the same time
as a series of misfortunes. A conventional biography, which Szydowski quotes in
his introduction (without a title
13
), evokes the following facts from the province of
the marine tragic Lusitanian imagery that Europe received from the early Portu-
guese biographers of Cames:
date of birth: 1524 or 1529;
noble but humble origins;
studies at Coimbra, where [Cames] mostly became knowledgeable about
history and mythology;
passionate love of his country and of glory
14
;
life as a series of sufferings;
volunteering for the army;
injury in the battle of Ceuta;
his unacknowledged talent for poetry and romantic, adventurous nature as
the reason of his ultimate exile in the East Indies (1553 this is the only
certain date in Cames life);
becoming a soldier (the theme of the soldier poet);
a quarrel with the viceroy of India (the 19
th
governor Francisco Barreto);
exile in Macao, where he spent five years in poverty, working on his im-
mortal poem Os Lusadas. They still display there now the so-called Cames
grotto, in which he used to think and write
15
;
a storm on his way back to Goa and the miraculous saving of his work:
returning to Goa [ Cames] saved himself on a plank of wood with Os
Lusadas, his only treasure
16
;
being harassed by creditors; terrible imprisonment;
his friends ransoming him;
adventures on land and at sea;
return to Europe in 1559 (conjectural);
12
Ignacy Szydowski, Sawa, albo Kamoens poeta portugalski, oda Ignacego Szydowskiego, Dzien-
nik Wileski I (1822), 341-48.
13
Ibid., 341-43.
14
Ibid., 341.
15
Ibid., 342.
16
Ibid.
33
the printing of his poem (1572, date confirmed);
living in poverty: [Cames] did not have anything to eat, and had to feed
on alms, begged off people in the streets of Lisbon at night by a slave who
he had brought back with him from India
17
;
the poets fate has been identified with that of the nation: The sad adven-
tures of his nation came as a fresh blow to him.
18
The first and the last of the characteristics are worth emphasizing as they like
the idea of the Cames legend in Poland: a great poet loves good fame and his
country; he dies when the country loses independence. It should also be pointed
out that Szydowskis Fame (Sawa) is not a translation of a Cames ode, as
Jzef Bachrz and Maria Zieliska thought.
19
The above-mentioned ode was written in rhymed decimas ABABCCDEED
(in decasyllabic or octosyllabic) and it begins with a narrative of an old bard, in
whom Elbieta Milewska saw the Old Man of Restelo (O Velho do Restelo) and the
model of Os Lusadas
20
. A fame seeker, traveller and poet, Cames exemplifies
the second of the representations of that figure that is characteristic of Polish Ro-
mantic poetry, when towards the end of his life he says of himself: A poor vagrant,
a cripple/ In misery lead I the rest of my life
21
, as well as constituting the motif of
the ungrateful homeland Portugal (Lusitania), which did not appreciate his gen-
ius and condemned him to vegetating. The hero, having been cursed by men and
at odds with fate, in the end goes to stand among the graves and complains that
he was not rewarded with hollow fame However, the already-mentioned identi-
fication of the poets fate with that of the nation remains the most prominent as-
17
Ibid., 342-43.
18
Ibid., 343.
19
J. Bachrz, op. cit.; M. Danilewicz Zieliska, op. cit. Cames was a universal writer: a poet, a
prose writer and a dramatist. He wrote 126 redondillas, 204 sonnets, 8 eclogues, 13 odes, 1 sestina,
5 octaves, 10 elegies, 11 songs, letters and three plays: Auto dos Enfatries, El-Rei Seleuco and Auto
de Filodemo. A collection of his lyrical poetry, Parnaso de Luis de Cames, is not extant. According
to a historian, Diogo do Couto, that was written in Mozambique and lost during Camess return
journey. Today Camess fame rests equally on his shorter poems; he is now considered by many,
for the reasons adduced by Jorge de Sena, to be the supreme peninsular lyric poet. George
Monteiro, The Presence of Cames. Influences on the Literature of England, America and Southern
Africa (The University Press of Kentucky: Kentucky, 1996), 3.
20
Cf. Elbieta Milewska, Zwizki kulturalne i literackie polsko-portugalskie w XVI-XIX wieku (Cul-
tural and Literary Relations between Poland and Portugal in the 16th-19th centuries); Centrum
Studiw Latynoamerykaskich Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego [Centre for Latin American Studies
of Warsaw University], CESLA: Warszawa, 1991), 144.
21
J. Szydowski, op. cit., 347.
Reading the Other
34
pect: his homelands misfortune deals a fatal blow to Cames, who dies on the eve
of the Iberian Union (in 1580). The Portuguese poet as imagined by his fellow
countrymen expired with the homeland (expirou com a Ptria), as Almeida
Garrett wrote in Cames (1825), the famous poem in ten cantos, which began Ro-
manticism in Portugal. The Polish poem (just as the literary and cultural move-
ment) appeared three years earlier.
Neoclassical in form and romantic in content, Szydowskis and Garrets narra-
tive poems presented Cames as the example of patriotic virtues a kind of mod-
el of heroism. In Poland that was not an independent state between 1795 and
1918 a Tyrtean biography lent itself to being interpreted as metonymical, the pars
pro toto of the sufferings of the nation humiliated by three occupying powers:
Russia, Prussia and Austria. As to a Tyrtean or titanic (Prometheus-like) hero-
ism, as a solution to the difficulties emerging from the unavoidable antinomy
between the individual and the society, Julian Krzyanowski explains: in Ti-
tanism () the exceptional individual is an outstanding man, of great social vir-
tue, a man living not for himself alone but for his class, his nation, for all man-
kind.
22
Thus, Titanism, understood in this way, was the product of an epoch
fighting for the realization of revolutionary watchwords, it was a symbol of rebel-
lion against the dead principles hampering man, principles which had been evolved
in the course of collective life in society ()
23
.
As Jzef Bachrz has reminded us
24
, Polish readers in the times between the
November Rising (1830) and the January Rising (1863) became familiar with the
image of Cames death through at least two works, namely Julian Korsaks poetic
novel in verse, entitled Cames in Hospital
25
, and Fryderyk Halms (pseudonym of
E. F. J. Mnch-Bellinghausen) Cames
26
. Both poems concern themselves with
the last days of Cames life.
Julian Korsaks poetic novel (with the lines rhyming ABACCDED etc.) is al-
most entirely a narrative of the title character, interspersed with some remarks of
the monk confessor, Diego, a Christian missionary working among the Moors.
22
J. Krzyanowski, op. cit., 222.
23
Ibid.
24
J. Bachrz, op. cit., 56.
25
Julian Korsak, Kamoens w szpitalu. Opowiadanie poety (Jzef Zawadzki: Vilnius, 1840).
26
Fryderyk Halm, Kamoens Fryderyka Halma. Dramat w jednej odsonie. Przedstawiony w wiedeskim
teatrze 30 marca 1837 roku, wolny przekad T. Nowosielskiego (Drukarnia Jana Jaworskiego: War-
saw, 1845). The play was written about in Poland and partly translated by Edward Dembowski in
1842; Teofil Nowosielski translated and published it in 1845.
35
Before his death Cames looks back over his entire life, reliving the most impor-
tant adventures and failures: his stay at King John IIIs court; love for the daughter
of the beautiful Ataida; love confessions at Sintra; the exile caused by his loving
an underage girl of high standing; the imprisonment of his beloved in a convent; a
sea passage to India; his quarrel with Governor Francisco Barreto; and at last his
conception of reviving the homeland and its past in a song. Having returned to
Portugal after sixteen years of wandering, he survives the plague in Lisbon, the
death of a Negro servant (an Asian?) and voluntarily shuts himself up in a hospital
(that is, a poor peoples home) in order to avoid starvation. The poem ends with
the death of the poet who suffered from tormented soul and who had a sense of
the coming of an avenger from the ashes a Virgilian motif of avenging the
national heros death and an announcement of the resurrection of the homeland.
Korsaks Cames as a romantic hero is an exile and at the same time a prisoner,
martyr, wanderer and a pilgrim, a genius hungry for fame, whose existential situa-
tion was defined by a voluntary or even forced quarrel with fate. However, through
the voice of dying Cames, Korsak praises the poet, the nations bard, capable of
cheering up his countrymen, refreshing them, raising the spirits flight, while
Romantic poetry itself is a flight towards the sun over the homeland
27
, thus ex-
pressing a Platonic wish for the good and the beauty, being associated with the idea
of the beloved land.
Cames poetic biography was supplemented by ten historical explanations,
that is, notes that betray considerable knowledge of the history of Portugal, the
poets supposed stay at Macao and the writing of Os Lusadas, that famous poem,
which is the first epic since the revival of learning in the Christian world
28
. Com-
pared with Szydowski, Korsak knows Portuguese history better (he mentions the
battles of Ourique and of Aljubarrota, the Iberian Union, the regaining of inde-
pendence in 1640) and he re-mythologizes Cames biography. His last note al-
ludes to an apocryphal envelope pattern: the poets earthly existence, his death and
burial in the Lisbon St Annes Church (in 1579, which is a permissible error) were
allegedly recorded in the margin of the works last page by a Portuguese monk.
29
Korsak would then be credited with continuing a fairly well-known theme, suggest-
ing that he had discovered an apocryphal life story of the Portuguese bard and
27
J. Korsak, op. cit., 207.
28
Ibid., note 7, 217.
29
Ibid., note 9, 219.
Reading the Other
36
telling in verse the alleged truth as recorded by an anonymous clergyman of the
Christian kingdom of Portugal. We should add that the fifth explanation (note)
includes a fragment of the seventh canto of Os Lusadas in a prose translation,
done by B. T. Milli.
As the examination of works featuring Cames shows, the figure of the Portu-
guese bard contributes to the image of Polish romantic hero and becomes a meta-
phor for a heroic calling to defend qualities that are regarded as superior in the
literature of Polish Romanticism and the idiom of Polish culture as derived from it:
duty towards God, honour and the homeland. But Cames does not die as a martyr
of the idea of liberty. Portugal the protagonist of the wars against Castilia and
against Islam; the country where poisonous rot has set in
30
unexpectedly
becomes a metonymy of nineteenth-century Poland, harassed by the occupying
states, and refers us to the concept of the partitions as punishment for the sins of
the ancestors. Shame on the nation! Cames in hospital!
31
, Korsak calls, inter-
lacing his poem with quotations from Jacek Idzi Przybylskis Luzyada. The real
purpose of the poem is to restore respect for the poet that sang the forefathers
fame and the love of the homeland
32
, and above all to instil love of that home-
land, that is, Poland that its enemies had torn apart. According to Polish Romantic
authors, it is a wretched country that does not appreciate a great poet who has
restored the forefathers fame In our poetry, Cames and Portugal are rhetori-
cal ideological figures that warn Poland against violating the custom, losing histor-
ical memory or deviating from the idea of duty towards and being faithful to ones
homeland. As Czesaw Miosz rightly put it, when Poland lost her independ-
ence, the concept of Polishness gradually emerged as an ethereal entity requiring
loyalty an existing even without embodiment in a state.
33
More, it is extremely
difficult to make an impartial appraisal of the Polish mentality in the period we are
dealing with. If the history of the country can be called abnormal, its thought and
literature were no less so.
34
The Romantic interpretation of the Portuguese genius biography, done by
Polish poets in a peculiar Aesopean language in order to deceive tsarist censorship,
constituted a special code for a safe or even original and exotic representa-
30
Ibid., 181.
31
Ibid., 182.
32
Ibid.
33
Cz. Milosz, op. cit., 200.
34
Ibid.
37
tion of a huge drama, which was Polands loss of independence. Thus that interpre-
tation became part of typically Polish historiosophy, including guilt, punishment
and redemption of Poland as both a martyr and a messiah of the nations of Europe.
Here, there are some obvious analogies with the Iberian Union and Portuguese
Messianism Sebastianism.
In Fryderyk Halms play Kamoens, the last moments of the authors life are bright-
ened by a young poet, Perez, the son of a character called Don Jos Quebedo Castel
Branco, who is a rich merchant. Loving the Portuguese epic and lyrical poetry (and at
the same time being scolded by his father for having chosen a lifestyle that is not
lucrative), Perez is trying to follow in the dying poets footsteps. He pays homage to
him and assures Cames that he will have followers spokesmen for liberty and the
truth. One cannot help but admire the playwrights source of historical and literary
facts the famous first large bibliography of Portuguese literature, Barbos Mach-
ados Bibliotheca Lusitana.
35
Halm knew its nineteenth chapter, concerning some
followers of Cames epic work, in a French summary. One of the main characters in
the play is Vasco Mousinho de Quevedo e Castelo Branco, who in Poland was chris-
tened with a literary name Perez, and who made his mark on the history of Portu-
guese literature as the author of an epic poem Afonso Africano (1611); the author not
only stood closest to the famous Cames and his great heroic poem, Afonso Af-
ricano, was published in 1611
36
, but he also belonged to a long line of epic poets
describing legendary, historical and religious Portuguese heroes of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.
37
In Fryderyk Halms play, Vasco Mousinho de Quevedo is
the young Perez de Quevedo, who is brought to the poor peoples home by his father,
the merchant, wishing to discourage him from becoming a poet. The depressing in-
stitution and the sight of dying Cames are meant to be a warning and a negative
example for young poets. The Polish play about the Lusitanian bard clearly cannot
be reduced to the opposition of poetry and sailing versus trading and amassing wealth,
represented by the heroic poet sailor and the old merchant. From his deathbed Cames
is looking ahead and prophesies the resurrection of his homeland and shaking off
the shackles of the proud Spaniard
38
. In the metaphor of Portugals shaking off the
35
Cf. Diogo Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana. Historia, Critica e Cronologia [] oferecida
Augusta Majestade de D. Joo V (Oficina Antnio Isidoro da Fonesca and other publishers: Lis-
bon, 1741-1747-1752- 1759).
36
F. Halm, op. cit., Authors Note, 3.
37
Anna Kalewska, Cames, or the Triumph of the Epic (Cames, czyli tryumf epiki), (Wydawnictwa
Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego: Warsaw, 1999), note 27, 40.
38
F. Halm, op. cit., 31.
Reading the Other
38
shackles of Spanish servitude and a vision of prosperity and salvation of the po-
ets country of origin, there is an unmistakable dream of independent, free and
great Poland. While dying, Cames is hearing the angels sing; he is fading, bidding
farewell to poor earth and greeting a bright sun
39
thus experiencing salva-
tion. In the stage directions it says that his countenance, though deathly pale,
maintains an angelic smile
40
. The ideological aspect accordingly obtains a rele-
vant idealized aesthetic form.
These works bespeak a conviction which is typical for the way of thinking in
Romanticism, namely that truly great creations grow out of spiritual independ-
ence, for which one pays the price of constant struggle and composing poetry, ex-
periencing great anguish and human ingratitude. Cames biography follows the
example of the quasi-Ovidian topic of the poet earning his living with the sword,
holding both the sword and the pen (as armas e as letras), and capable of identi-
fying his ideas with the sacrifice of his life. At the same time the necessary condi-
tion for becoming an immortal poet is profound love of ones nation and home-
land. The pattern of Cames poetic biography in Polish Romantic version fulfils
those requirements. In Goszczyski, Szydowski and Halm, posthumous laurels
are regarded as the greatest measure of the Portugueses universal glory as they are
presented by the nation in the theatre of its history. Persecuted in his lifetime,
indomitable and triumphant after death, Cames became an example for two re-
bellious generations of Polish Romantic artists conspiring against tsarist Russia,
imperial Austria and Prussia, the countries responsible for the three subsequent
partitions of Poland (1772, 1793 and 1795). In 1795 (the date of the third partition,
referred by Czeslaw Milosz in his History of Polish Literature as the end of Slavonic
Respublica) Poland was wiped off the map of Europe for more than one hundred
years, mainly because of its political and military weakness. All the attempts to
wrestle independence by insurrection were unsuccessful, and Poland did not re-
gain its sovereignty until 1918. After the World War II, Poland was subjugated by
the Soviet Union and did not become a fully democratic nation until 1989. Now,
the arduous process of rebuilding and uniting the Polish nation is complete.
The interest in Cames, his country, his life and work, used as a pretext for
speaking about the predicament of occupied Poland, found an expression in Ale-
ksander Przezdzieckis Don Sbastien de Portugal, a play written in French. The three-
39
Ibid., 32.
40
Ibid.
39
act drama was performed on the stage of the tsars theatre in Saint Petersburg on 18-
30 January 1836.
41
The plays introduction includes a short history of Portugal from
the foundation of the state by D. Afonso Henriques to the times of King D. Sebastian
and the tragic battle of Alccer-Quibir, as well as a short life of Cames, who was
commonly referred to in Europe as the prince of poets le prince des potes
portugais
42
. Przezdzieckis play shows Cames as a supporter of King Sebastian,
the author of a crusade to Morroco. The monarch is further praised in a fragment of
the First Canto of La Lusiade, translated by Duperron de Castera in 1735. The chief
purpose of the play is to arouse the audiences love of their homeland; as the play-
wright declares: cet ouvrage qui mest inspire par l amour de la patrie
43
.
Cames meets King Sebastian, addresses him as un saint homme while
his work praises the old Portugal and the patriotic stance. Literary fiction inter-
laced with the Messianic legend takes over when King Sebastian returns after
the battle of Alccer-Quibir to convince Cames that the Spanish are not going
to hold power for much longer, and the Portuguese will get back their king and
their liberty. It would be hard immediately to regard Przezdziecki as a professed
believer in Sebastianism the Portuguese version of Messianism with Cames
as the leader of an anti-Castilian plot. However, the Portuguese poet as protago-
nist of the French play, performed in tsarist Russia and written by a Pole, believes
that his king is alive, the Spaniards will be defeated and the Bragana family will
triumph (being the third dynasty of Portuguese monarchs, on the throne from
1640).
This eulogy to one of the illustrious royal houses of Europe permits us to
notice a hidden allusion to the political relations between Portugal and Spain and
between Poland and Russia. At the end of the play text Przezdziecki attached words
of thanks to the actors and directors of the Imperial French Theatre (Thtre Im-
prial Franais), who helped to put on the play, and in particular to the actor who
played the part of Cames: Mr Gni dont le talent distingu brille dans une
srie de beaux roles, a exprim avec vrit la potique figure de Camoens, et sa
belle declamation a fait ressortir les morceaux lyriques de son rle
44
. It was not
just a matter of good acting or the lyrical expression of the part of Cames.
41
Aleksander Przezdziecki, Don Sbastien de Portugal. Drame historique en prose en trois actes et cinq
tableaux par le Comte Alexandre Przezdziecki (Charles Kray: St. Petersburg, 1836).
42
Having read the first Spanish translation of Os Lusadas (1580) Lope de Vega called Cames
The prince of the poets of his age.
43
A. Przezdziecki, op. cit., XLII.
44
Ibid., 132.
Reading the Other
40
Przezdzieckis alluding to the situation of Poland under the Russian occupa-
tion can be seen also at the level of diction, as Elbieta Milewska pointed out. A
colossus (un Colosse) is not so much Spain as tsarist Russia that oppressed the
conquered Polish nation. Przezdzieckis play is a late Neoclassical tragedy, in which
there is no space for a romantic triumph of the spirit. King Sebastian dies in Span-
ish captivity whereas the patriotic zeal of the old impoverished Portuguese bard
the occupier treats as madness; a death warrant for Poland (Portugal as a meta-
phor) seems inevitable. Nevertheless, the protagonist of Przezdzieckis play (both
the king and the poet) came to perform by proxy another national ritual the
Poles fight for their freedom from tsarist oppression.
Przezdziecki thus changed the version of Cames death in a poor peoples
home, known from the works of Szydowski, Korsak and Halm, to the final death
of King Sebastian (according to a legend, this happened after his coming back from
Alccer-Quibir, where he would have only gone missing), making him a victim of
political persecution. At the same time as a character he became more active and a
more vivid symbol of patriotism. The motif of madness of being obsessed with
the idea of his countrys freedom brings Przezdzieckis Cames close to the most
tragic heroes of Polish Romanticism, as those created by Adam Mickiewicz and
Juliusz Sowacki. It is to be added that the three Polish romantic poets, Adam
Mickiewicz, Juliusz Sowacki, and Zygmunt Krasiski, were acclaimed as national
bards, and these greatly magnified figures dominated several literary generations
a somewhat arbitrary triad, as they were not all writers of equal talent.
45
In Poland, Cames biography his life story became then part of important
ideological matter of Romantic literature. The inspiration of Jacek Idzi Przybyl-
skis translation of Os Lusadas, together with the interest in the history of Portugal
and in the Renaissance epic merged with the ethos of the poet as prophet and the
poet as a champion of freedom. Particularly the latter meanings evoked by the
example of Cames biography defined the ideological stance of Polish writers.
Among those, Goszczyski, Szydowski, Norwid, Korsak, Halm and Przezdziecki
(and several others who are mentioned in their articles by Jzef Bachrz and Mar-
ia Danilewicz Zieliska) together adapted the historical myth of Cames to liter-
ary fight for their homelands freedom, when Poland existed only as a humiliated
nation, but not as a sovereign state.
45
Czeslaw Milosz, op. cit., 203.
41
Therefore, Os Lusadas would be translated and remembered in Poland to
celebrate the anniversaries of Cames death (in Portugal, 10
th
June is a national
holiday). The most important later Polish translations were published in 1880 (Luz-
jady by Zofia Trzeszczkowska ne Makowska) and in 1995 (Luzytanie by Ireneusz
Kania). In 1984 came out Cames Selected Poems (Poezje wybrane), with transla-
tions by Krystyna Rodowska and Jzef Waczkw (selected redondilla, songs, son-
nets and elegies). Last year the Cracow journal Iberian Studies (Studia Iberystyc-
zne) published Marek Baterowiczs article Cames a Cyclope of Portugal (Cames
cyklop Portugalii). The article provides a synthetic overview of the Portuguese
poets life story, giving a brief catalogue of the facts that might have served as a
basis for the flights of the imagination of Polish Romantic poets:
Cames arrived in Goa where he served in the navy, taking part
in voyages on the Arab Sea, and even on the Red Sea. He did not make a
fortune, and his irreverent couplets that offended important people brought
about his exile in Macao. He begins writing his poem, and even nowadays
one can see there a grotto, where he retreated seeking inspiration. Having
been recalled to Goa, he almost perishes on the coast of Indochina. His
ship sinks amidst a storm at the Mekong delta. Cames saves himself swim-
ming to the shore as well as saving the manuscript of Os Lusadas his only
achievement in life.
46
When Cames returns to Lisbon after his wandering around the Far East for
more than a dozen years, King Sebastian awards the poet a salary and gives the
royal license to print the poem. Os Lusadas is published in 1572. Cames becomes
famous, yet this does not significantly improve his financial situation. In the end he
dies in abject poverty on 10 June 1580 and is buried in Sant Ana Church. Only
fifteen years later one Dom Gonalo Coutinho found his resting-place and erected
his poet an epitaph, which survived until the famous earthquake of 1755.
47
46
Marek Baterowicz, Cames Portugals Cyclope (Cames cyklop Portugalii), Studia iberystycz-
ne 4 (2006), 26.
47
Ibid., 27. Cf.:The author of Os Lusadas was born around 1524 and died in 1580. The details of
much of his life are at best shadowy, but it is widely accepted that his family came from Galicia,
that he studied at Coimbra University, and fought as a soldier, losing an eye in Marocco. He was
in India, subsequently moving out, over the course of nearly seventeen years in the East, as far as
the China seas. When he returned to Portugal in 1570 he brought with him his manuscript of Os
Lusadas, dedicated to the young King Sebastian. For his literary efforts his epic honoring the
Portuguese people and for his other services to the nation, he was awarded a small pension, too
small to sustain him, though even then it was not paid regularly. Legend has it that he lived out his
few remaining years in poverty and was given a pauper s burial. Not until 1595 was his substantial
corpus of lyric poetry gathered and published under his name. G. Monteiro, op. cit., 1-2.
Reading the Other
42
Cames biographers do not know the exact date of his biography, and nowa-
days his colourful, exemplary Romantic, poetic curriculum vitae to a larger extent
belongs to literature than to historiography. Nor can we be sure where to look for
his final resting-place. Cames biography, as Maria Danilewicz Zieliska rightly
pointed out twenty years ago, still includes numerous question marks, whereas
slender analogies between life stories and ideological aesthetic attitudes (Cames-
Tasso, Cames-Cervantes, Cames-Milton, Cames-Kochanowski or Mickiewicz,
Cames-Rejtan) are not going to overturn the fact that the author of Os Lusadas,
his life and his work, belong to the national historical mythology of Portugal as well
as to the spiritual heritage of Europe and to the world discovered by the Lusians.
Various descriptions of Cames in the literature of Romanticism in Poland are
reflected not only in the patriotism, but also in the aesthetics of that period. How-
ever, the patriotic aspects became more prounounced. In the romantic period the
Polish people were interested in their national past (and a similar past of other
countries) as Poland had only survived in their minds as an independent country.
Insofar, the Polish national history was hardly compared to the history of other
countries, because of the tragedy of the partitions. Still, there is a paralel between
Poland in 1772-1795 and Portugal in 1841-1640 and Cames biography as a pars
pro toto of the spirit of an indomitable nation, its past glory and present humilia-
tion. Dwelling on the decline of Portugal and Poland in the figure of the Portu-
guese epic poets life story, one may ask: How was it possible for him to fall so
low, after he has risen so high? After the discovery of East Indies by Vasco da
Gama at the end of 15
th
century and the forming of the powerful Republic of Two
Nations (Poland in Lituania, with the signing of the Union of Lublin in 1569) it
would be difficult to imagine huge territorial losses of the Portuguese territrios
ultramarinos and the total failure of the Polish sovereignty. Cames epitomized the
two, his biography having functioned as an intermediary, life-written text in be-
tween the meandrings of Iberian and Slavonic cultural heritage.
Still, there is a literary and theoretical question to be resolved. By making
Cames biography into the model of heroism, we should elevate it above the
literary status of a mere memoire, chronicle or poetic life story and give it a place,
albeit a modest one, among the canonical hierarchies of the major literary genres
derived from (auto)biographies. This according to Paul de Man - does not go
without some embarrassment
48
, since compared to his epic or lyric poetry (not
48
Cf. Paul de Man,Autobiography As De-Facement, The Rhetoric of Romanticism (Columbia Uni-
versity Press: New York, 1984), 67.
43
withstanding the drama) Cames biography always looks slightly exotic insofar as
Os Lusadas did not correspond directly with the conventions of seventeenth-cen-
tury Polish epic, represented by the translation of La Gerulasemme Liberata (1581)
de Torquato Tasso, made by Piotr Kochanowski in 1618 as Gofred abo Jeruzalem
wyzwolona. Another reason for the poems foreigness was that the maritime
epic poem and the ideology of conquista e cruzada did not appeal to the Polish
traditional, domiciliary, rural mentality. The situation changed around the end of
the eighteenth century, when there was a French translation which could serve as a
basis for the first Polish translation by J. I. Przybylski (1790). By this time the genre
of the national epic as well as the real and imaginary voyage had become popular in
Poland. The earthquaque in Lisbon had reminded Europe of the existence of Por-
tugal
49
. But most of all, Cames and his biography, together with the epic, em-
braced the romantic tendency to look back upon national history, as Nelleke Mo-
ser stressed it in his article on Cames as a Romantic Hero () in the Netherland
between 1766 and 1880
50
.
For generic historians, Cames biography would be a specifically romantic
phenomenon, written in verse (also a dramatic one), its final classification being
rather unclear, because of a poor distinction between real biography and poetic
fiction. It certainly contains lots of phantasy, but the deviations from reality remain
rooted in a single subject whose identity is defined by the uncontested readibility of
his proper name: the narrator of Os Lusadas seems to be defined by the name and
by the signature of Cames, putting De Mans question of autobiography as de-
facement for further literary and socio-cultural survey. The alignement between
Poland and Portugal as the two subjects involved in the process of mutual reflexive
reading of Cames will thus result in a new cognitive structure, implying differen-
tation as well as similarity of the biographical dimension and national identity in a
literary work and its reception.
49
Cf. Voltaire, Pome sur le dsastre de Lisbonne/Poema o zapadnieniu Lizbony (Muzeum Stanisawa
Staszica: Pia 2003), passim.
50
Nelleke Moser,Cames as a Romantic Hero: Os Lusadas as an Example of Patriotism in the
Netherlands between 1766 and 1880, Portuguese Studies 12/1996, 67.
Reading the Other
44
Bibliography:
1. Bachrz, Jzef: Z dziejw polskiej sawy Lusa Camesa w XIX wieku (The story of Lus
Cames fame in nineteenth century Poland) , Pamitnik Literacki LXVII (3/1976): 43-60.
2. Cames, Lus Vaz de: Luzytanie (Os Lusadas). Translation and notes by Ireneusz Kania. Posowie
Jzef Waczkw. Krakw: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1995
3. Cames, Lus [Vaz] de: Poezje wybrane (Selected Poems). Sel. and elab. by Jzef Waczkw.
Warszawa: Ludowa Spdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1984.
4. Goszczyski, Seweryn. egluga poety. (A Poet s Sailing). In: Dziea zbiorowe Seweryna
Goszczyskiego (The Collected Works of Seweryn Goszczyski). Ed. by Zygmunt Wasilewski.
Wilno: H. Altenberg, 1910.
5. Halm, Fryderyk: Kamoens Fryderyka Halma. Dramat w jednej odsonie. Przedstawiony w wiedeskim
teatrze 30 marca 1837 roku, wolny przekad T. Nowosielskiego (Kamoens by Fryderyk Halm. Drama
in One Person. Represented in The Vienna Theatre on March, 30th 1837, free transaltion by T.
Nowosielski), Warszawa: Drukarnia Jana Jaworskiego, 1845.
6. Kalewska, Anna: Cames czyli tryumf epiki (Cames or the Triumf of the Epic). Warszawa:
Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 1999.
7. Kalewska, Anna: Cames entre os Srmatas e os Polnios (sobre a recepo de Os Lusadas na
Polnia). In: Actas do 4 Congresso da Associao Internacional de Lusitanistas. Ed. by M. Fti-
ma Viegas Brauer-Figueiredo. Lisboa Porto Coimbra: LIDEL, 1995.
8. Krzyanowski, Julian: A History of Polish Literature. Translated by Doris Ronowicz. Warszawa:
PWN Polish Scientific Publishers, 1978.
9. ukaszyk, Ewa and Eminowicz-Jakowska, Teresa (Eds). Studia Iberystyczne nr 4, Krakw: Ksi-
garnia Akademicka, 2005.
10. Korsak, Julian: Kamoens w szpitalu. Opowiadanie poety. (Cames in Hospital. The Poets Story).
Wilno: Jzef Zawadzki, 1840.
11. Man, Paul de: The Rhetoric of Romanticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.
12. Milewska, Elbieta: Zwizki kulturalne i literackie polsko-portugalskie w XVI-XIX wieku. (Cultural
and Literary Relations between Poland and Portugal in the 16th 19th centuries). Warszawa: CES-
LA Centrum Studiw Latynoamerykaskich Uniwersyetu Warszawskiego (CESLA Centre
for Latin American Studies of Warsaw University), 1991.
13. Miosz, Czesaw: The History of Polish Literature, 2
nd
ed., Berkeley Los Angeles London:
University of California Press, 1984. (1
st
ed. 1983).
14. Monteiro, George: The Presence of Cames. Influences on the Literature of England, America and
Southern Africa. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996.
15. Moser, Nelleke: Cames as a Romantic Hero: Os Lusadas as an Example of Patriotism in the
Netherland between 1766 and 1880. Portuguese Studies 12 (1996): 55 - 67.
16. Przezdziecki, Aleksander: Don Sbastien de Portugal. Drame historique en prose en trois actes et
cinq tableaux par le Comte Alexandre Przezdziecki. Saint-Petersbourg: Charles Kray, 1836.
17. Sena, Jorge de: Trinta anos de Cames 1948-1978 (Estudos camonianos e correlatos). Lisboa:
Edies 70, 1980, vol. I and II.
18. Strzakowa, Maria: Z dziejw Camesa w Polsce (1572-1972), (The story of Cames in Po-
land 1572-1972), Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny XIX (4/1972): 377-387.
19. Voltaire: La Henriade Pome par. Avec les notes, suivi de lessas sur la posie pique. Paris:
Imprimrie de Pierre Didot, 1801.
20. Idem: Pome sur le dsastre de Lisbonne/Poema o zapadnieniu Lizbony. Ed. and Foreward by
Jacek Wjcicki. Pia: Muzeum Stanisawa Staszica, 2003.
45
21. Szydowski, Ignacy: Sawa, albo Kamoens poeta portugalski, oda Ignacego Szydowskiego,
(Fame, or Cames the Portuguese Poet, the ode of Ignacy Szydowski), Dziennik Wileski I (1822):
341-348.
22. Zieliska Danilewicz, Maria. Polonica portugalskie (The Portuguese polonica). Foreward by Pawe
Kdziela. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Wi, 2005.
23. Idem: Cames, czyli tryumf poezji. (Cames, or the Triumf of Poetry), Znak 5-6 /354-355
(1984): 662-687.
24. http://www.infopoland.buffalo.edu/web/arts_culture/poetry/norwid/poems/link.shtml
Reading the Other
46
Sonja Koroliov
(University of Halle/Wittenberg, Germany)
Spanish romance and the Russian Other
a reading of Bloks Karmen Karmen Karmen Karmen Karmen cycle
(1) Biographical detail
In this paper, I would like to look at the Karmen cycle in its present form, not
taking account of the various changes in particular the addition of poems 2 and 3
that have taken place until it took its final shape. These have been amply docu-
mented in various books and articles
1
, as has the relevant biographical detail, so
that for my purpose it may be enough to mention that the poems were dedicated to
the opera singer L.A. Andreeva-Delmas who performed the role of Carmen in the
Bizet opera of the same name and whom Blok met when they attended a perform-
ance in which another singer was standing in for her, which to a certain extent
accounts for Bloks merging the motifs of Carmen on the stage and Carmen in
the foyer in his cycle.
(2) The cycles parts
What has also been given some attention by the commentators is the question
of how the cycle is to be divided into parts. Etkind
2
argues for a division of
1+3+3+3, while Poyntner
3
has proposed a division of 3+3+3+1. As my own
1
Informative accounts can be found in Erich Poyntner, Die Zyklisierung lyrischer Texte bei Aleksandr
Blok (Mnchen: Verlag Otto Sagner, 1988) as well as Efim Etkind , Karmen Aleksandra Bloka.
Lirieskaja poema kak antiroman, in Aleksandr Blok. Centennial Conference, ed. Walter Vickery
(Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers Inc., 1982)
2
Etkind 1982, pp.113-139
3
Poyntner 1988, pp.76-79
47
interpretation will be based on a slightly different partition, I would like to set that
out first so as to clarify the external framework of my argument. In his comprehen-
sive study of the cycle, Etkind identifies Poem 1 as a prologue, followed by three
groups of poems with three parts each. In this structure, Part 1 takes the role of an
exposition, introducing the poetic I and setting the stage for the rest of the cycle by
way of a mixture of opposing motifs; descriptions of everyday objects (okno, kniga)
are set against descriptions of nature (vesna, nebo), the palpable surroundings of
the narrator alternate with elements of the theatrical, and the development de-
scribed is one of moving from the unified towards the ambiguous.
Part 2 Etkind sees as describing the beginning of love between the protago-
nists (one of whom is a double character oscillating between the poetic I and the
opera character Don Jos) and the development of this relationship from a banal,
courtly and purely private affair to a more comprehensive feeling set in a frame-
work of more general associations with Russia and the forces of nature.
The third part (poems 8-10) then moves towards a more direct communication
between the protagonists and at the same time abandons the realistic setting, plung-
ing into the phantastic realm of dreams and mysticism.
Poyntner gives a slightly different account of the cycles structure. In his inter-
pretation, the first nine poems form groups of three each, with the first group deal-
ing with the equation between the forces of nature and those of human passions,
the second with the theatrical and operatic theme and the third with the passionate
love between the two protagonists. He sees the tenth poem as an epilogue meant to
add a cosmic dimension to the meanings introduced in the main body of the cycle.
Both authors do not see the cycle as based on any kind of recognizable plot. In
contrast to that, I would like to argue that there is a clear outline of a plot which is
only framed and interrupted by differing contemplative poems functioning both
as caesurae and connecting members and offering points of orientation in the cy-
cles overall structure.
I agree with Etkind in setting the first poem aside as a prologue. It describes
the central scene that can be seen both as the origin and the prototypical situation
of the specific kind of love described at a later stage in the cycle. The poet is part of
a theatrical audience and is moved and excited by the expectation of the stage
appearance of the object of his admiration.
After this introduction, which cannot be established as filling a specific exten-
sion of time, Poems 2 and 3 deal with the factual love affair between the poet and
his beloved which is set out in two typical scenes referring to the seduction and the
Reading the Other
48
morning after. I would argue that at the beginning of Poem 4 the real love affair is
over and perceived as a thing of the past. Here, the poet is alone again and reading
a book; that there has been an intervening passage of time is also suggested by the
details of weather: In Poems 2 and 3, the description moves from early spring (led
kolok) to summer (lazur, blue skies, steam in the morning), and what follows in
Poem 4 are the poets reminiscences at a later point (perhaps in the following year)
when the early spring snow reminds him of his old love. His memory passes from
the early stages when he had been attracted to the female protagonist in her role as
Carmen in the opera, towards his encounter with the actual person, though here
too, his impressions are intermingled with motifs taken from the opera as he equates
his beloved with Carmen and himself with Don Jos. Poem 7 finds the poet in very
different surroundings, cast as a rustic lover in a kind of Russian idyll signalled by
traditionally Russian motifs such as the appropriate country vegetation, the wide
fields, the candle and the prayer perhaps an allusion to the intermezzo intro-
duced by Don Joss old girlfriend Micaela, a country-girl who comes to him at the
instigation of his mother but does not in the least manage to distract him from his
infatuation with the more difficult and challenging Carmen. Thus, even in this poem
representing the poets return to his soil and renewed interest in Russian themes
the thoughts about Carmen intrude: the roses he sees, and which connote foreign-
ness in this context, remind him of that supposedly ill-fated affair. Yet in the fol-
lowing poems (8-10) a new approach can be seen: these are devoted to sublimating
the remembered individual woman into an image that is both inspiring to the poet
on an artistic plain Carmen becomes the Muse and a resolution to the doubts
and ill feelings described before. Thus the partition I propose would be reflected
by 1+2+3+1+3.
(3) Carmen as the Other
However, the boundaries of plot are only a rudimentary framework enabling
us to look at further meanings which are in no way restricted by and can only partly
be understood as consequent upon the cycles formal and narrative structure.
My purpose will be to describe the sets of oppositions on which the metaphoric
framework of the poems rests; at the same time, it should emerge in how far the
character of Carmen, as well as the themes it is associated with, is here constructed
as the Russian Other and how this Other is represented. This thematic analysis
49
should also shed some light on Bloks intertextual method and the way he inter-
weaves his sources creating multiple layers of textual meaning.
At first, then, it seems to be clear that there is a strand of thought associating
Carmen with the Other, in so far as she is depicted as foreign, unreliable, threaten-
ing and, above all, capable of alienating her admirer from his own consciousness.
This is made clear even at the stage of the prologue: The mere expectation of
Carmens appearance makes for a change of the listeners innermost self: tak ser-
dtse pod grozoi pevuchei / menyaet stroi(Poem 1, v. 3-4). It is continued in the
way the actual love affair is depicted as extremely short-lived: within two poems, it
is over; also, Carmen is at various stages associated with the appearance of light-
ning, e.g. in Poem 9: I v tikhii chas nochnoi, kak plamya, / sverknuvshee na mig, /
blesnet mne belymi zubami / tvoi neotstupnyi lik. (Poem 9, st.5, v. 1-4). However,
this also recalls a stanza from the poem K Muze which opens the earlier cycle Strash-
nyi mir: I lyubovi cyganskoi koroche / byli strashnye laski tvoi
4
. So, even at this
early stage, by implicitly identifying Carmen with the Muse of Strashnyi mir, Blok
subverts the simple characterization and prepares the ground for the later poems
in which Carmen is also seen as the Muse.
Yet an element of alienation, or self-alienation, on the part of the poet is al-
ways present. In the second stanza of Poem 2, the poet is described as having a
smyatennaya dusha (Poem 2, st.1, v.4). In Poem 4, he even completely falls out of
time: I ya zabyl vse dni, vse nochi. (Poem 4, v.8). In the central Poem 6, remem-
bering Carmen is like pamyat ob inoi otchizne(Poem 6, v.33). In Poem 5, where
the poet merges into the Don Jos character, he is also a Turgenevian timid lover
who is standing by, watching his beloveds interactions with other men. (The scene
is also a direct allusion to Poem 6 of the Faina subcycle Zakjyatie ognem i mrakom:
I ne lyubit, navernoe, temnykh / prislonennykh, kak ya, u steny.
5
The cycle Faina
contains many other parallels to the present text which are interesting but cannot
be followed up in detail here.)
Carmen herself is described as unreliable and the poets perceptions of her as
deceptive and prone to be discovered as false: this is suggested by the continually
running subtext of Bizets opera as well as Merimes novella and is also mirrored
by some of the poems: In Poem 3, something terrible seems to be shining through
Carmens (or the morning demons) beautiful image, in Poem 7 he hears muzyka
4
Blok 1974, p.113
5
Blok 1974, p.105
Reading the Other
50
tainykh izmen (Poem 7, st.3, v.3) and in Poem 9 Carmens eyes are described as
containing grust izmen (Poem 9, st.2, v.2).
Besides, both the opera character and its offstage counterpart are always in a
bad mood, ranging from sneering to outright anger, and the effect of an unfriendly,
naturally threatening image is deepened by further connotations on the one hand,
of animal aggression (Carmen is compared to lions looking at passers-by from
their cage (Poem 6, v.15-16); her most prominent feature are her teeth), on the
other of wild storms and devouring fire. This element is even stronger than her
foreignness, though this is also present, both in the foreign names and places and in
other details (e.g. Carmens appearing in a crown of roses in a context where roses
are opposed to more indigenous plants such as verba and yachmen(Poem 7),
her being pictured as v chuzhoi strane (Poem 9, st.6, v.2) etc.).
The fact that both protagonists are also Doppelgnger-s of characters in a the-
atrical performance further deepens the effect of distance and alienation, as does
the fact that most of the poems take the form of reminiscences or even dreams.
The switching between the basic narrative level, intruding lines from the opera,
and descriptions of actions on the stage equally turns out to be a distancing strate-
gy as the start of each poem leaves the reader uncertain of its setting.
(4) Nietzsche
However, Carmens foreignness, the ways in which her character is set aside
from the Russian discourse touched on in some of the poems and dominant in
Poem 7, and the theatrical setting permeating most of the cycle also bear a further
significance:
Throughout the cycle there is a recognizable Nietzschean subtext
6
, and al-
though some commentators have argued that The Birth of Tragedy is the only Ni-
6
Interestingly, in Nietzsches work itself Bizets opera has many roles to play, but most often it is
perceived as a liberation from the authors strong and morbid infatuation with Wagner: Ich mache
mir eine kleine Erleichterung. Es ist nicht nur die reine Bosheit, wenn ich in dieser Schrift Bizet
auf Kosten Wagners lobe. Ich bringe unter vielen Spssen eine Sache vor, mit der nicht zu spas-
sen ist. Wagnern den Rcken zu kehren war fr mich ein Schicksal; irgend Etwas nachher wieder
gern zu haben ein Sieg. (Der Fall Wagner, Vorwort, KSA 6, 11). It is associated with lightness and
lack of involvement, i.e. it lifts the listener up towards a higher and thus less precarious point of
view, makes him a better philosopher: Und wirklich schien ich mir jedes Mal, dass ich Carmen
hrte, mehr Philosoph, ein besserer Philosoph, als ich sonst mir scheine. (Der Fall Wagner, Turin-
er Brief vom Mai 1888, KSA 6, 13)
51
etzschean work Blok really read
7
, this subtext is not restricted to the influence of
the concepts of the Apollonian and Dionysian, although these are obviously the
two most pervasive topoi. There are further allusions, e.g. to Thus spake Zarathus-
tra, as well as associations reaching through Nietzsche back into antiquity and not
traceable to the Nietzschean text itself.
Thus, the sonnyi vikhr (Poem 2, st.1, v.4), the tvorcheskie sny (Poem 5,
v.13) and the greatest part of Poem 8 invoke the idea of Nietzsches Apollonian
dream. In contrast, Carmen is also equated with the Dionysian: She represents the
stikhiya, the force of nature which for Blok is the essence of the Schopenhaueri-
an will and the Nietzschean Dionysian Carmen is an Apollonian appearance born
from the waves of Dionysian chaos, but she is also part of this chaos: Tam dikii
splav mirov, gde chast dushy vselenskoi / rydaet, iskhodya garmoniei svetil. (Poem
10, st.2, v.3-4) This is also the realm where human values become indecipherable
as all is devoured by fire, so that we can only obtain an idea of the world through
music: Vs muzyka i svet: net schastya, net izmen/ Melodiei odnoi zvuchat
pechal i radost. (Poem 10, st.5, v.2-3)
This description points directly back to Nietzsche: the spectator of Dionysian
art (and music is the most Dionysian art) watches the process of becoming and
death and is both frightened and delighted by the workings of the Weltwillen (world
will): wir werden von dem wthenden Stachel dieser Qualen in demselben Au-
genblicke durchbohrt, wo wir gleichsam mit der unermesslichen Urlust am Dasein
eins geworden sind und wo wir die Unzerstrbarkeit und Ewigkeit dieser Lust in
dionysischer Entzckung ahnen. (Die Geburt der Tragdie 17; KSA 1,109) We
are pierced by the fierce goad of these sufferings at the very moment in which we
have become one with the immeasurable essential joy of Existence and when, in
Dionysian ecstasy, we are sensing the indestructibility and eternity of this joy.
Dionysian ecstasy is closely related to practices that in normal situations would be
described as cruel and miasmatic; both elements are borne out by Blok, one in
Poem 4, where his heart is soaked in a sudden onslaught of blood, the other in
Poem 9, where he wants to keep the metaphoric contamination of Carmens
perfume on his hand.
7
Notably Maria Gyngysi who does, however, point out that Blok did have access to most of
Nietzsches works at least in translation (cf. Gyngysi 2004, p.93). Still, as she sets out in her
study, the influence of The Birth of Tragedy was the greatest, as this was the work attracting most
attention from many of Bloks contemporaries, most importantly Vyacheslav.Ivanov who wrote a
number of influential articles on Dionysian religion etc. and whose views are said to have prede-
termined Bloks to a considerable extent (cf. Gyngysi 2004, p.93).
Reading the Other
52
Interestingly, Blok singles out a point that is not usually at the foreground of
Russian interpretations of Nietzsche: for him, as for Nietzsche, the Dionysian state
of mind is associated with nausea, taedium vitae and the wish to escape from this
life: Sobald aber jene alltgliche Wirklichkeit wieder ins Bewusstsein tritt, wird
sie mit Ekel als solche empfunden; eine asketische, willenverneinende Stimmung
ist die Frucht jener Zustnde. (Die Geburt der Tragdie 7; KSA 1, 56) But as
soon as that everyday reality reenters our consciousness, it is felt as what it is with
disgust; that ascetic, will-denying mood is the fruit of those states of mind.
In Karmen, the taedium vitae is expressed in Don Joss cry on stage in Poem 7:
Uidem, uidem ot zhizni, / uidem ot toi grustnoi zhizni! / krichit pogibshii chelovek
(Poem 7, st.2, v.1-3). The thought is repeated in Poem 10: Skvoz bezdnu dnei
pustykh, che bremya ne izbudesh.
So, witnessing the Dionysian leads to asceticism: It could be argued that Blok,
who gave a lot of thought to the ascetic life and its compatibility with art
8
, is here
trying to establish an identity between the artist and the ascetic, or even to present
the Dionysian life of the artist as one that has incorporated asceticism by overcom-
ing it; this could be the meaning of the simple and white path mentioned at the
end of Poem 9.
(5) Aristotle and Greek tragedy
However, this is not the only ancient subtext: The spectacle is not only Diony-
sian, but also Aristotelian, and Carmen takes on other roles besides that of the
Dionysian goddess. The fact that we are witnessing at least as much of an Aristote-
lian as of a Nietzschean tragedy is borne out by several verses:
In Poem 1, there is already a situation of katharsis: the heart changes as the
ocean changes colour, i.e. the spectator displays symptoms of deep emotional in-
volvement in the scene. Subsequently we are faced with contrasting situations of
fear and pity, the two classical emotions evoked by Aristotelian tragedy. Fear, in
some form or other, features in almost every poem, whereas the inclusion of pity in
the emotional repertoire seems to explain the otherwise unclear third stanza of
Poem 10: Vot, bednaya, zachem trevozhus za tebya! (Poem 10, st.3, v.2) this
8
Cf. Zara Minc, Chelovek prirody v russkoi literature XIX veka i tsyganskaya tema u Bloka,
in Z.G.Minc, Potika Aleksandra Bloka (St.Petersburg: Isskustvo SPB, 1999), p. 343-388.
53
being the only instance of Carmens depiction as a character in tragedy which is
itself subject to suffering and thus an appropriate object of eleos.
In addition to that, Carmen is cast in a number of roles that cannot all be
explained by recurring to Nietzsche:
In Poem 1, it has been argued that yavlene Karmensity is to be understood
in the liturgical way
9
, so that Carmens association with the divine realm is antici-
pated. I would argue that it is true that Carmen is here seen as a goddess, but a
goddess of Euripidean tragedy a deus ex machina appearance recalling not only
Nietzsches criticism of this device but also the appearance of Medea in Euripides
play of the same name another foreign woman bearing connotations of innocent
suffering as well as dire revenge and intrafamilial murder.
Then, in Poem 3, there is a brief identification with the chiton-clad Diotima
(struyashchiisya khiton), the priestess of Platos Symposium who introduces the
story about Eros who is not a god but a demon
10
perhaps, as Blok seems to
suggest here, a golden-haired, though slightly threatening demon of the morning
11
.
Finally, in Poem 8, there seems to be a description of Nietzsches Great Mid-
day: Various elements from Mittags, a part of Thus spake Zarathustra (Also sprach
Zarathustra IV, Mittags, KSA 4, 342-345) are incorporated in Carmens lyubimyi,
rodimyi krai the eveningless hot day, the sea, the sleep, the lack of movement
etc. In this context, Carmen seems to be cast in the role of Pan himself: she is the
one responsible for the music and she is also, though herself in the poets dream,
asleep and dreaming another dream inaccessible to the poet himself.
Thus Carmen is not only a beloved woman, an actress, a theatrical character
and a gypsy, but also a Dionysian and ancient Greek goddess.
(6) Conclusion
It remains to be asked whether it is possible to keep up the contention that she
is also the Other: Certainly there is, at the end, an identification between Car-
men and the poet; ya sam takoi, Karmen.(Poem 10, st.5, v.4) How does the cycle
9
Etkind 1982, p.118
10
Plato, Symposion 202 D-E
11
On Bloks knowledge of Plato, cf. V.N. Bystrov, Rannee tvorchestvo A.Bloka i antichnaya filos-
ofiya, in Aleksandr Blok. Issledovaniya i materialy,.ed. by V.N. Bystrov, Yu.K. Gerassimov, N.Yu.
Gryakalova, A.V. Lavrov (St.Petersburg: Izdatelstvo Dmitrii Bulanin, 1998)
Reading the Other
54
reach this point? I would argue that Carmen is indeed the Other at the start, but
that during the cycle this Other is appropriated by the poets creative ability and
thus turned into a new life-giving and inspiring force for his poetry. The caesura is
marked by Poem 7, which introduces the Russian theme: In the poems preceding
it, the poetic I seems to be caught up in the performance and in his own irony
(especially in Poem 2), as well as exposed to the normative force of a worldly rela-
tionship. This is signalled by the style of the lengthy Poem 6, which Etkind has
rightly described as epistolary and polite
12
. After Poem 7, Carmen is addressed in
a more intimate way (ty instead of vy), but also, more importantly, the poet
begins to give information about himself: He recounts a dream and finally describes
his view of the future and his admiration for Carmen as lover and muse in a sweep-
ing poetic finale.
Thus it is perhaps possible to see Poem 7 as the act of appropriation: The poet
wakes up from his first reminiscence which has taken him entirely into foreign ground,
comes back to his native soil and finally discovers that he can incorporate these im-
pulses, which have originally been perceived as outward and foreign, into the whole
of his poetic thought, thereby obliterating the differences between himself and the
Other, which become blurred in the Dionysian sweep of poetic creativity.
Bibliography:
1. Blok, Aleksandr: Stikhotvoreniya. Pomy (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1974); originally published as
part of Sobranie sochinenii v vosmi tomakh (Moscow Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo
khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1960-1963)
2. Bystrov, V.N. Rannee tvorchestvo A. Bloka i antichnaya filosofiya. In Aleksandr Blok. Issle-
dovaniya i materialy. Ed. by V.N. Bystrov, Yu.K. Gerassimov, N.Yu. Gryakalova, A.V. Lavrov (St.
Petersburg: Izdatelstvo Dmitrii Bulanin, 1998)
3. Etkind, Efim: Karmen Aleksandra Bloka. Lirieskaja poema kak antiroman,. In Aleksandr
Blok. Centennial Conference, ed. Walter Vickery (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers Inc., 1982)
4. Gyngysi, Maria: A. Blok und die deutsche Kultur. Novalis, Heine, Nietzsche, Wagner (Frankfurt
am Main: Peter Lang, 2004)
5. Zara Minc, Chelovek prirody v russkoi literature XIX veka i tsyganskaya tema u Bloka, in
Z. G. Minc, Potika Aleksandra Bloka (St.Petersburg: Isskustvo SPB, 1999)
6. Nietzsche, Friedrich: Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bnden, ed. by Giorgio Colli/Mazzino Mon-
tinari (Berlin/New York: dtv/Walter de Gruyter, 1967ff.)
7. Poyntner, Erich: Die Zyklisierung lyrischer Texte bei Aleksandr Blok (Mnchen: Verlag Otto Sag-
ner, 1988)
12
Etkind 1982, p.121
55
Pau Sanmartn Ort
(Madrid, Spain)
Two Formalist Readings of Don Quixote Don Quixote Don Quixote Don Quixote Don Quixote:
Viktor Shklovskys Cervantine Prose
But we are beautiful in [our] unbending betrayal of our
own past
(V. Khlebnikov)
Throughout his long and varied career as a literary critic, Viktor Shklovsky
(1914-1983) made two important readings of Don Quixote. Between the first (O
teorii prozy, 1925) and the last (Xudoestvennaja proza, 1959) almost thirty-five years
passed. During this time, many changes happened, such as those which led to the
maturity and dissolution of Opojaz, the group of literary critics to which Shklovsky
belonged. The rereading of Don Quixote in 1959 was, as well, a rereading of his old
essay on Cervantes novel and of his formalist period. Many pages have been writ-
ten on Shkolvskys famous resignations in regard to his formalist past but not so
many have been devoted to study the role played by Don Quixote in those resigna-
tions
1
. As I will try to show, Cervantes work revealed to Shklovsky different paths
to keep reading and writing literary history in his peculiar way.
Kak sdelan Don-Kixot - Rodenie novogo romana
At the end of 1919, Shklovky collaborated with Gorkis translation workshop -
created to spread major works of world literature throughout Russia- carrying out
different tasks. It was then when Shklovsky, who did not speak any other language
apart from Russian, had access to some classical Western authors: Cervantes, Sterne,
1
Only A. Ariev (2005) has pointed out recently something about this issue, but in an indirect and
succinct manner, without extracting from this observation all its consequences.
56
Dickens, etc., to whom he dedicates a chapter of his O teorii prozy (1925). On the
28
th
of January 1920, Shklovsky published Rei Don-Kixota in the number 355 of
izn iskusstva, on the 18
th
of Febrary of the same year published Vstavnye novelly
v Don-Kixote (in number 375 of the same magazine). Both texts appeared later as
part of Razvertyvanie sjueta, Shklovskys contribution to the fourth collective vol-
ume of Opojaz in 1921. Those texts were included finally in O teorii prozy under the
title Kak sdelan Don-Kixot
2
.
Shklovskys 1959 summary of his old text on Don Quixote may be still regarded
as one of the aptest ones made until today.
In that article Shklovsky wrote in Xudoestvennaja proza- I sustained
that the character of don Quixote was created as the result of the technical
interaction of the narrative schemes and the scientific reports of that time,
put together when the work was written.
Without noticing, Cervantes seems to have transmitted to his crazy main
character, elements of different dictionaries and encyclopaedias. When he
connected the material and opposed mechanically the wisdom and the
madness, he created a character, which turned out to be like the double
image obtained when we make two photographs of the same film (pp. 179-
180)
3
Shklovskys words recover the main feature that characterizes the literary anal-
yses of his first period: the emphasis on the compositional technique and the con-
trastive effects that the different avant-garde styles (Cubism, Suprematism, Con-
structivism) set into play in Russia in the 1920s. Cervantes was seen, consequently,
as a narrator who built his stories by the juxtaposition of materials and heterogene-
ous elements, aiming to generate semantic collisions similar to those produced by
the photomontage of Rodchenko or El Lisitski. These contrasts or collisions were
generated in two ways:
1) In a level which we could call semantic, Shklovsky points out how Cervan-
tes benefits from the effect of contrast between the madness and the wisdom of
don Quixote, juxtaposing sensible and coherent discourses and actions with unfor-
tunate and irrelevant ones. For instance, while he pronounces a discourse charac-
teristic of a wise and learned man, don Quixote wears the barbers bowl as if it were
2
I have followed E, Voleks Spanish version of Rei Don-Kixota(1995, pp. 137-147) and G. Ver-
rets French translation of Vstavnye novelly v Don-Kixote (1973, pp. 118-145).
3
I have used the Spanish translation of the third and expanded edition of this work, published with
the title Povesti o proze (1966).
57
a helmet, from which the curd cheese that Sancho has left is dripping. Cervantes
plays constantly with don Quixote introducing unexpected turns to his actions and
words, in such a way that it becomes very difficult to foresee what the character is
going to do or say in the immediate future. Thanks to this device, Cervantes char-
acters evolve, moving from an initial stadium of psychological simplicity (don Quix-
ote at the beginning is just a madman, Sancho, a simple and parochial man) to a
more complex and detailed characterization.
2) In a level which we could call syntactic, Shklovsky defines the construction of
the novel with the terms of mosaic or dining table. In other words, it is a plot
built thanks to the pasteing of different bits or additions that increase the length of
the work. As he himself affirms in Vstavnye novelly v Don-Kixote: It is an obvious
fact that in Don Quixote the thread of the action is completely fragmented and it is
broken constantly (p. 119). Shklovsky considers incidental the plots included by
Cervantes in his novel to underline its disjunctive character: they are not stories that
add essential information for the development of the main plot but stories that inter-
rupt constantly, creating a siuzhet of a huge constructive complexity.
Along with the already mentioned devices, considered by Shklovsky as the con-
structive pillars of Don Quixote, he mentions as well others that could be called
meta-semantic and meta-syntactic. These are what Formalist named laying bare
devices (primy obnaenie). Thanks to them Cervantes highlights the fictitious na-
ture of his work to obtain a more powerful impression of reality. Shklovsky con-
nects these types of devices with the theatrical artifice consisting of making the
characters break the fourth wall addressing themselves directly to the audience.
In this way, the levels of fiction and reality are superposed and intertwined achiev-
ing an intermittent perception of the conventional literary structures and of the
fictive world that those structures aspire to make real. In the case of Don Quixote,
this is achieved through the characters consciousness of themselves and of their
literary versions, and through the inclusion of the author (Cervantes) in the ficti-
tious story.
The meta-fictitious laying bare devices begin to be employed, especially, in the
second part of Don Quixote. Like his characters, Cervantes is conscious of the ex-
istence of the first part and, while writing his continuation, he tries to look for new
solutions and developments different from what he has already written, as these
start to solidify into a convention. The macro-syntactic or dispositional structure of
the second part experiments, consequently, some modifications for being the con-
tinuation of a previous story. Thus, the incidental stories that interrupt the main
Reading the Other
58
plot are more abundant but also much shorter. For this reason the main plot can be
picked up more easily.
Don Quixotes two part composition makes evident a typical feature of any
literary work, on which Shklovsky insisted repeatedly throughout his career: that
the work progresses and discovers new aesthetic and formal possibilities as it devi-
ates from the aims projected in its initial plan. When Shklovkys reading of Don
Quixote is alluded, scholars tend to refer exclusively to the formal and mechanistic
character of his explanation of the work, seen as a kind of assembled construction
of contrasting pieces, forgetting the aim of Shklovskys formal description. It is
true that the Formalist critic reduces his analysis to the account of the deviant
action that the Cervantine devices perform on a pre-existent literary material: chiv-
alry books, travelogues, pastoral novels, rhetoric, other learned books, folk tales
and picaresque novel, etc. This analysis has been developed to show in which man-
ner Don Quixote inaugurates a new kind of novelistic structure, as the result of a
compositional process in which Cervantes tries to find new forms of correlating the
material bequeathed to him by literary tradition
4
. In this progressive process, the
possibilities of interaction between what has been written and what it is going to be
written, developed by Cervantes in that same process, are more important and
determinant than the initial external historical, biographical, or social circum-
stances which originated the work.
When Cervantes started Don Quixote, his first plan must have been to write a
parody. Don Quixote was just a madman useful to laugh at chivalry books. Later,
however Shklovsky observes Cervantes began to need him as a unifying thread
of the wise speeches (p. 138). For this reason, Shklovsky insists: [t]he wisdom of
the brainless knight was foreseen by the author neither at the beginning nor at the
middle of the novel: Alonso was only good (p.142). In fact, the first of the wise
speeches of don Quixote (the one which refers to the Golden Age) is regarded by
the narrator as inopportune. Cervantes lays bare this device and makes evident in
this manner that the discourse which don Quixote has just pronounced does not
belong to his character but to himself. This demonstrates that:
4
The new formal correlation produces a new literary-aesthetic effect, as every literary novelty it is
not but a new way of establishing a new type of unity form-effect. At the end of his article, Shklov-
sky refers to how Cervantes has invented a new type of sentimental answer to a plot reserved until
then to the parody: in the second part, the cruel jokes of which don Quixote and Sancho are
object, are not the cause of laughter but of compassion. This new aesthetic effect will be used as
material of future novels.
59
The character of don Quixote [] does not derive from the initial aim
projected by the author, it emerged as the result of the constructive proc-
ess of the novel [] Towards the middle of the novel, Cervantes realized
that, having filled Don Quixote with his own wisdom, he created in him a
duality and, from that moment on, employed or started to employ this
duality for his artistic purposes (p. 147).
Shklovskys rejection to enter in considerations about the pre-literary origin of
the text in order to focus on its construction implies, therefore, a clear recognition
that, once the creative process has started, the main determinant of literature is
always an artistic, and not so much the external conditionals of the creation. Sig-
nificantly, Shklovsky started his article on Don Quixote alluding to the differences
between the maxims (or gnomes) closing Sophocles and Euripides tragedies.
Whereas in the former, the gnome always adopts the form of a moral, in the later
the tragedy can end with an amoral conclusion, if the character who pronounces it
is not a virtuous one. If Sophocles still thinks that the discourses of his characters
can be attributed to him and for that reason he never ends his plays with an amoral
gnome, Euripides jumps over this difficulty helped by the rules of decorum. Ac-
cording to Shklovsky, Cervantes steps further, in realizing that the discourse is no
more than a reason for the introduction of materials (p. 137). In this way, helped
by the conventional nature of fiction, he builds up an encyclopaedic novel in which
many voices often contradictory among themselves- intersect, being very hard to
distinguish Cervantes own voice.
For this reason, when we evaluate Shklovskys formal analysis of Don Quixote
done in the twenties, it is convenient to take into account as well his considerations
about the constructive process of verbal art, ruled by literary and fictional norms
that set the work apart not only from the authors initial project but also from his
true and own views. The same happens when we approach Shklovkys second
reading of Don Quixote, which can be found in the third chapter of Xudoestvennaja
proza (1959), Rodenie novogo romana.
As I have mentioned above, the Russian literary critic recalled his essay on
Don Quixote as a starting point from which he could offer his new vision at the end
of the fifties. In his own words:
That was written in 1920, printed in 1921 and discarded in 1931. [...] I
refer to this essay because sometimes it is mentioned and quoted in the
West, and, in this way exists although undeservedly, as it deprives human-
ity of one of its weapons, the noble history of man as a noble moral ideal.
So, now I start again (pp.179-180).
Reading the Other
60
Passages like this one are frequent in Shklovskys work after his well known
article Pamjatnik naunoj oibke (1930), which is interpreted by most of histori-
ans of Russian Formalism as the schools official death certificate. However,
Skhlovskys manifested intentions do not correspond with the type of analysis he
subsequently presents. Shklovskys rereading of Don Quixote, more than a rejec-
tion of his formalist reading, consists in a broadening, a continuation and evolution
in respect to the previous one, whose progress, besides, does not contradict at all
the basic assumptions of its old conception of literature. In the same way as Cer-
vantes wrote the second part of Don Quixote, exploring new paths, Shklovsky ac-
complishes his second reading trying to move forward. Let us see it in detail:
First of all, the idea according to which don Quixote is constructed by the
juxtaposition of contrasted elements is picked up in very similar terms to the ones
employed in the past. Sklovsky repeats: don Quixotes discourses, his maxims and
his acts are present in a way that we always perceived as a collision between wisdom
and madness (p. 200). This time, however, the Russian critic tries to go deeper in
the origin of the device and refers to the Glass Graduate as a possible source of this
paradoxical conjunction between the mad and the wise that is don Quixote. How-
ever, the recuperation of the genetic approach repudiated by Formalism is just
superficial, as Shklovsky refers to this source to highlight the fact that the creation
of don Quixote was not foreseen in the initial plan of the work (exemplary novels
were written between the first and the second part of Don Quixote). In this way,
what is highlighted by the Russian critic is, again, the need to leave behind the
origin of the work in order to study the metamorphic process during which the
work is constructed: Don Quixote, as a type, was created throughout the novel
and did not exist in Cervantes mind until the composition of the work was con-
cluded (p. 199)
In the same way, the new type of novel inaugurated by Cervantes with Don
Quixote is not the consequence of the strict application of his paradoxical initial
plans, but it emerges from a structural discovery more or less accidental, similar to
the one which produced by the discovery of America:
[Cervantes] did not want to destroy chivalry books, but to reform them.
But similarly Columbus, who dreamt about finding a shorter way to
travel to the Indies and found a New World, Cervantes did not reform the
chivalry books, but created the new novel (p.183).
61
The narrative novelty with which Cervantes contributes to the history of the
novel is, according to Shklovsky, a peculiar fusion between the narrative schemes
characteristic of the picaresque novel and the chivalry books. Like the poet discov-
ers new uses of everyday expressions, deviating from his usual meanings helped by
the figures of speech, Cervantes discovers the possibility of applying techniques of
the picaresque novel to the narration of chivalry facts. On this occasion, however,
Shklovskys observations, although very close to the formal component of litera-
ture, also focus on the view of the world that underlies the narrative devices under
examination. In this manner, Lazarillo is narrated from a view of the world in
which reality seems to be ruled only by the most basic needs of survival and in
which it is, therefore, appropriate to describe it in all its rawness. Against this view,
chivalry books present a fantastic and idealized universe, ruled by noble moral
principles. Nevertheless, Shklovskys allusion to the view of the world implicit in
every literary genre does not make his essay one of those sociological analyses
which he repudiated in his Formalist period. Shklovsky never establishes a direct
link between the literary series and the sociological one, on the contrary, faithful to
his evolutionary and anti-genetic approach, he makes efforts to show how Don
Quixote does not correspond with any of the previous views of the world. Moreo-
ver, Cervantes work goes beyond the view of the world of his time and anticipates
creating it a new notion of reality: the one that emerges from the collision of the
contrasted visions of the knight and the villain
If many of the 20s Formalist terms are no longer used, the idea according to
which art builds semantic contrasts to promote an effort of formal reconstruction
still persists in this Post-Formalist
5
period. But now, the insistence on the percep-
tive effects is completed with passages on the cognitive and analytic functions of
verbal art, in which it is pointed out how literatures projection of unusual visions
enriches our idea of reality: the process of the modification of knowledge by artis-
tic means is reflected in the book (p. 187). Or later: Here we can see how art,
portraying the world, discovers new contradictions and modifies constantly the
methods to represent reality (p. 189)
But this new concern, I must insist, does not imply that Shklovskys is not inter-
ested in formal aspects of literature anymore. In another moment of this essay, it is
affirmed: Cervantes discovery, his historic achievement, was that he modified the
5
For instance: If the narration of the event does not adjust to the usual tone, if we abandon the
ideas and comparisons with which it is related, we force the reader and hearer / listener to recon-
sider the events and casual unions (p. 194).
Reading the Other
62
attitude towards the main character and, with a new vision of him, conceived a new
relation among the different parts of the novel (p. 186). Shklovsky mentions again
the heterogeneity of the literary material employed by Cervantes to create a com-
plex plot with multiple connections of ideas and scenes (p. 204). His observa-
tions, again, indicate that, for him, to explain the new uses of the material is much
more important than to point out its origins. In this way, the topos of the Golden
Age, so common in Classical literature to announce flattering prophecies, is used
by don Quixote to thank the hospitality of the poor goatherders and to reproach
the luxuriant arrogant.
Viktor Shklovskys Cervantine prose
In 1922, B. Tomashevski published a review of Shklovskys Razvertyvanie sjueta
(1921) in issue number 4 of Kniga i revoljucija. In this review it was already men-
tioned one of the typical features of Shklovskys prose, pointed out later by all its
commentators: Shklovskys stylistic contagion of the writers he studies in his es-
says. A good example of this can be found in Kak sdelan Don-Kixot, Shklovsky
(1925) where he justified his expositive disorder by saying: I am beginning to real-
ize that the novel I am analysing is affecting me: I put episode after episode, forget-
ting about the central movement of the article (p. 130).
This feature leaves a deep mark in Shklovskys style. Independently of the lit-
erary genre he is dealing with, a book of memories, an epistolary novel, an essay of
literary criticism a biography about another author, Viktor Shklovsky appears con-
stantly in his own pages making very subjective comments, adding personal anec-
dotes, private jokes, word plays that refer in an indirect way to his previous essays,
etc. Shklovky himself commented this feature in a work titled Gamburgskij set
(1928):
I do not find myself at fault because I always write in my own person,
for all one need do is go through what I have just written to see that al-
though I speak in my own name I do not speak for myself. Consequently,
that Viktor Shklovsky for whom I write is most likely not totally I and if we
met and began to talk we might quite possibly even misunderstand each
other (quoted by Steiner, 1985, p. 41).
Let us remember now the words about the Greek tragedy and the authorship
of the discourses with which Shklovsky started his Kak sdelan Don-Kixot of the
63
twenties: the Cervantes which appears in Don Quixote must not be confused with
the real Cervantes who writes it, at least, it should not be attributed to him the
authorship of all the opinions there exposed by different voices. The device of
hiding his opinions behind different masks, in a way that what the real Cervantes
thinks does not always coincide with what the literary Cervantes says, was one of
Cervantes literary discoveries.
The second reading of Don Quixote in 1959 begun recalling this first reading to
manifest his disagreement and to propose a kind of fresh start. However, why
does Shklovsky introduces this mea culpa in the middle of Xudoestvennaja proza,
especially when he had already rejected his Formalist statements in the prologue of
the work. Why did he rescue the discourse of 1920 instead of beginning directly
with his rereading? A simple and literal interpretation of Shklovskys words, as the
one done in its moment by V. Erlich (1955), confronts the question, affirming that
the Russian critic gives up at least in public the principles defended in his for-
malist period to adopt the new Marxist faith. However, is it fair to apply this read-
ing to such an ironic and ambiguous writer? Is it not tremendously incoherent with
his previous trajectory, in which Shklovky places himself as the most combative
defender of the formal method and as the last one to recognise the failure of
Formalism? And, above all, is it fair to do this reading of a text written in such
limited conditions of freedom of expression, as those of the URSS, especially from
1929?
The reader familiar with Shklovskys style recognizes in this type of resigna-
tions (followed, on the other hand, by a Neo-Formalist analysis) a Cervantine wink,
which refutes Erlichs interpretation. As I will try to show, Shklovsky was not only
affected by Cervantes style in the 20s but he would adopt some of Don Quixotes
narrative devices, as a personal trait of his style, independently of the writer he is
analyzing, and employs them in order to renew literary criticism as a genre. If it was
not probably among his initial plans, as the political pressure over the writers was
progressively increasing, Shklovsky seems to have discovered in these Cervantine
devices a privileged vehicle to express a number of things which, in any other way,
would not have been tolerated by the censorship. Let us see it in detail:
In his book of memoirs Sentimentalnoe puteestvie (1923), Shklovsky evokes
the arrival of the revolution, his experiences in the war as a tank technician and
driver, his missions in Persia, his problems with the Cheka, his literary work in
Opojaz, etc. He composes a terribly heterogenic and chaotic work whose matter
ranges from the most banal topics to problems of literary theory. The book on
Reading the Other
64
Don Quixote and Sterne were written with my students (p. 122) he mentions in
one of the books passages. Soon after, he recurs to the Cervantine authorial split
and applies it to his own book of memoirs: [a]nd here is the manuscript of Lazarus
Zervandov himself. I had a hand only in rearranging the punctuation and the cases
have been corrected. As a result, it has come out similar to me (quoted by Shel-
don, 1966, p. 183). Lazarus Zervandov is an Assyrian, whom Shklovky met in that
time, and whose discourse is employed to complete a part of the Russian campaign
in Persia, of which he had not been witness.
In that same year, 1923, Shklovsky published in Berlin a curious epistolary
novel titled Zoo ili pisma ne o ljubvi. As it is told by Shklovsky, laying bare the
constructing device of the book, this work was written after gathering the letters he
had sent to Elsa Triolet (Alja in the book) from his exile in Berlin and some of her
answers. Zoo becomes in this way the first publication of Elsa Troilet, who would
develop afterwards a long career as a writer. However, as P. Steiner (1985) points
out, a careful reading of the work reveals that some of the letters attributed to Alja
were, in fact, written by Shklovsky, who plays constantly with the tension resulting
form the transit between reality and fiction in which the novel is based. For in-
stance, letter number 19, attributed to Alja, and which appears deleted by hand in
order not to be read by the reader, belongs clearly to Shklovsky.
What does this series of meta-fictitious devices of Cervantine lineage
6
em-
ployed by Shklovsky in these two works show us? They show us the same thing that
the Formalist critic had been claiming from literary theory. That is: that literature
must be read as a fictive system, governed by its own rules, and that it was less
important to establish genetic correspondences between this system and its sup-
posedly real basis, than to perceive the defamiliarizing aesthetic effect, resulting
from the deformation of the real material. If Shklovsky had only wanted to make
public his relationship with Elsa Troilet, he would not have needed to build a sjuet
that connected (and transformed) the correspondence kept between them, it would
have been enough to publish a collection of the letters. But his intention, according
to his own words, was to employ the real material that allowed him to go beyond
the bounds of the ordinary novel (quoted by Sheldon, 1966, p. 197)
7
. The intro-
6
I am referring to them as Cervantine devices, although this type of technique can be found as well in
other writers many of them of Cervantine lineage to whom Shklovsky devoted several essays.
7
Shklovski, as well, confesses the deviation of the book from his initial plans: I introduced the
theme of a prohibition against writing about love, and this prohibition let the love theme into the
books autobiographical places, the love theme, and when I put the pieces of the already prepared
65
duction, written at the same dates of Lazarus Zervandov discourse in the plot of
Sentimentalnoe puteestvie must be interpreted in my understanding- as a Cer-
vantine device of similar effects on the memoirs as a genre.
Despite this constant play with the discursive responsibility set into practice by
Shklovsky, Zoo was considered by V. Erlich (1955) as the first step of a capitulation
to Marxism, followed by the Tretja fabrika (1926) and Pamjatnik naunoj oibke
(1930) movements. Erlich justified his interpretation by basing his argumentation
on Zoos closing words, in which Shklovsky asks for the amnesty and supplicates to
the Central Committee to be allowed to return to Russia. However, as R. Sheldon
has appropriately observed (1975)
8
, Shklovskys pleas are followed by an eloquent
passage in which the Russian victory over the Turkish in the battle of Erzerum is
related. Russians, who did not understand the Turkish code of surrender -consist-
ing in raising the right arm while the victorious army passed by- cut their hands off
all their prisoners. It does not seem necessary, therefore, to remember the cruelty
of the interlocutor to whom mercy is being asked
9
. Curiously, this passage was
suppressed in the censored edition of 1964, and consequently Shklovskys plea lost
all its intentional ambiguity.
P. Steiner referred to this type of ambiguous writing practiced by Shklovsky in
Zoo with the term meta-irony, and defined it as a speech act which dissimulates
the fact that an ironic speech act was made (p. 41). For his part, R. Sheldon (1975),
alluded to this technique with the formula the device of ostensible surrender. It
book on the floor and sat myself down on the parquet and started to stick the book together,
another book resulted not the one which I had been making.
[...] The book is better than the purpose (ibidem, p. 187).
8
Sheldons criticm to Erlichs interpretations published in the number 34 of Slavic Review, were
answered in the following number of the same magazine. Number 35 of the Slavic Review pub-
lished Erlichs response and Sheldons reply. Controversy does not seems so acute in France,
where French Slavists who tend to be closer to Sheldon than to Erlich (Cf. Depretto-Genty, 2005).
In Russia, the thesis defended by Freidin about Shklovhys rejection of Formalism Shklovsky is
against Galushkins, who sees continuity and not a rupture between the Formalist and the post-
formalist Shklovsky.
9
Sentimentalnoe puteestvie ended in a very similar way. This book, was also published during Shk-
lovkys exile in Berlin in 1923, referred in his closure of the story the American ambassador, Dr.
Shed. This character traveled through Persia with his car collecting children that Assyrians aban-
doned in their escape as they could not feed them, and took them afterwards to their parents.
Shklovsky compares himself with one of those Eastern abandoned children and supplicates: Doctor
Shed, I am a man of the East [...] Doctor Shed! Bitter are the stairs of exile. [...] In your name and
in the name of Doctor Gorbenko, who did not permit the people to kill the wounded Greeks in
Kherson, and in the nameless name of the driver who asked me to save the lathes, I finish this
book (quoted by Sheldon, 1966, p. 185).
Reading the Other
66
is true, as Steiner points out that meta-irony differs from traditional irony in the
fact that the author does not reveal so openly his ironical intention. In this way, the
author seems to abandon the control of his text which, as Shklovsky repeatedly
points out in most of his works, creation happens only and independently of the
authors initial purposes. This technique would have helped him in addition, ac-
cording to R. Sheldons interpretation, to keep defending the Formalists thesis
under the appearance of a capitulation to Marxism
10
. Helped by the juxtaposition
of contrasts, Shklovsky writes in the following way: the first sentence is a conces-
sion, but the next sentence immediately retracts the concession (p. 94). If we re-
member the procedure followed by Shklovsky in his analysis of Don Quixote of
1959, we see that this is precisely what he does: after the explicit rejection of the
results obtained in his Formalist essay of the 20s, he starts an analysis in which
many of the Formalist theses are being confirmed (if never in an identical way).
This practice of contradiction, however, it is not only the outcome of Shklovkys
strategy to evade censorship, it also answers to a more complex and intricate set of
reasons. In the first place, the different artistic manifestations developed in Russia in
the 20s do not correspond any more with many of the parameters pointed out by
Opojaz poetics in its beginnings. Russian Formalism had, consequently, had to make
its method evolve if it desired to keep its actuality and its proximity in relation to the
artistic novelty defended in its manifestos (cf. jxenbaum, 1925)
11
.
Shklovskys work which best reflects this period of difficult conciliation be-
tween the artistic and the socio-political demands is Tretja fabrika (1926), in which
we can read: Its wrong to say: The whole squad is out of step except for one
ensign. I want to speak with my time, to understand its voice (p. 8). Shklovsky is
conscious that his method is becoming old in relation to the new times but, at the
same time, he cannot share many of the ideas supported by the new artistic trends
10
Despite having confounded some of the students of the Russian Formalism, such as Erlich, this
appearance did not coincide with the Marxists of his time. Thus, Beshkin considered Shklovsky in
1927 the most reactionary figure of the Soviet literary scene and the most dangerous, because of
his demonstrated ability to hide his ideas like a fox that erases his tracks with its tale. Lezhnev, for
his part, warned: Despite some moments that approached Marxism, Shklovsky basically remains
true to his old positions (quoted by Sheldon, 1975, p. 97).
11
Correspondence between the Formalists of this time shows this aspect clearly. In this way, we can
read in a letter to Shklovsky: We have started to move by inertia and we have to revise our
luggage (quoted by Depretto-Genty, 1992, p. 197). Or in jxenbaums diary (January 1925):
Vitia [Shklovsky] is right when he says we should write again incomprehensible books, as the fox
that turns abruptly to one side while the dog continues in his search going straight away. But not
books on the siuzhet, or on the composition but about something else (ibidem, p. 192).
67
(what was known then as factual literature) For this reason, and as a result of the
dilemma, which makes him hesitate between the fidelity towards contemporary
avant-garde art and to certain basic literary principles, Shklovsky takes to its limit
this stylistic feature that allows him to keep writing without having to fall in either
of those two extreme poles
12
.
In the second place, Shklovksys intentional contradictions are a means to pro-
mote in the sphere of literary criticism a very similar type of effect to those experi-
enced when we read a literary work. Let us see it briefly in a famous passage of
Tretja fabrika. Shklovsky refers to it to as the double alternative that exists in those
moments for the Russian writers: to retire, earn their living in a different way out-
side literature and to write just for themselves or to write about life, about the new
society and the correct point of view. Immediately, after a full stop, he adds: There
is no third alternative. Yet that is precisely the one that must be chosen. An artist
should avoid beaten paths (p. 51). We see, therefore, that the solution proposed
by Shklovsky to his fellow writers of his time -in fact the same he seems to have
adopted- was to apply his old concept of defamiliarization, as his contemporaries
were able to appreciate
13
. The explicit defence of the third way in this passage is
followed as well by an explicit defamiliarizing effect, as Shklovskys words are pro-
posing. Nevertheless this coincidence between what we could call the illocutionary
force and the performative force of Shklovskys statement, only emerges in a sec-
ond moment as a result of the previous contradiction between them.
The true sense of Shklovskys discourse is, consequently, not behind what his
words say but before what his words make. This indirect and allusive way of expres-
sion, if it is familiar in the arts, it is not quite so known in the realm of literary
theory
14
. Despite what some detractors of this critical style sustain about its lack of
12
Recently, V. Pozner (2005) has summarized this attitude in a very adequate formula: en phase
avec lpoque mais sans lemphase de lpoque.
13
For the more recalcitrant Marxist of the time, this statement proved that Shklovskys resistance to
abandon his Formalists views. For others, however, the new formulation of the concept was per-
fectly compatible with new times. That was, for instance, the opinion of Mayakovsky, who defend-
ed Shklovskys work in his intervention in the debate Lef ili blef? in the following terms: The
passage in which its is said that in literature there are two ways and not a third one, and that it is
precisely this third one the one which must be followed, is interpreted by Beskin as a rejection to
Marxism. But why should not we understand that this third way as the way of defamiliarization,
of the fight against the stereotypes? Why this stupid way of reading in the souls? Is that scientific
analysis (quoted by Waller, 1984, p. 375).
14
M. Asensi (2003) has proposed the formula theory in the literature, to refer to this type of critical
discourse which, unlike the theory of literature, decides to adopt the feature of his (artistic)
object as the most appropriate way to account for it.
Reading the Other
68
seriousness and scientific rigour, Shklovskys prose has much more of a firm bid
for the renewal of the essayistic genre than of any kind of nihilistic play or lack of
authentic compromise
15
. If the Russian critic rejects to formulate his thought in
a clear and univocal way it is because he knows the illuminating power of the
open question and because he tries to avoid closing what does not have a conclu-
sive character. I will end, now, with some conclusions, although I do not like it,
the one who must arrive to them is the reader (p.146), Shklovsky affirmed in his
first analysis of Don Quixote. And that is exactly the effect caused by his style:
Shklovsky suddenly interrupts his argumentation and introduces a passage that,
in principle, will seem out of place. That forces us to slow our reading and to pay
more attention to his words. Later we will discover the connection: the passage
expresses in another plane, in a metaphoric one, the problem which he was dis-
cussing a few lines above and which, apparently, had been left unfinished. The
problem keeps being unsolved in an explicit manner in the text, but not in the
reading reconstruction he has forced us to perform. We understand the problem
but through ways which are different from traditional argumentation.
Let us examine now, from this angle, the text of Pamjatnik naunoj oibke
(1930), with which the period of Russian Formalism ends. The title of the article
made reference to the plot of a film script written by Jules Romains titled Dono-
goo-Tonka, in which a geographer invents an imaginary city that in the end of the
film will become founded by some explorers which have followed the fictitious
description of the geographer. The habitants of Donogoo-Tonka, happy because
of the prosperity of the city erect a monument in recognition of the scientific
error that has made possible its foundation. Shklosvky placed the summary of
the plot before recognizing the errors of Formalism. Below, he explained the
evolution experimented by Opojaz towards close positions to a sociological ex-
planation of art and showed how the terminology invented by Formalism was
already a currency among Russian literary critics, including Marxist ones. Basing
his views on authorities such as Marx and Engels, Shklovksy even dared to justify
15
In this manner, in his memoirs ili byli (1966) Shklovsky recognized: [u]ndoubtedly, my though is
not very clear. But very clear thoughts are often common thoughts that are carried out, whereas
the process of thinking, as it is well known, happens uninterruptedly (p. 234). And in Xod konja
(1923), comparing his indirect style with the oblique movement of a horse on the chess board, he
affirmed: you should not think that the horse movement is the movement of the coward./ I am
not a coward./ Our decentred way is the way of the daring ones, but what can we do if we have two
eyes and we see better than the brave pawns and the kings of a creed imposed by the duties of their
position (p. 9).
69
the separation of the literary series from the rest of the series, as an initial work-
ing hypothesis.
The conclusion seems, therefore evident: Formalism must not be judged for
its initial errors but for its current achievements, despite or maybe thanks to
them. More than as the acceptance of the defeat, Monument to a scientific error
should be read as a desperate vindication to the right to commit errors as the only
way to innovate and progress not only in the arts
16
but also in literary theory. For
this reason, some critics considered insufficient his retraction and Shklovsky kept
being the target of strong criticism. Two weeks after, Mayakovskys suicide eclipsed
everything. Shklovsky survived for this time, but in the following years his prob-
lems with the regime were continuous and had to protect himself writing historical
and biographical works which did bit arouse suspicion
17
.
In the famous First Congress of Soviet Writers (1934), Shklovksy made self-
criticism again after having been accused of Formalism, but, with his peculiar Cer-
vantine method based on the juxtaposition of contradictions, when he took the
stand to pronounce his discourse, he raised his right arm and said Prou ne rubit (I
beg you not to cut [it]). These words were received with a tense silence because
most of the audience grasped the allusion to the well known episode of Zoo, evo-
cated by Shklovsky (cf. Nakov, 1985).
16
This idea appears over and over again in the years before Monument to a scientific error and in
the forthcoming. In Materjal i stil v romane Lva Tolstogo Vojna i mir (1928), for example, Shk-
lovsky holds that the original purpose of War and Peace was to glorify the nobility to compensate
Crimeas defeat. However, this first intention escapes Tolstoy and the work is understood by his
contemporaries as a criticism of that society. In one of the essays that of Gamburgskij set (1928),
titled significantly Oibki i izobretenia, we can read: But often the art advances thanks to the
questioning of unsolvable problems and errors. An error, taken to its extreme consequences, can
become and invention (p. 128). After 1930, the idea appears obsessively in almost every works of
the Russian critic. Still the penultimate of his works had by the title nergija oibki, The Energy of
Error (1981).
17
Despite of this, a rejection to his characteristic critical ambiguity will never take place. Thus in
1931, for instance, Shklovsky published itie arxierejskogo slui, a pseudo-hagiography in which,
behind the condemnation of the venality of the Orthodox Church, there was a hidden parody of
the corruption of the Party (cf. Conio, 1988).
Reading the Other
70
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20. Errores e invenciones. In Cine y lenguaje. Barcelona: Anagrama, 1971.
21. Il tait une fois. M. Zonina and J. Ch. Bailly, trans. Paris: Christian Bourgois diteur, 2005.
22. Sobre la prosa literaria. Barcelona: Planeta, 1971.
23. Steiner, Peter. The Praxis of Irony: Viktor Shklovskys Zoo. In Russian Formalism: A Retro-
spective Glance. A Festschrift in Honor of Victor Erlich. Edited by R. L. Jackson and S. Rudy. New
Haven: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, 1985.
24. Waller, M. Les romans de Viktor klovskij: tapes dune evolution (1914-1930), Ph.D. diss.,
Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) University, 1984.
(Translation into English
by Carlos Fernndez Lpez)
71
III. TRAVEL
AND
ITS
FRUITS
73
Eva-Maria von Kemnitz
(Catholic University, Lisbon, Portugal)
A vision from the other bank.
Maria Danielewicz Zielinskas contribution to the
history of the Polish-Portuguese cultural relations
For most people familiar with Polish culture the name of Maria Danielewicz
Zielinska (1907-2003)
1
is immediately associated with Polish literature. In fact Maria
Danielewicz Zielinska was a renowned literary critic, expert and historian of Polish
literature written in the exile, a librarian and a bibliophile. She initiated her career
as a librarian in the National Library in Warsaw, activity interrupted by the war of
1939 that forced her to leave the country that she was never to see again. Later in
London, she organized the Polish library and worked as librarian in the Polish
Cultural Centre during 1943-1973 where her memory is cherished. She contribut-
ed to the promotion of young literary talents and gathered a significant collection
of books. Relatively few people however are aware that Maria Danielewicz Zielin-
ska spent the last 30 years of her long and laborious life in Portugal, where she
found favourable conditions to develop her work on a permanent basis without any
constraints. It was in Portugal that she put her principal works into definitive form.
Naturally, it all applied to writing in Polish and mainly on Polish themes. During
that period Maria Danielewicz Zielinska also had a chance to resume her writing
as author of essays and short stories.
Her latest book Polonica portugalskie (2005), published posthumously, reveals
another facet of her interests that she regarded as a mere hobby and it justifies our
evocation of her in the context of Slavonic-Iberian Cultures.
Her Portuguese home was located at the Quinta das Romzeiras, near Feij,
on the other bank of the Tagus river, opposite Lisbon. Seen from the outside it was
1
For a complete biographical information consult: Lewandowski, W. (2000); Kemnitz, E-M.von
(2004); Nosowski, W. (2005) and Kadziela, P. (2005).
74
a typical Portuguese house built in raulinostyle, but once the visitor passed the
threshold the interior was Polish, like the language spoken by its inhabitants, Mar-
ia Danielewicz Zielinska and her second husband, Adam Zielinski, a former cul-
tural attach of the Polish embassy before 1939. To a certain extent, the location of
the house bore some parallel to Maria Danielewicz Zielinskas attitude to her rela-
tionship to Portugal and the Portuguese culture. She was more of an observer than
a participant. She learned Portuguese, but it was a language of everyday use rather
than of intellectual concern. However, she was not indifferent to it. On account of
her interests in comparative literary topics, she discovered certain affinities be-
tween Portuguese and Polish historical and literary traditions that she came to
research. She used to spend her Thursdays at the National Library in Lisbon, an
expedition always awaited with pleasure and expectation and one that usually pro-
duced rewarding results that she liked to discuss when she returned home.
These findings, as well as her husbands interest in Portuguese-Polish relations
and his possible influence on her as a collector of the Polish memorabilia abroad
allowed her to prepare a series of radio broadcasts dealing with historical and cul-
tural relations between Poland and Portugal. These were presented for the Polish
speaking audience of the Free Voice of Europe in the 70s and in the early 80s.
This unique contribution to the enhancement of the knowledge of the contacts
between the two countries has been ephemeral, lasting no longer than the sound of
voice of the broadcasts, having therefore remained almost in oblivion. Maria Dan-
ielewicz Zielinska did not attach much importance to this work although it helped
her to be better acquainted with Portuguese history and culture.
In the meantime, Europe, shattered by World War II and the Cold War changed.
It gained anew its former political unity and its spiritual and cultural dimension
was restored. Suddenly, Europeans were eager to discover more about their rela-
tionships in the past and in a more recent history.
It is to regret that these significant changes did not influence her life. Although
no longer restrained from visiting her homeland, Maria Danielewicz Zielinska never
did again return to Poland, be it for a brief visit only. She used to say that her
fatherland was the Polish language, just within the reach of her hand. It is striking
how much this attitude resembles that of Fernando Pessoa, one of the greatest
poets of Portugal.
Maria Danielewicz Zielinska was incited by some of her friends to give a new
format to her broadcasts and make them known to a wider public. Despite her age,
she set to work with enthusiasm. The feuilletons were rewritten, results of continu-
75
Travel and its fruits
ous research in the field of literature were added and in the end a quite impressive
volume was put together in 2001. Since then the author was awaiting their publica-
tion, always asking whether the postman had any correspondence from the pub-
lisher. Unfortunately she did not live to see this work published. She passed away
in May 2003, several months before the book was finally printed.
Its title Polonika Portugalskie may be rendered something like Polish Memora-
bilia in Portugal. It comprises 35 essays and an introduction by Pawel Kadziela.
Written essentially from a Polish perspective on Portuguese history and culture, it
may also give the Portuguese an insight into Poland and Poles. Portuguese and the
Poles alike keen on knowing more about how mutual relations were shaped and
what were their highlights, will find in this book a valuable source of information
and a path for further research on a topic that has not have been so far fully ex-
plored. Naturally for this to happen we are hoping a Portuguese translation will be
made.
The main purpose of the volume is to disseminate information and provide a
point of reflection on the universal values and strivings of the two nations. The
topics dealt with can be grouped into about six main themes: diplomatic contacts,
reception of Portuguese literary works and themes in Poland and relations among
the Polish and Portuguese literati in the second half of the 19
th
century, the Polish
question and the Portuguese attitudes to it, Polish military and travellers in Portu-
gal, besides some other essays that do not fit entirely into the aforementioned frame-
work.
The volume opens with an essay on Damio de Gis (pp. 13-17), a relevant
figure of the Portuguese Renaissance period and also a political agent of the Portu-
guese court sent on two missions to Poland, the first one taking place in 1529.
These contacts were the result of the beginning of globalization. Gis considered
the spread of Protestantism and the Ottoman expansion as the principal dangers
threatening Catholic Europe. He advocated an alliance between the two powers
situated on the extreme edges of the continent. Another matter Gis was charged
with was a matrimonial alliance between the two royal houses, one that did not
materialize. The geopolitical perspective of the menace posed by Islam maintained
its validity also in the next century. The second siege of Vienna in 1683 was re-
pelled, to a great extent due to the intervention of the Polish army led by Jan III
Sobieski. The court of Portugal despatched a special mission to congratulate the
King of Poland on this victory, headed by Father Pereira da Silva. It will be interest-
ing to recall that a concept of Poland as a antemurale christianitatis, current among
76
Polish historians in the 19
th
century was already used two centuries earlier by the
Portuguese Jesuit, Father Antnio Vieira, in his sermons that can be read in the
chapter dealing with the echoes of the Vienna battle (pp. 18-20).
It is perfectly natural that Maria Danielewicz Zielinska, as a literary critic,
focused much attention on the reception of Portuguese themes in Poland. One of
them is a moralistic novel by Father Teodoro de Almeida O Feliz Independente
based on an episode from Polish medieval history, printed in several editions in
different countries, a true bestseller of the time (pp.26-30). The fate of the Polish
king, Wladyslaw, was used in it as a metaphor to dissertate on human destiny. The
work of Teodoro de Almeida aroused the interest of two Polish men of letters,
Jozef Zaluski and Ignacy Domeyko.
Another historical event influencing both Polish and Iberian literature was the
capture of the Portuguese Infant D. Fernando during the siege of Tangier in 1437,
his captivity and tragic death inspiring Calderon de la Barca to write his El Princi-
pe Constante. The theme that was taken in turn by a Polish Romantic playwright
Juliusz Slowacki who, paraphrasing the drama, portrayed the hero as The Un-
tamed Prince and presented his suffering as a means to appease the Almighty in a
perspective closer to the grief felt by Poles after the loss of their independence than
the historical prototype of D. Fernando (pp. 76-80 and 81-85). Furthermore, Ju-
liusz Slowacki was under the spell of the Lusiads and especially under that of the
giant Adamastor that gained an honorific place in one of his poems
2
(Reading
Cames, pp. 71-75).
In another set of essays, the close relations among the Polish and Portuguese
literates of the second half of the 19
th
century were portrayed. These concerned
Ea de Queiroz, and his interest in Polish affairs and his contacts with Poles, and
Ramalho Ortigo and his deep appreciation of Wladyslaw Mickiewicz (pp. 106-
110; 117-121). The Polish question, that is the loss of Polands sovereignty, moti-
vated some Portuguese intellectuals like Antero de Quental and Oliveira Martins
to speak about the matter (pp. 96-100).
The loss of Polands independence in 1795 meant for many generations of
Poles a bitter experience of exile. In the case of Maria Danielewicz Zielinska, this
personal experience possibly also motivated her choice of several presentations in
which principal characters were the Polish exils, officers who fought in the Portu-
2
Podroz z Ziemi Swietej do Neapolu [A Travel from the Holy Land to Naples]. Let us remind that the
first Polish translation of the Lusiads by Jacek Przybylski (1790) was widely read.
77
guese Civil War (1828-1834) alongside the Liberals. Amongst them were Jos Car-
los de Chelmicki, Alosio Rola Dzierzawski and Marceli Rudzki, who attained top
ranks in the Portuguese military hierarchy. Their fortunes and their contributions
are told in three essays (pp. 41-45; 46-50 and 86-90). In this specific context, the
author also paid homage to one of the first Portuguese researchers of the history of
Polish-Portuguese political and military relations, Colonel Ferreira Lima, a Po-
land enthusiast (pp. 160-165). Another historian of Polish links to Portuguese
history, Professor Lus Ferrand Almeida, is also referred to (pp. 122-126).
A due reference is made to a few Polish travellers to Portugal like Adolf Pawinski
(pp. 111-116). One should also mention a diplomat and art amateur, the count
Anasthasius Raczynski
3
, posted to Lisbon at the service of Prussia. He produced
pioneer studies devoted to the history of art in Portugal that are still today an
important reference.
Maria Danielewicz Zielinska conveyed some personal reflections on Portugal
in three essays related to the election of the Polish Pope and his state visit to Portu-
gal (pp. 142-146; 155-159 and 170-174).
Beyond being an easy and enjoyable text to read, the essays are strongly ground-
ed in Maria Danielewicz Zielinskas research and her vast and solid cultural back-
ground. This collection of essays, though not intended to be of an academic nature
and having no such pretence, are nonetheless a rich and a valuable point of depar-
ture for research and reflection on the matter of Polish-Portuguese relations. If any-
thing, they constitute a first firm step into otherwise unexplored territory. They cover
a multiplicity of fields of interest that make it a valuable contribution to cross-cultur-
al studies and ascribe to Maria Danielewicz Zielinska yet another role, that of pio-
neer in the promotion of the knowledge of Polish-Portuguese cultural relations, cov-
ering the period from the Discoveries up to the second half of the 20
th
Century.
The vision offered by Maria Danielewicz Zielinska, encompassing such a wide
range of topics related to different fields, demonstrates that within the framework
of European culture, people shared common values, tastes and concerns despite
the geographic distance and other differential factors.
3
She devoted him a study using unpublished archival documents: Danielewicz Zielinska, Maria,
Anastacius Raczynski (1788-1874): um historiador de arte portuguesa, Belas Artes, n 3, 3
srie, 1981, pp. 51-70.
78
Selected bibliography:
1. Danielewicz Zielinska, Maria, Fado o moim zyciu (The fado about my life), Torun, 2000.
2. Danielewicz Zielinska, Maria, Anastacius Raczynski (1788-1874): um historiador de arte por-
tuguesa, in Belas-Artes, n3, 3 srie, 1981, pp. 51-70; the only publication of the author in
Portugal.
3. Danielewicz Zielinska, Maria, Polonica portugalskie, Warszawa, Biblioteka Wiezi, 2005.
4. Kadziela, Pawel, Przedmowa in Danielewicz Zielinska, Maria, Polonica portugalskie, Warszawa,
Biblioteka Wiezi, 2005, pp. 5-12.
5. Kemnitz, Eva-Maria von, O fado da minha vida Maria Danielewicz Zielinska (1907-2003) in
Faces de Eva, Estudos sobre a Mulher, N
o
12, 2004.
6. Lewandowski, Waclaw, Wstep in Danielewicz Zielinska, Maria, Biurko Konopnickiej, Warszawa,
Open, 2000, pp. 5-27.
7. Nosowski, Wieslaw, Maria Danielewicz Zielinska Fakty Biograficzne in Rocznik Towarzyst-
wa Literackiego im. A. Mickiewicza, Rok XXXIX (2004), Warszawa, 2005, pp. 93-108.
79
Gerhard Seibert
(Institute of Tropical Research, Lisbon, Portugal)
500 years of the manuscript
of Valentim Fernandes,
a Moravian book printer in Lisbon*
Introduction
The Moravian book printer Valentim Fernandes (? 1519?), who, attracted by
the news regarding the Portuguese Discoveries and new trade opportunities, ar-
rived in Lisbon at the end of the 15th century, is an example of an early contact
between the present-day Czech Republic and Portugal. Fernandes name is closely
associated with the history of book printing in Portugal, since he was the most
important Portuguese book printer of his time. Besides book printer, he was also a
translator, author, and commercial agent in Lisbon. He is author of a manuscript
compiled 500 years ago, in the period of 1506-1510, that has been considered one
of the most important documents of Portuguese travel literature in the age of dis-
coveries. The manuscript is one of the very few contemporary sources on the early
history of the island of So Tom in the Gulf of Guinea.
A Moravian book printer in Lisbon
While it is not known when Valentim Fernandes was born in Moravia, it is
believed that he arrived in Lisbon around 1493. Here he became known as Valen-
tim Fernandes Alemo, as his mother tongue was German, and as Valentim of
Moravia. He signed his books and letters with these names. He came to Lisbon
attracted by activities related to the maritime expansion and expectations of trade
* I wish to thank Jessica Schafer at the University of Ottawa for having corrected my English text.
80
opportunities with the newly discovered territories. In 1494 he accompanied the
German doctor Jeronimus Mnzer as guide and interpreter during his visit to Por-
tugal.
1
He adapted so well to local life in Lisbon that he wrote his texts in Portu-
guese. He worked as a notary, book printer, editor, translator, and author. At the
proposal of the representative of the Augsburg-based merchant house Welser in
Lisbon, in 1503 King D. Manuel I (1495-1521) appointed Fernandes as local com-
mercial agent for the spice trade with Germany.
2
In addition, Fernandes was nota-
ry for the German traders in the Portuguese capital. In 1515 Fernandes sent a
friend in Nuremberg the description and drawing of a rhinoceros that the king of
Cambaia had given to Afonso de Albuquerque (c 1462 1515), the vice-king of
India (1509 1515), who then sent the animal to king D. Manuel I in Lisbon. It was
the first rhinoceros that came to Europe. In Nuremberg, the description and draw-
ing of the animal got into the hands of Albrecht Drer (1471 1528), who used this
information to create his famous woodcut of the rhinoceros, without ever having
seen the animal himself.
3
Fernandes remained in Lisbon until his death, some
time before 4 May 1519.
As mentioned, Valentim Fernandes became known predominantly as a book
printer, at the time a new profession in Portugal. Johannes Gutenberg (1397?
1468) in Mainz (Germany) had invented printing with moveable types in the early
1450s. Gutenbergs famous Latin Bible was completed in 1456. The first book printed
in Portugal was the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses that constitute the Torah,
printed in 1487 by Don Samuel Porteiro, a Jew in Faro.
4
Two years later Eliezer
Toledano printed the first book in Lisbon: the Commentary on the Pentateuch by
Moses ben Nahman (Nachmanides) (1194-1270). Fernandes produced his first book
in Lisbon in 1495. Between that date and 1518 he printed a total of 24 books.
Frequently he printed the books in co-operation with other book printers, includ-
ing Nicolau of Saxony, Joo Pedro of Cremona, Hermo de Campos (or Herman
de Kempos) or Nicolau Gazini of Piemonte. His importance as a book printer is
evidenced by the fact that he printed eight out of a total of 28 books (14 of which
were printed in Hebrew) produced in Portugal up to 1500 and nine of the 17 books
published between 1501 and 1510. In 1495, at the request of Queen D. Leonor
(1481-1495), he printed together with Nicolau of Saxony, De Vita Christi by the
1
Leo 1985: 85.
2
Ehrhardt 1996: 28.
3
Ibidem.
4
Marques 2002: 83.
81
monk Ludolf of Saxony (c. 1300 1377), in Portuguese, translated from Latin by
Frei Bernardo de Alcobaa and Nicolau Vieira. It was the first book by a German
writer to be translated into Portuguese.
5
Dom Afonso I, the second Christian king
of the Congo used this book to learn Portuguese.
6
His other books include Episto-
lae et Orationes in Latin (1500), Proverbios de D. Iigo Lopes de Mendoza in Spanish
(1501), Marco Polo: o Livro de Nicolao Veneto (1502), Os Autos dos Apsteles (1505),
O Primeiro Livro das Ordenaes (1512), O Segundo Livro das Ordenaes (1513),
and O Compromisso da Confraria da Misericrdia (1518). Among his translations
are Preportrio dos Tempos, from Castilian to Portuguese, and the report of Marco
Polos (1254-1324) voyage, from Latin to Portuguese. Marco Polos accounts on
the Orient had gained new importance in Europe after Vasco da Gamas successful
sea voyage to India in 1498. After Fernandes death, his printing equipment was
sold to the French printer Germain Gaillard, who established a printing office in
Lisbon in 1519.
The Manuscript
Fernandes was the author of the printed texts Prohemio of the book De Vita
Christi, the introduction to the Livro de Nicolao Veneto (included in the book of
Marco Polo), and a few chapters of Reportrio dos Tempos (1518). His introduction
to Marco Polos book, one of the first European editions, reveals his enthusiasm
for the Portuguese discoveries of unknown lands.
7
He imagined Lisbon as a future
international commercial centre for the trade of spices, gold, diamonds, and other
goods from the East.
8
Fernandes handwritten texts are included in his famous
manuscript, the original of which is kept with the designation Codex monacensis
hispanicus 27, at the Bavarian State Library in Munich. The manuscript is a compi-
lation of various texts and map drawings, which Fernandes compiled from 1506-
1510 and subsequently sent to his friend Konrad Peutinger (1465-1547) in Augs-
burg, with whom he maintained a frequent correspondence. Peutinger was a fa-
mous Renaissance man and humanist, who was married to Margareta Welser, a
member of one of the wealthiest merchant families of Germany. Peutinger was
5
Ehrhardt 1996: 27.
6
Ibid. 28.
7
Lopes 2000: 234.
8
Lopes 1996: 14.
82
town clerk in Augsburg (appointed in 1497), advisor to the Austrian emperor Max-
imilian I (1459-1519), and had earned degrees in Classics and Law at the universi-
ties of Bologna and Padua. In addition, Peutinger was a diplomat, an archaeolo-
gist, a collector of coins, ancient manuscripts, and old books, owned the largest
private library north of the Alps (10,000 titles in 2,200 volumes), published the first
printed collection of Roman inscriptions, and exchanged letters with the greatest
scholar of his time, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.
The humanist Peutinger was seriously interested in the Portuguese discoveries
and recognized their scientific importance. Many books and documents in his large
library dealt with this subject, including texts concerning Vasco da Gamas (1469
1524) first voyage (1498) and second voyage (1502), the expedition of Pedro l-
vares Cabral (c1467 c1526) to Brazil and India (1500 1501), the voyage of Amer-
igo Vespucci (1454 1512) to Brazil (1501), and the armada of D. Francisco de
Almeida (c 1450 1510), explorer and first Viceroy of India (1505 1509). Peutinger
translated the account of Vasco da Gamas second voyage into German and re-
ferred to the Portuguese discoveries in his book Sermones convivales de finibus
Germaniae contra Gallos (1506). Besides, Peutinger wanted to encourage German
traders to participate in the Portuguese maritime and commercial activities.
9
Pos-
sibly it was Peutinger who put together the different texts of the manuscript that
Fernandes consecutively had sent to Augsburg. Peutinger called the manuscript De
Insulis et peregrinationem Lusitanorum, which elucidates its contents.
10
After
Peutingers death his two youngest sons inherited his library and in 1715 the last
Peutinger donated it to the Jesuit monastery in Augsburg. Following the dissolu-
tion of the Jesuit monastery in 1776, the portion of the library that contained the
Fernandes manuscript was transferred to the Royal Library in Munich. In 1845 the
Fernandes manuscript was discovered by Johann Andreas Schmeller (1785-1852),
a librarian at the Royal Library, currently the Bavarian State Library. In 1930 the
Portuguese historian Joaquim Barradas de Carvalho (1920-1980) donated a copy
of the manuscript to the University of Coimbra. It took another ten years before
the Portuguese Academy of History (APH) published the first edition of the man-
uscript (1940). In 1997 the APH published the second edition of the manuscript,
titled Cdice Valentim Fernandes, in commemoration of the fifth centenary of Vasco
da Gamas first sea voyage to India in 1498.
9
Ibid. 236.
10
Guerreiro 2001: 32.
83
The Fernandes manuscript contains the following texts (in the order set out in
the 1997 APH edition):
A descrio de Cepta por sua costa de Mauretania e Ethiopia pellos nomes
modernos (1507);
Das ilhas do mar oceano (1507?);
Crnica da Guin (1508);
Da Prima Inuenttione Guine;
Este livro he de Rotear;
O livro das Rotas do Castelo de So Jorge:
A viagem de Dom Francisco de Almeida;
ndia.
Fernandes Crnica da Guin is an edited abridged version of the Crnica dos
Feitos da Guin, by Gomes Eanes de Zurara (1410-1474), the chronicler of King D.
Afonso V the African (1432-1481). By removing original passages and adding in-
formation to others, Fernandes demonstrated the mentality of another era, differ-
ent from that of Zuraras time. Fernandes removed the chapters on the glorifica-
tion of Prince Henry the Navigator (1394 1460), the speeches of the captains of
the Armada, the texts with moralizing intentions, the erudite quotations, and the
references to Jewish astrology. At the same time, in his version, the quantity of
Arab numbers is superior to that of Roman numbers and he pays more attention to
the precision of distances indicated. Moreover, he gave more emphasis to geo-
graphic, economic and ethnographic descriptions.
11
The manuscript also includes
39 drawings of maps that are copied from Portuguese prototypes. Although his
drawings are different from the real contours, they are closer to the accurate geo-
graphic dimensions and abandon the schematic sketches of the Middle Ages. Fern-
andes never himself visited the territories described. The only journey he made
outside Europe took him to the city of Asilah (Morocco), at the time a Portuguese
possession.
12
His accounts are based on previous descriptions by other chroniclers
and reports of seamen and traders with whom he stayed in touch in Lisbon. Apart
from Zurara, the sources for Fernandes descriptions include the account Inventione
Guinee of Diogo Gomes (1440-1482), recorded by the German Martin Behaim (1459-
11
Carvalho 1953.
12
Lopes 1996: 20.
84
1507), who had come to Lisbon around 1484, texts of Lus de Cadamosto (1432-
1477) of Venice, and the account of Hans Mayr regarding the Orient, who was one of
three Germans to travel in the armada of D. Francisco de Almeida.
13
The Atlantic islands
Valentim Fernandes was the first author to exclusively describe and draw the
Atlantic islands, in the section As Ilhas do Mar Oceano. His manuscript is one of at
least twenty known isolarios or island books, collections of map drawings with
descriptive texts. The isolario originated from the Mediterranean and the majority
of the works came from Italy. The first island book was Liber insularum Archipela-
gi, a travellers manual of 79 islands in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean
Sea, written in Latin by the clergyman Christoforo Buondelmonti of Florence (c
1420).
14
In Fernandess time, the Atlantic islands were largely unknown in Europe.
In the chapter As Ilhas do Mar Oceano, composed of two sections, the islands ap-
pear in north-south direction starting with the Azores and Madeira, followed by
the Canaries, Cape Verde, the Gulf of Guinea islands, namely Fernando P, So
Tom, Prncipe, and Annobon, as well as Ascencion and St. Helena. Each island is
described in some detail, which Fernandes considered most important. The chap-
ter includes 27 maps and 5 simple sketches of the various islands.
Fernandes paid particular attention to the island of So Tom in the Gulf of
Guinea, which is represented by five maps, of which four are sketches. They are
amongst the earliest maps of the island; the Atlantic chart by Pedro Reinel (c. 1462
-?), the oldest map signed by a Portuguese cartographer (c. 1485), is the first map
showing So Tom. Discovered around 1471 by the Portuguese navigators Joo de
Santarm and Pedro Escobar, the uninhabited island was successfully settled and
colonized by the third donatrio (feudal lord), lvaro de Caminha, in 1493. The
colonists established sugar-cane plantations, using slaves from the nearby conti-
nent as a workforce and engaging in the slave trade. After Santiago (Cape Verde),
the island of So Tom became the second European colony in the tropics. Togeth-
er with Caminhas testament (1499),
15
and an account by an anonymous Portu-
13
Ibid. 21.
14
Guerreiro 2001: 31.
15
See in Albuquerque 1989, pp. 66-96.
85
guese captain of the 16
th
Century (1550),
16
Fernandes description is one of the
three existing documents on the islands early history. The report on So Tom is
composed of two parts, dated 1506 and 1510 respectively.
17
The information dated
1506 stems from one Gonalo Pires, a seaman, who had been to this and other
islands many times. The two parts differ in some aspects, particularly with regard
to geographic information. The text describes the colonisation by lvaro de Cami-
nha, including the construction of two churches. Fernandes reports that 1,000 set-
tlers, most of them deported convicts, and 2,000 slaves lived on the island. Another
5,000-6,000 slaves for re-export were temporarily on the island. He also provides
information on the islands geography, flora, food crops, fauna, and domestic ani-
mals in the early 16
th
Century.
The deportation of Jewish children
Fernandess information about the 2,000 Jewish children, aged eight and young-
er, who in 1493 were separated forcibly from their parents and taken by Caminha
to So Tom and of whom in 1506 only 600 were still alive, has become the best
known detail of the manuscript.
18
The children and their parents had arrived in
Portugal from Spain, from whence the Catholic Kings had expelled the Jews in
1492. Upon arrival in Portugal they had to pay a poll tax of eight cruzados allowing
them to remain eight months in Portugal. All those who did not succeed in leaving
Portugal within this period were declared slaves and many children were torn from
their parents and sent with Caminha. By including Fernandess figure of the Jewish
children in his monograph A Ilha de So Tom (1961) the Luso-Santomean poet
and geographer Francisco Tenreiro (1921-1963) contributed considerably to the
dissemination of this tragic aspect of the colonisation of So Tom.
19
Tenreiro
took Fernandess numbers for granted, and subsequently many Portuguese-speak-
ing and foreign authors have made use of these numbers. Probably Tenreiros book
is the most important secondary source on the deported Jewish children. However,
a closer look at other contemporary sources on the deportation of the Jewish chil-
dren to So Tom reveals that the number of 2,000 is rather improbable. In his
16
Caldeira 2000.
17
Leo 1985: 86.
18
APH 1940: 122; Brsio 1954:33.
19
Tenreiro 1961: 64, 262.
86
Crnica de Dom Joo II, the Portuguese chronicler Garcia de Resende (1470
1536) describes the baptism by force and the deportation of the Jewish children,
however he indicates neither their number nor their ages.
20
A contemporaneous
chronicler, Rui de Pina (1440 1522), does not give their number either.
21
An
anonymous manuscript of 1624, dedicated to Pope Urban VIII ((1623-1644) re-
ports 900 deported Jewish children, of whom more than two-thirds had died.
22
Contemporaneous Hebrew sources also give varying figures of the deported
Jewish children. The Jewish financier and philosopher Isaac Abranavel (1437-1508)
wrote in 1507 in Venice that the Portuguese king sent more than 2,000 souls to
So Tom.
23
In 1510 the Jewish chronicler Abraham of Torrutiel (1482 -?), who
had fled from Spain to Fez (Morocco), wrote that approximately 800 boys and girls
were sent to the island.
24
The Cretan Rabbi Elijah Capsali (c. 1483 1555) af-
firmed in his book The Minor Order of Elia (1523) that deals with the history of the
Ottoman Empire, focusing on the persecutions and expulsions from Spain and
Portugal, that as many as 5,000 children aged 10 15 years were deported to So
Tom.
25
In his book Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel, published in Ferrara
(Italy) in 1553, the Lisbon-born Jewish writer Samuel Usque (1492 -?) describes
the violent separation from the parents and the deportation in some detail, without
referring to any numbers.
26
Interestingly, the above mentioned anonymous cap-
tain, who visited So Tom five times from 1520, does not refer to the Jewish chil-
dren in his account of the island.
27
Finally, in his testament of 1499, lvaro de
Caminha writes that when I departed from Portugal king Dom Joo II ordered to
give me provisions, I do not know if for two years or for three, for 1,000 people.
28
In sum, the various sources differ considerably with regard to the number of Jewish
children. Therefore, Fernandess figure should not be taken for granted.
20
Resende 1973: 253-254.
21
Pina 1950: 187-188.
22
Lipiner 1998: 26.
23
Ibid. 24.
24
Ibid 29.
25
Ibidem.
26
Usque 1965: 201-202
27
Caldeira 2000: 101-121.
28
Albuquerque 1989: 81.
87
Conclusion
The Moravian book printer Valentim Fernandes, who, attracted by the news
about the Portuguese discoveries, arrived in Lisbon around 1493, became the most
important Portuguese book printer of his time. As well as book printer, Fernandes
was also a commercial agent, translator, and writer. He was one of the best-in-
formed people on Portuguese maritime and commercial activities of the time. Be-
tween 1506 and 1510 he collected information on the Portuguese discoveries and
regularly sent his handwritten Portuguese-language reports to his friend Konrad
Peutinger, a Renaissance man and town clerk in Augsburg, who had both a scien-
tific and commercial interest in the accounts. Fernandess manuscript was only
rediscovered in 1845 in Munich and it took almost another hundred years before it
was published in Portugal. Today the Fernandes manuscript is considered one of
the most important documents of Portuguese travel literature in the age of discove-
ries. The realistic form with which Fernandes described the geographic and ethno-
graphic realties of the newly discovered territories is unique. Fernandes was the
first writer to describe exclusively the Atlantic islands. In his account he paid spe-
cial attention to the island of So Tom. His information on 2,000 young Jewish
children, who were torn from their parents and deported to So Tom in 1493 to
help to colonize this tropical and disease-infested island, has been quoted by many
authors. However, while there is no doubt that this tragedy occurred, this figure
cannot be taken for granted, since other Portuguese and Hebrew contemporane-
ous sources indicate contradictory numbers of deported Jewish children.
Bibliography:
1. Academia Portuguesa da Histria. O Manuscrito de Valentim Fernandes, Lisbon 1940
2. Academia Portuguesa da Histria. Cdice Valentim Fernandes, Lisbon 1997
3. Albuquerque, Lus de (ed.). A Ilha de So Tom nos Sculos XV e XVI. Lisbon: Publicaes Alfa
1989.
4. Albuquerque, Luis de (ed.). Dicionrio de Histria dos Descobrimentos. Vol. I, Lisbon: Crculo
de Leitores 1994.
5. Brsio, Antnio. Monumenta Missionria Africana. Africa Ocidental (1469-1599). Vol. IV. Lis-
bon: Agncia Geral do Ultramar 1954.
6. Caldeira, Arlindo Manuel. Viagens de um piloto portugus do sculo XVI costa de frica e a So
Tom. Lisbon: Comisso Nacional para as Comemoraes dos Descobrimentos Portugueses
2000.
7. Carvalho, Joaquim Barradas de. A Mentalidade, o tempo e os grupos sociais (um exemplo
88
portugus da poca dos Descobrimentos: Gomes Eanes de Zurara e Valentim Fernandes), Re-
vista de Histria (So Paulo), 15 (1953): 37-68.
8. Ehrhardt, Marion. Frhe Deutsche Drucker in Portugal. In: A H. de Oliveira, Alfred Opitz &
Fernando Clara (eds.), Portugal Alemanha frica. Do Imperialismo Colonial ao Imperialismo
Poltico. Actas do IV Encontro Luso-Alemo, pp. 25-30, Lisbon: Colibri 1996.
9. Grnberg-Drge, Monika. Konrad Peutinger. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon.
Band VII, pp. 392-397, Nordhausen: Verlag Traugott Bautz 1994. http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/p/
peuntinger_k.shtml
10. Guerreiro, Incio. Tradio e Modernidade nos Isolarios ou Livros de Ilhas dos sculos XV e
XVI, Oceanos 46 (2001): 28-43.
11. Leo, Francisco G. Cunha. Cartografia e povoamento da Ilha de So Tom (1483-1510), Revista
do Instituto Geogrfico e Cadastral, 5 (1985): 79-91
12. Lipiner, Elias. Os Baptizados em P. Lisbon: Vega 1998.
13. Lopes, Marlia dos Santos, Vimos Oje Cousas Marauilhosas, Valentim Fernandes e os Desco-
brimentos Portugueses. In: A H. de Oliveira, Alfred Opitz & Fernando Clara (eds.), Portugal
Alemanha frica. Do Imperialismo Colonial ao Imperialismo Poltico. Actas do IV Encontro
Luso-Alemo, pp. 13-23, Lisbon: Colibri 1996.
14. Lopes, Marlia dos Santos. Os Descobrimentos Portugueses e a Europa. Mthesis 9 (2000): 233-
241.
15. Marques, Jos. Notas sobre a introduo da Tipografia em Portugal, Cincias e Tcnicas do
Patrimnio. Revista da Faculdade de Letras (Porto). I1 (2002): 73-96.
16. Marinho, Tiago Rebelo. Valentim Fernandes O Autor. http://www2.crb.ucp.pt/Historia/
abced%C3%A1rio/valentimfern/A%20Obra.htm
17. Monod Th., Teixeira de Mota, A. & Mauny, R. Descriptions de la Cte Occidentale dAfrique
(Sngal au Cap de Monte, Archipels), Bissau: Centro de Estudos da Guin Portuguesa 1953.
18. Pina, Rui de. Crnica de El-Rei D. Joao II. Coimbra: Atlntida 1950.
19. Resende, Garcia de. Crnica de Dom Joo II e miscelnea. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional 1973.
20. Serro, Joel, Dicionrio de Histria de Portugal. Vol. II, Lisbon: Iniciativas Editoriais 1961-1971
21. Tenreiro, Francisco. A Ilha de So Tom. Lisbon: Junta de Investigaes do Ultramar 1961.
22. Usque, Samuel. Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication
Society of America 1965.
89
Adam Kucharski
(Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toru, Poland)
The Image of Portugal and its Inhabitants
in Old Polish travel accounts and reports
of diplomatic missions (16-18
th
century)
It the modern epoch chronologically embracing the XVI-XVIII centuries, Polish
travels across Europe were initiated. Firstly, in the Sixteenth Century peregrina-
tiones academicae (academic peregrinations) came into fashion, almost exclusively
serving educational achievement at European universities. After Renaissance times,
when one glorified knowledge, over the two successive centuries the journeys gained
popularity, already having become almost purely tourist in character. They were
known as the Grand Tours. Also the medieval tradition of pilgrimage to holy plac-
es, which even the Reformation could not impede, still existed. Unfortunately Por-
tugal occupied a distant position in the ranking of places where Poles went the
most often, because this country did not have great and known schools or sanctuar-
ies and the Polish thirst for exotic locations could be satisfied in closer Italy and
even in the lands of Turkey, adjacent with the Noble Republic.
The contacts between Poland and Portugal began in the late Middle Ages.
1
In
this period there were mainly voyages of a mercantile nature from Gdansk, which
was a member of the Hanseatic League. Merchants from this city sailed to Lisbon
and Porto. They received many privileges from Portuguese kings, who in this way
wanted to stimulate them towards the intensification of commerce.
2
Moreover
there were the first diplomatic missions to kings of Portugal. Portugal, being small
and very distant from Poland, was not an attractive destination for voyages in those
centuries. Perhaps Polish knights took part in the Portuguese conquest against Is-
1 See Stefania Ciesielska-Borkowska, Les voyages de Pologne en Espagne et en Portugal aux XV-
e et XVI-e siecles, Archivum Neophilologicum 1 (1934), no. 2: 296-322.
2 Gdask, Archiwum Pastwowe, MS 300, D/ 17 C.3- 17 C. 4.
90
lamic reigns. The first Pole, known by name, who came to Portugal was Sotan
Aleksandrowicz, who originated from Lithuania. He appeared in Avis in 1469 and
received a passport from the Portuguese king Alphonsus V. This diplomat from the
far north stayed shortly in Portugal and afterwards went to Burgundy and England.
Unfortunately we do not know his account of this voyage.
3
The first report from
the voyage connected with Poland originates from the epoch of the Middle Ages.
The author was a diplomat of the emperor Ferdinand III Mikoaj z Popielowa
(Nicolas von Popplau), a member of the Germanized noble family from Silesia
who settled in Portugal in 1479.
4
However, in Poland the accounts of travel did not
gain popularity before in the 16
th
century. In modern times, especially in the 18 th
Century, many Polish authors who have never been in Portugal also wrote about
this country. They wrote down news about Portugal in their diaries, calendars and
geographical compendia or dictionaries.
5
The first news about Portugal through Polish relations and foreign visits made in
the 16
th
century originates from diplomats. The best source of information on this
matter is the Polish ambassador in Spain, Jan Dantyszek who held this office three
times during the years 1519-1528. This well-known diplomat, who stayed many years
in the post in Madrid, had never been to Portugal. Nevertheless, in his long letters
there was a place for news from Portugal. For example, in one of his diplomatic
reports we can read about very advanced plans for a peaceful union between Spain
and Portugal. In 1523, from Valladolid Dantyszek informed the Polish King Sigis-
mund I about such a possibility in case of a victory in the war against France by the
Emperor Charles V. The Polish ambassador argued that, in the past, Portugal was
part of Spain. The additional argument was the fact that in the times of Dantyszeks
reports, there did not exist the differences between the main languages of these two
Iberian countries and other nations distinguished similar characters and customs.
6
3
Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, MS 5139, no. 6. Cfr. also Aleksander Sotan. Szambelan Karola
Zuchwaego i kawaler Zotego Runa (Aleksander Sotan. The Chamberlain of Charles the Brave
and chevalier of the Order of Golden Fleece), Przegld Poznaski 18, no. 1 (1862): 65-80.
4
Opisanie podry Mikoaja von Popplau rycerza rodem z Wrocawia (The description of the travel of
Nicolas von Popplau knight descent from Wrocaw), ed. Piotr Radzikowski (Cracow, 1996), pp. 62-83.
5
Bogdan Rok, Obraz Portugalii w oczach Polakw czasw nowoytnych (XVI-XVIII w.)(The pic-
ture of Portugal in the eyes of Poles in the modern times: XVI-XVIII centuries), in Studia i
materiay z dziejw nowoytnych, ed. Krystyn Matwijowski and S. Ochmann- Staniszewska (Wrocaw,
1995), pp. 177-192.
6
Espaoles y polacos en la corte de Carlos V. Cartas del embajador Juan Dantisco (Spaniards and
Poles in the court of Charles V. The letters of ambassador John Dantyszek), ed. Antonio Fontan and
Jerzy Axer (Madrid, 1994), p. 154: Jan Dantyszek to Zygmunt I, 25 II 1523 Valladolid.
91
Prognoses of Polish ambassador came true only in part because the union in 1580
was in fact armed annexation of Portugal by bigger and stronger Spain of Philip II.
The important message about Portugal originates from his other letter. He
wrote giving news to the Polish king from Ghent in Belgium about the earthquake
in the Portuguese capital. Description of this natural disaster was in the character-
istic style of a report. Dantyszek underlined the following matters: the long dura-
tion of the disastrous effects of the event, the great destructions and the many
victims in Lisbon and its surroundings. He described in Latin language the very
dramatic situation during and after the earthquake: In Portugalia paulo ante fertur
terrae motus, qui Alisbonae et in propinquoribus circum locis ultra decursum unius
mensis duravit, sic quod rex et tota eius aula et alii, qui perire noluerunt, in campis sub
tentoriis satis diu se continnerunt. Collapse sunt multae domus et palatia, in quibus
aliquot hominum milia dicuntur esse obruta, et multa ibidem mira visa et audita,
quae hic longum esset recensere, excederemque, quod pollicitus sum in litterarum prin-
cipio, compendium. Putant quidam id contigisse diris et imprecationibus judaeorum,
quorum magnus numerus hoc et anno praeterito, acceptis secum omnibus, quae ferre
poterant, ad Turcam versus Analonam profugit, ductus nescio qua fama de novo quem
gens illa semper somniat Mensia.
7
Unfortunately we do not have a Polish descrip-
tion from experience of the biggest earthquake in Portuguese history, which took
place in 1755 in Lisbon.
During their stay in Madrid, the other Polish diplomats also referred to Portu-
gal in their letters. Fabian Damerau Wojanowski, who fulfilled the duties of a Polish
diplomat in Madrid three times during the years 1524-1526, 1534-1535 and 1537-
1538, gave information about planned the marriage of the Portuguese prince, son
of Joo III, with the English princess, one of the daughters of Henry VII in 1537.
8
In about the middle of the Sixteenth Century, Stanisaw Lassota, secretary of the
Polish king Sigismund II August, went to Portugal. Unfortunately, we do not know
his diplomatic report or any letters from this travel and mission. We only know that
he experienced a warm reception and the Portuguese king added the emblem of
his country to his emblem and also gave him a magnificent chain. These two unusu-
al things were the great pride of the whole of Lassotas family for many years.
9
7
Acta Tomiciana. ed. Zygmunt Celichowski (Pozna, 1915), 13: 165.
8
Cracow, Biblioteka Czartoryskich (hereafter B.Cz.), MS 1366, f. 171: F. Wojanowski to J. Dan-
tyszek 11 September 1537, Monzon.
9
Bartosz Paprocki, Herby rycerstwa polskiego (The emblems of the Polish chivalry) (Cracow, 1858), p.
542.
92
Similarly to Wojanowski, dynastic and political questions were written in the let-
ters of Peter Dunin Wolski, the other Polish ambassador in Spain, who stayed mainly
in Madrid for almost 13 years (1561-1573).
10
The reports were still only short notes
about the matrimonial plans of the monarchs, because in that time Portugal played
a minor part in European politics. However, this situation soon changed and the
fight for freedom and independence between this country against Spain became
known throughout the whole of Europe and appeared in the reports of Polish dip-
lomats.
The only Polish diplomat in Portugal in the 16
th
century and who left his ac-
count was Stanisaw Fogelweder. His long mission (1575-1586) lasted through a
period of crucial moments in Portuguese history. In three letters from Madrid, he
informed the Polish king Stephen Bathory, about events in this country. In 1578, he
wrote about the African expedition of the Portuguese king Sebastian II to Moroc-
co, his complete defeat in the war against the Arabs and finally, the death of the
king. He described fights in an interesting way in which amongst other things, the
warriors used camels.
11
In the second letter, he wrote about the situation which
was a consequence of these facts. In 1580 he informed of the childless death of the
Portuguese king, Cardinal Henry, and the claim of Spanish king Philip II to the
throne of this country. Fogelweder notified also about the great patriotism of the
Portuguese, who opposed the plans of the Spanish monarch and supported the
national candidate to the crown, Dom Antonio, prior of Crato.
12
The same situa-
tion was described in the diplomatic report of Jerzy z Tyczyna, the other Polish
ambassador, who held this office in Naples Spanish property in southern Italy.
He notified that Philip II and Spaniards had support amongst the Portuguese aris-
tocracy, but the nation as a whole was against them and wanted to fight the Spanish
invaders. He noticed that Philip II, using threats and requests, could not persuade
the Portuguese to obey him. Only a few aristocrats supported the new king, but the
whole nation and especially common people, prepared themselves for armed re-
sistance against Spanish armies.
13
10
Cracow, B.Cz., MS 1610, f. 510: P. Dunin Wolski to Marcin Kromer, 12 March 1569 Madrid.
11
Kronika z czasw krla Stefana Batorego (1575-1582) (The Chronicle from the days of king Stephen
Batory- 1575-1582), ed. Henryk Barycz (Cracow, 1939), pp. 56-57: Stanisaw Fogelweder to Stephen
Batory 18 August 1578 Madrid.
12
Cracow, B.Cz., MS 87, fols. 273-275: Stanisaw Fogelweder to Stephen Bathory, 29 March 1580,
Madrid.
13
Georgii Ticinii ad Martinum Cromerum. Epistulae (a 1554-1585), ed. Georgius Axer (Wrocaw,
1975), p. 152: Jerzy z Tyczyna to Martin Cromer, 4 June 1580 Naples.
93
Mentioned above, Stanisaw Fogelweder was also the only Pole in the modern
epoch to sail to the Azores in 1582. Going by Spanish ship, he saw a naval battle of
the fleet of Philip II against the Portuguese and their allies the Frenchmen. He
especially paid attention to the execution of the captives. He assessed it as very
cruel because all enemies of Spain were killed. For this reason, he named Philip II
as even more cruel than Nero.
14
His experiences from his stay on the Iberian Pe-
ninsula profited also after Fogelweders return to Poland in 1586. Then he was
giving pieces of advice to Piotr Opaliski who went on a trip to Spain and Portugal.
Fogelweder, in his instructions for the voyage, advised him to go from Seville to
Lisbon. He wrote the recommendation for Opaliski in the form of a letter to the
secretary of the Portuguese viceroy. Fogelweder glorified Lisbon as a great me-
tropolis, the main center of oceanic commerce and a big harbour with many ships
sailing to India Orientali and bringing precious stones and aromatic spices from
there. He advised also to visit a monastery in Belem, close to Lisbon, where there
were beautiful gardens, monuments and many other fascinating things for the trav-
eller from Poland.
15
Also the other Polish diplomat in Spain, Stanisaw Sobocki,
who returned from there at the same time, wrote similar instructions as those above
attributed to Opaliski. He advised the young voyager to choose the road from
Seville to Santiago de Compostela, across Portugal. He recommended to visit the
following places: Lisbon, Coimbra with its famous university and Porto- the biggest
fortress of Lusitania, as Sobocki defined this city.
16
In the 17
th
Century, Polish diplomatic activity in Spain gradually weakened.
Hardly anyone amongst Polish diplomats went to Portugal in this time. Therefore,
we have little information of this type about Portugal. Stanisaw Mkowski, who
stayed in Spain three times in the years 1627-1647
17
, wrote to the Polish King
Wadysaw IV, about the struggle of the Portuguese for freedom against the Span-
iards. One year before the beginning of the battles, he informed of a growing Por-
tuguese discontent for life under Spanish rule. In 1639 he wrote to the Polish king
that the Marquis de Linares, who returned from the East Indies to Lisbon, did not
recognize the power of the Spanish viceroy. Therefore he was arrested and sen-
14
Tagebuch des Erich Lassota, ed. Reinhold Schottin (Halle, 1866), pp. 59-64: Stanisaw Fogelweder
to Stephen Batory, 16 September 1582 Madrid.
15
Piotra Opaliskiego podr do Hiszpanii (1586-1587) (The Peters Opaliskis travel to Spain),
in Ryszard Skowron, Dyplomaci polscy w Hiszpanii w XVI i XVII w. (The Polish diplomats in Spain
in the 16 and 17 th century) (Cracow, 1997), pp. 261-264.
16
Ibid., pp. 249-250.
17
See Ryszard Skowron, op. cit., pp. 160-173.
94
tenced to a heavy fine and also to life imprisonment.
18
His description of the be-
ginning of the uprising on Lusitania, as he named Portugal, has a very dramatic
character. The rebellion broke out on the 1
st
of December 1640. He informed that
inhabitants of this country, especially the gentry and aristocracy, stopped support-
ing the Spanish king Philip IV and crowned the national candidate the Duque di
Braganza (later known as King Joo IV). The Spanish viceroy, who at this time was
a woman, Margaret of Savoy, was not killed but locked up in a nunnery. Stanisaw
Mkowski in his letter especially underlined the great determination of the insur-
gents, who killed many particularly hateful Spaniards. He was very surprised by the
perfectly organized conspiracy, which included a hundred and seventy noble fami-
lies and lasted for two years, undetected by the Spanish authorities up to the mo-
ment of the outbreak.
19
In the second half of 17th Century, a very important diplomatic mission to
Portugal took place. In 1674, when this country had already regained independ-
ence Andrzej Chryzostom Zauski came from Poland to Spain in order to ask for
help in the war against Turkey and gave back the Order of the Golden Fleece after
the death of the Polish king Micha Korybut Winiowiecki. Another member of
this delegation was Melchior Gurowski. During absence from the Spanish court in
the capital, which disbanded for the summer holidays, Zauski set out for Lisbon.
He left a very interesting and exact description of his voyage and stay on the Iberi-
an Peninsula. Description of the Portuguese reality occupies less place than the
Spanish, although it includes many interesting observations.
20
When Zauski sailed
to the capital of Portugal, he was amazed at the immense width of the estuary of
Tagus. It seemed to him like an ocean. He noted that the cruise on this big gulf was
reminiscent of the sea voyage to Venice.
21
He was delighted by the works of Portu-
guese architecture. He especially liked the churches and convents in Belem and
Tomar. In the first of these places, which was a national and royal mausoleum,
Zauski felt a special eschatological atmosphere. Looking at this known monas-
18
Krnik, Biblioteka Polskiej Akademii Nauk, MS 347, f. 320: Stanisaw Makowski to Wadysaw
IV, 23 July 1639.
19
Cracow, Biblioteka Jagielloska, MS 1142, f. 21: Stanisaw Mkowski to Wadysaw IV, 10 Janu-
ary 1541 Madrid.
20
Andrzej Chryzostom Zauski. Epistolae historico-familiarum (The historical- families letters)
(Brunsbergae, 1709), 1: 512-517.
21
Jzef Bartoszewicz; Poselstwo ksidza Jdzrzeja Zauskiego do Portugalii i Hiszpanii (1674-
1675)(The legation of priest Jdrzej Zauski to Portugal and Spain, 1674-1675), in Id. Dziea
(Cracow, 1881), 9: 205-239.
95
tery, located on the sea with the tombstones of the Portuguese kings, he declared
that countries have oceans, rivers or mountains for frontiers but the lives of men
has for its last limit only the grave.
22
According to Zauski, Portugal was a very beautiful, rich and fertile country.
He, for example, mentioned the legend which was told of the waters of Tagus that
there was gold sand. The Portuguese had better customs and personal culture than
the Spaniards. The author of the diplomatic report considered it a merit of French-
men. However, the nation inhabiting Portugal also had faults. He was especially
astonished by the fact that even aristocracy in the royal court and ecclesial dignitar-
ies could not speak Latin and he could not communicate with them. Even the Re-
gent did not speak Latin, but only Portuguese, which the Polish diplomat did not
understand. However, Zauski was welcomed with great respect and even, accord-
ing to local custom, he was kissed on the cassock because he was a priest. He liked
that very much, was also interested in the ladies of the Court who had figures like
statues. In spite of the good reception at the court, Zauski, did not like the Queen
who was, according to him more reminiscent of a man than a woman.
23
What
was very interesting was that Zauski and Gurowski were not afraid of the Portu-
guese Inquisition. We know that one of Spanish inn-keepers wanted to report to
this institution that they broke the fast, eating meat on Friday. The Poles had to pay
him for silence. However Zauski and Gurowski used the trick of paying him for
the leading them to the Portuguese frontier. When it was crossed, the Poles took
revenge on the blackmailer, striking him with straps.
24
In later times, after Zauski, some other Polish diplomats came to Portugal. At
the end of 1685, the two Radziwi brothers, Jerzy and Karol arrived in Lisbon.
They went to this country as the envoys of the Polish king Jan III Sobieski, who was
trying to find a wife for his son Jakub in the Portuguese court.
25
In fact, these
envoys of the Polish king were travelers who, making a long journey across Europe,
thus called it the Grand Tour. It was a touristic journey, including longer stays in
one place and studies at different universities or schools. The young magnates left
a very short description of their stay in Portugal. As a matter of a fact, its author is
22
Ibid., p. 217.
23
Ibid., pp. 213-214.
24
Ibid., pp. 211-212.
25
See Elbieta Milewska, Polskie misje dyplomatyczne w Portugalii za Jana III Sobieskiego (The
Polish diplomatic missions in the days of Jan III Sobieski), Kwartalnik Historyczny 92, (1985) 4:
723-725.
96
only Karol Stanisaw, the younger of them who, however, after the return to their
native land, had never drawn up his impressions of the European voyage in the
shape of a diary. The elder brother, Jerzy Jzef Radziwi died soon after he re-
turned home at a very young age. Therefore, we can only read a short note about
Lisbon wrote by Karol.
26
In his description of this city, the young Pole concentrated mainly on the sacral
architecture of Lisbon. He described eight churches and only two royal palaces. He
specified seven beautiful churches in capital and one in Belem. He described
more widely the following: Sancta Gracia [St. Grace], San Vincent with tombs
of the famous persons (father of actual king Joo IV and mother of St. Anthony of
Padua), Nostra Signora de Loreto, a sanctuary of the Italian nation, a chapel for
Jesuits outside the city, completely encrusted with precious stones and the very old
cathedral La Fe which was originally the mosque of the Moors. In the mausole-
um of Portuguese kings in Belem he noted sculptures of two horses in the royal
tombstones. He also very much liked the great palace of the king, which earlier
belonged to Marquis de Villanova and was bought from him by the Portuguese
monarch. This palace, had, apart from four vast pavillons, four corner towers,
which he especially liked, because the Polish nobility preferred to this style over
architectura militaris.
27
In the Eighteenth Century, Polish diplomatic activity in Iberian Peninsula weak-
ens. In the beginnings of this century, Polish kings maintained contacts with the
Portuguese court and sent ambassadors there.
28
However this practice was aban-
doned in the first half of 18th Century. After a long break, in 1763, Jzef Poniski
was sent to Lisbon, but we do not know of any report of this mission to Portugal.
29
Before the partitioning of Poland there was no re-establishment of close diplomat-
ic relations with Portugal. Only Kajetan Zbyszewski, Polish ambassador in Spain
30
,
sometimes informed in his letters of political and dynastic events in Portugal.
31
26
Warsaw, Archiwum Gwne Akt Dawnych (hereafter AGAD), Archiwum Radziwiw, IX, MS
118, f. 35.
27
Ibid.
28
Jzef Andrzej Gierowski, Dyplomacja polska doby saskiej (1699-1763)(The Polish diplomacy in
the days of Saxons), in Historia dyplomacji polskiej (The History of the Polish diplomacy), ed. Zbig-
niew Wjcik (Warszawa, 1982), 2: 446.
29
W. Szczygielski, Poniski Jzef, Polski Sownik Biograficzny. (hereafter PSB), vol. 27, 1982, p. 536.
30
Jerzy ojek, Polska misja dyplomatyczna w Hiszpanii w latach 1790-1794 (The Polish diplomatic
mission in Spain in years 1790-1794), Kwartalnik Historyczny 72, (1965) 2: 338-345.
31
The diplomatic correspondence of Kajetan Zbyszewski embraces following manuscripts: Wrocaw,
Biblioteka Ossoliskich, MS 487 and MS 923.
97
Still, an authentic picture of Portugal can be drawn from the accounts of Polish
voyagers. As early as in 1518 or1519, Jan Tarnowski came to Portugal, later a great
Polish hetman, who fought against the Moors in Lusitania in the armies of Por-
tuguese king Manuel I, as the author of his Polish biography wrote, and attained
many successes in this war, which probably took place in Africa.
32
Earlier, in 1517,
Hieronim aski another young Polish knight, fought together with the Portuguese
against Arabs, during his chivalrous peregrinations across Europe. He looked for
glory and salvation on the battlefields of wars against the faithless.
33
He probably
also fought in Morocco. However, we do not know their accounts of these adven-
tures. The first in the 16
th
century, who wrote news about Portugal in his voyage
diary, was Jan Tczyski. Unfortunately, his report either got lost or possibly had
only ever existed in verbal form. Firstly, this young magnate survived extraordinar-
ily fascinating adventures in Spain, these being told by Bartosz Paprocki, a Polish
heraldist of the Sixteenth Century. He was imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition,
accused of arsoning the city of Valladolid and of possession of heretical books. He
was liberated after the intervention of the already mentioned Polish diplomat in
Madrid, Peter Dunin Wolski. We know very little about Tczyskis stay in Portugal
(1561-1562). This adventurer glorified the generosity and magnanimity of Vice-
Regent Catherine, the grandmother of the future king Sebastian, and especially of
one of Portuguese cardinals who cared for him during his difficult illness.
34
In the second half of the 16th Century, two other Poles also came to Portugal.
We know that they were there Polish magnates from Lithuania, two brothers: Jerzy
and Stanisaw Radziwis who came to Portugal in 1579. Unfortunately we do not
have accounts of their stay in this country.
35
We possess only information from a
letter written by Stanisaw Radziwi from Madrid.
36
Some papers and documents
remained from this voyage. Therefore, we also know that Jerzy Radziwi was afraid
of the Portuguese Inquisition, because in each town he tried to get a certificate
from a doctor which would state that he was ill. This certificate would say that he
could eat meat during the fast that was on Fridays and especially during Lent.
37
32
Stanisaw Orzechowski, ywot i mier Jana Tarnowskiego (The life and death of Jan Tarnowski)
(Sanok, 1855), p. 48.
33
Wacaw Urban, aski Hieronim, PSB, vol. 18, 1973, p. 225
34
Bartosz Paprocki, op. cit., p. 86.
35
We know only relation of earlier voyage of Jerzy Radziwi to Rome in 1575.
36
Pozna, Biblioteka Raczyskich, MS 78, f. 338v: Stanisaw Radziwi to his brother, 12 February
1579, Madrid.
37
Warsaw, AGAD, Archiwum Radziwiw, II, MS ksiga II, fols. 8-9.
98
We do not know if his anxieties were reasonable and if he had any troubles with the
Inquisition in Portugal. Everybody knows that in neighbouring Spain, Poles had
problems with this institution, for example the already mentioned Dantyszek, whose
servants were arrested by the Spanish Inquisition and who was accused of heresy.
However, its Portuguese equivalent was not so infamous and probably none of the
Poles was kept in its dungeons.
Eryk Lassota ze Steblowa (Erich Lassota von Steblau), a Germanized Pole
from Silesia, also stayed in Portugal, a soldier serving in the army of Philip II dur-
ing his invasion of this country (in years 1580-1584). He is an author of an interest-
ing diary of this campaign
38
, but he felt rather more German than Pole. In spite of
this, Iberian historians admitted his Polish nationality.
39
His diary is very exact but
mainly describes battles between the Spanish army and the Portuguese insurgents,
with the Frenchmen helping them.
Probably other Polish voyagers also came to Portugal as an the opportunity
afforded by a stay in Spain, but only one of them left a broad account of his stay in
this country. It was so called Anonymous (probably Stanisaw Niegoszewski
40
),
who traveled across Portugal in 1595. He is an author of a very interesting diary of
this voyage.
41
He set off from Spain, which he had been visiting for very long time,
reaching Lisbon on the 21st October 1595. Unfortunately his diary ends in the
Portuguese capital. The rest got lost and therefore we do not know his further
adventures. We know that he stayed in Lisbon for at least four days. He specified
some names of the capital of this country from ancient days: Olissippo, Ulissia,
Felicitus Julia, Lacebona.
42
He described this city as a great metropolis located
on many hills and valleys. He especially liked the immense harbour in the estuary
of Tagus. There, he saw many ships and merchants from different countries and parts
of the world. He indicates that Lisbon was the gate of the great oceanic empire.
43
38
Tagebuch des Erich Lassota, op. cit..
39
Part of his diary was located in the collection of sources to the history of Spain: La conquista de
Portugal. Diario de un soldado polaco (de la frontera a Belem) (The conquest of Portugal. The
Diary of the Polish soldier from the frontier to Belem), in Lecturas de historia de Espaa, ed.
Claudio Sanchez Albornoz and Aurelio Vias (Madrid, 1929), pp. 430-434.
40
He wrote down in register of University of Padua on 1 September 1594; Archiwum nacji polskiej w
uniwersytecie padewskim (The archiv of the Polish nation in University of Padua), ed. Henryk Barycz,
(Wrocaw - Warszawa, 1971), 1: 27.
41
Anonima diariusz peregrynacji woskiej, hiszpaskiej i portugalskiej 1595 (The Anonymous diary of
the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese peregrination 1595), ed. Jan Czubek, (Krakw, 1925).
42
Ibid., p. 97.
43
Ibid., p. 98.
99
In another place in his Anonymous Diary, the immense space occupied by this
empire located on several continents is mentioned. It included, as he wrote, many
countries which he described colourfully, although he did not mention Brasilia:
Up to Japan itself all harbours and coastal towns, first kingdoms of Fessa [Fes]
and Marochi [Morocco] (). Fessa has eight provinces, Marocco seven; () Then
in the kingdom of the Congo, Angola, Manicou [Manica] almost all shores up to
Caput Bonae Spei [Cap of Good Hope]. Over there in the kingdom of Monomo-
tape [Monomotapa], in the kingdom of Mozambique, in the kingdom of Melinde
[Malindi], in the kingdom of Quiloa [Kilwa], the island of St. Laurentii [Madagas-
car], () then the island of Ormuz [Ormus], then the island of Diu, the harbours in
the kingdom of Cambaia [Cambaya], the island of Goa, Zeilan [Ceylon] Island and
others, Kalekut [Calicut], Kochin [Cochin], Daman, Colam [Coilam or Coulam],
Ciaut [Chaul]. In Narsinga [Narsyngua] they have also castles and harbours. Later
they own only the kingdom of Malacha [Malaca] and Molochas [Molukken] Is-
lands, the island of Sumatra, and the island of Java, then they hold forcibly har-
bours in China, then Islands of the Philippines.
44
Although the Portuguese empire was so great and brought big wealth from
different colonies, the diarys uthor regarded this empire belonging to Spain. He
underlines this fact, writing that Portugal is only the province of its neighbour and
that in Lisbon resided Spanish viceroy and garrison. He marked Portugals loss of
independence, writing that in the distant past Portugal belonged to the Roman
Empire as the province of Lusitania, which included also Spanish lands: Portuga-
liae, Algarbiorum, Castellae, Tolleti.
45
In spite of the riches also in Portugal, like
in Spain, the diarys author was irritated by the many customs duties which he had
to pay. No wonder, because during only one day he paid it as many as four times.
46
Generally we can say that this writer liked Portugal less than Spain, although we do
not know have a full version of his description of the Portuguese part of Iberian
Peninsula. He liked the fruit trees and especially drzewa poziomkowe that is
apricots, a fruit which he considered the tastiest on the whole world. However, he
did not pay attention to Portuguese food, although he admired the art of this coun-
try and especially architecture. As a very pious Catholic, this diarist visited church-
es in Lisbon, although he did not like them very much. He paid attention to the
44
Ibid., p. 66.
45
Ibid., p. 70.
46
Ibid., p. 97
100
chapel of St. Anthony of Padua, which was named arka Pisma witego [the ark
of Holy Scripture] and to the beautiful altar in the Church of the Dominicans in
this city.
47
The short description of Portugal is a rich source of information about
this country in spite of the fact we are not in possession of it as a whole.
In the 17th Century, the number of Polish journeys to Portugal increased.
48
Also, Poles more often wrote down their accounts of these peregrinations. The
first in this Century who left a description of his stay in Portugal was Jakub Sobie-
ski (1611), father of the later king of Poland Jan III Sobieski, author of a compre-
hensive diary of European peregrination during the years 1607-1613. There is de-
scription of the Portuguese Kingdom is in his diary.
49
According to Sobieski, Por-
tugal was very fertile, densely populated and a more joyful country than Spain. The
nation inhabiting it was deft, sincere and more modest than the proud Spaniards.
He also mentioned that the Portuguese did not like Spaniards and had different
customs and language than they.
50
However, he was astonished that there were
many Jews in Portugal, even among aristocracy, in spite of the fact that two years
previously they had been exiled from this country.
51
He saw many cities. He espe-
cially liked Coimbra. The famous academy of Jesuits was located there. In this
academy he met Francisco Suarez, a great philosopher. The second place which he
liked was Tomar. He could not describe the beauty of its architecture. He men-
tioned only the abbey and the convent as the richest and most beautiful in whole
Portugal.
52
Sobieski dedicated most of his diary to two cities. Lisbon, the capital of the
country, he described as a big metropolis by the river Tagus, which had the greatest
and the most famous harbour in the whole Christian world. In this port he saw
the ships from the East Indies. However, this rich and beautiful city, full of gar-
dens, vineyards and olives, orange, and lemon orchards belonged to the Spanish
king Philip III. In Lisbon then resided the Spanish Viceroy Cristobal de Moura,
who was hated by his countrymen. They were looking at him like goat by the
47
Ibid., p. 64.
48
See Stefania Ciesielska-Borkowska, Podre z Polski do Hiszpanii i Portugalii w wieku XVII
(The travels from Poland to Spain and Portugal in the seventeenth century), Sprawozdania Pol-
skiej Akademii Umiejtnoci w Krakowie 53 (1952): 457-461.
49
Jakub Sobieski, Peregrynacja po Europie i droga do Baden (1638)(The Peregrination across Europe
and road to Baden-1638), ed. Jzef Dugosz (Wrocaw, 1991), pp. 131-136.
50
Ibid., p. 131.
51
Ibid., p. 132.
52
Ibid., p. 133
101
butcher. Sobieski also observed that around the city there were three fortresses in
which Spaniards had their garrisons.
53
The second city, which he described was
Belem. Here he especially liked the famous monastery of St. Jerome, where there
was a national Pantheon of Portuguese kings and their families. And again the
Polish tourist could not describe the architecture and ornaments of building. He
only wrote that in this church, there were magnificent mausoleums and tombs.
54
He regarded Portugal as a very beautiful place. Only during the return to Spain
did he mentioned that he went across desert lands. Also, the people seemed very
kind and magnanimous. When our protagonist stayed in Lisbon and was sick he
was helped by a rich merchant who invited him from the inn to his home and cared
for him as well as my own parents. He only complained about the poor quality of
the services provided by the Portuguese inn-keepers. He accused them of inactivity
and of depreciation of travellers. In pubs one could not eat or sleep because there
was no food or bed-clothes. The voyagers had to kill rabbits and cook them them-
selves. According to Sobieski the inn-keepers were thieves, because instead of serving
clients, they only dressed up and discussed politics and wars all the time.
55
For
Sobieski, Portugal was a very exotic country because he saw the slave trade and
villages full of the Moors there. Although Jakub Sobieski stayed in Portugal in the
beginning of the 17th Century, he is the only Polish voyager in this century, who left
his record. After him, a long break follows as far as the travels of Polish tourists to
Portugal. In the second half of the Seventeenth Century only the Polish diplomats
mentioned earlier went to this country.
The last Polish travellers in the modern epoch who left his account of a voyage
was Jan Potocki, count of acut, a known Polish traveller. His diary of a voyage
across the Iberian Peninsula has not survived to our days. We know only a part of
his diary, which includes a description of travels to Morocco. We read in it that our
voyager returned from Africa to Cadiz on 6th September 1791.
56
It does not de-
scribe if he went to Portugal. However Jan Potocki, also wrote the report of his stay
abroad, which is located in a Polish periodical edited in French. One of its issues
includes a short enough description of his Portuguese impressions. In the first place
he mentioned his meetings with English and American diplomats staying in Lisbon
and of the reception of the Polish 3rd May Constitution in Portugal. On the subject
53
Ibid., pp. 134-135.
54
Ibid., p. 135.
55
Ibid., p. 136.
56
Jan Potocki, Podre (The Journeys), ed. Leszek Kukulski (Warszawa, 1959), pp. 216-217.
102
of Portugal itself, he only wrote that the whole country was developing very well.
According to him, the army, fleet and all offices were in a state of full bloom.
Therefore Potocki considered that the Portuguese did not have any cause to revolt
against the royal power. Interestingly, Potocki also wrote that a woman, Queen
Mary I, governed then in Portugal. The Portuguese loved her very much and named
her a rainha nossa senhora, while in fact from the year ruled the Regent, her son,
later king Joo VI.
57
Little Portugal created a great empire that included several continents (Afri-
ca, Asia, South America) like the Spanish one besides. That is why there are the
mentions of the Portuguese that one can find in the accounts of Poles who stayed in
its overseas estates. We know that Portuguese ports (especially Lisbon) were for
Poles the stop on the road from the Noble Republic to the East Indies. For exam-
ple, Krzysztof Pawowski, author of very interesting description of India from Gdansk
through Lisbon,
58
sailed in 1596. The most known Pole who stayed in the Portu-
guese colonies was Krzysztof Arciszewski. This Polish nobleman fought the Span-
iards in Brasilia in the years 1634-1636, in Dutch service, in times when this country
was the biggest colony of Portugal, belonging to the Spanish crown. He is the sole
writer who described Portuguese colonial fleet. He saw it in Brasilia. During the
battles in this region of the world, he admired the courage of the Portuguese and
Spanish soldiers fighting with Dutchman. However, he considered the Portuguese
and Spaniards too impatient and reckless and therefore they lad lost the battle.
59
We also know of a regard for the Portuguese, thanks to Wadysaw Konstanty Wi-
tuski, another Polish soldier, who fought against them and the Spaniards, as a colo-
nial soldier in Dutch service in Brasilia (1634). In a letter to his uncle he pointed
out that the Portuguese were very brave, but did not like the Spaniards and would
rather prefer Dutch reign to that of the Spanish.
60
Few Poles reached India in the
modern epoch. Teofil Anzelm Dzwonkowski, a sailor in Dutch service, saw in the
city of Cochin on the Malabar Coast (1789), the citadel which the Dutch took from
57
Journal Hebdomadaire de la Diete, February 29, 1792, 8: 53-54.
58
W. Baranowski, Peregrynacja do Indyi Krzysztofa Pawowskiego w roku 1596 (The Peregrination
of Krzysztof Pawowski to India in 1596), Prace Komisji do Bada nad Histori Literatury i Owiaty
1 (1914): 247-257.
59
A. Kraushar, Dzieje Krzysztofa z Arciszewa Arciszewskiego (Petersburg, 1893), 2: 30-32.
60
Wadysaw Czapliski, Wadysaw Konstanty Wituski onierz kolonialny XVII w. (Wadysaw
Konstanty Wituski a colonial soldier of the 17 th century), in Id, Dawne czasy. Opowiadania i
szkice historyczne z XVII w (The old times. The stories and historical essays from the 17 th century)
(Wrocaw, 1957), pp. 208-210.
103
the Portuguese. He noted down also about Portuguese language and the customs
of the local inhabitants. Already there were only remainders of splendid Portu-
guese past empire. In Ceylon he criticized the Portuguese reigns, because the na-
tives mutinied against the government of missionaries. He admitted that inhab-
itants of Ceylon did not profit from the exchange of Catholic for Protestant mas-
ters.
61
Very rarely, one observed Portuguese traces in other European countries, be-
cause the activity of the inhabitants of Portugal mainly guided their colonial prop-
erties and therefore Poles traveling across Europe more often met Spaniards, who
had numerous lands in different European countries, than the Portuguese, who
lived only in the west part of Iberian Peninsula. However there were direct contacts
with inhabitants of Portugal or indirect meetings with their culture. For example a
voyager from distant Lithuania Teodor Billewicz noticed in Amsterdam (1678) the
Jewish synagogue (Portuguese synagogue as Polish traveller wrote). It belonged to
Sefardic Jews who came mainly from Portugal and Spain as a result of their perse-
cutions and exile from these countries at the end of the 15th Century. It seemed to
him very rich, adorned with different ornaments and buildings of a great size. In
these respects the synagogue dominated over all the Christian churches of Dutch
capital. It is not strange because this synagogue was then the greatest in the world.
62
The number of Polish voyages to Portugal in the modern epoch was not im-
pressive. Only a few came to South-West edge of Europe. There were a lot of rea-
sons for this. As already mentioned in the beginning, Portugal was a very distant
country for Poles. It did not have famous universities or sanctuaries (like the present
Fatima). Only Polish monks, particularly Jesuits, went sometimes to Portuguese
universities (Evora and Coimbra) to prepare for missions among pagans. Besides,
in European politics smaller Portugal was not as big a power as Spain, therefore
Polish diplomats rather went to Madrid than Lisbon and the Noble Republic had
common business with Spain rather than Portugal.
The image of Portugal in Polish accounts from the modern epoch is very frag-
mentary and shows only some characteristic features of this country and the nation
inhabiting it. Most of the news one can find in diaries of voyages, especially from
61
Teofil Anzelm Dzwonkowski, Pamitniki czyli pamitka po ojcu dla Jzefy z Dzwonkowskich Ko-
mornickiej (The Diaries that is the keepsake of father for Jzefa from Dzwonkowski Komornicka), ed.
S. and T. Komorniccy (Warszawa, 1985), pp. 75, 78.
62
Teodor Billewicz, Diariusz podry po Europie w latach 1677-1678 (The Diary of the voyage across
Europe in years 1677-1678), ed. Marek Kunicki-Goldfinger (Warszawa, 2004), p. 310.
104
the 17th Century. Few diplomatic reports have anything to say on the subject, top-
ics being usually limited to political and dynastic news of special interest to Polish
monarchs. However, Poles were especially interested in the Portuguese empire.
They were impressed by the gold and silver fleets from the East Indies that sailed
in port of Lisbon. As regarding other countries, Polish travellers admired Portu-
guese architecture and nature. However such descriptions were few. Primarily de-
scriptions were of the road, climate and cities. Usually a voyage diary was not a
place for exact notes. Writing was rather general, without too many details. In ac-
counts we can see that for a Pole from several centuries ago, Portugal was a very
exotic country, which had many different and unknown qualities that his native
country did not possess. Poles coming to Lisbon almost always pointed out that this
city was located on the sea and possessed a great harbour. Also the Portuguese
were shown as a nation having many customs and traditions unknown in Poland.
Often Polish newcomers compared them with Spaniards. In the times of battles of
Portugal against Spain for independence, some Poles treated them with fondness
and other considered them as mutineers. However irrespective of all thanks to
accounts of the Polish voyagers, we can see in the minds eye a past world and in
this case, a small country on the edge of Europe, which is considered in history as a
great colonial empire.
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Orzechowski Stanisaw, ywot i mier Jana Tarnowskiego (The life and death of Jan Tarnowski) (Sa-
nok, 1855).
Rok Bogdan, Obraz Portugalii w oczach Polakw czasw nowoytnych (XVI-XVIII w.)(The picture
of Portugal in the eyes of Poles in the modern times - XVI-XVIII centuries), in Studia i materiay
z dziejw nowoytnych, Edited by. Krystyn Matwijowski and S. Ochmann- Staniszewska (Wrocaw,
1995), pp. 177-192.
Szczygielski W., Poniski Jzef, Polski Sownik Biograficzny, 1982, vol. 27.
Urban Wacaw, aski Hieronim, Polski Sownik Biograficzny, 1973, vol. 18.
107
Justyna Galiska,
(Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw)
Athanasius Count Raczyski as an expert
in Portuguese Art
1
Athanasius Count Raczyski (1788-1874)
2
was a Polish aristocrat coming from
an old noble family related through its roots and estates with Wielkopolska, one of
the oldest provinces of Poland. He was born in Pozna on the 2
nd
of May 1788, as a
child of Michalina and Filip Raczyski. After being orphaned by his mother at the
age of two, he was brought up severely by his father major-general of the Polish
army, but educated very eruditely. In 1804 and 1805 Athanasius, together with his
older brother Edward, undertook studies at Frankfurt am der Oder and Berlin uni-
versities. In 1806 Raczyski also visited Dresden Gallery, which impressed him a lot,
as a result of which he decided to create his own art collection one day. At the begin-
ning of 1807 he participated in Napoleons siege of Danzig. Then, in 1809 he joined
the Polish army again and attended the Galician campaign against Austria. After
that he was honoured with the golden cross of the Virtuti Militari Order for his
bravery. In 1811 he visited Paris and later the same year he started his career in
diplomacy, becoming chamberlain at the Frederic Augusts Wettin Saxon court, as
the Warsaw Duchy substitute for the Polish state during the times of the Third
Partition did not have its own diplomacy. In year of 1813, Raczyski was assigned to
the Saxon legation in Copenhagen, which he did not manage to reach and was moved
for the post of legation councilor in Paris. After 2 years of his service, when Vienna
1
This article is based on my M. A. dissertation, written in 2005 at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyski
University in Warsaw. Its title refers to Maria Danilewicz-Zieliskas baisic text on Raczyskis
stay in Portugal entitled Atansio Raczynski (17881874). Um historiador de arte Portuguesa. [Mar-
ia Danilewicz-Zieliska, Atansio Raczyski1788-1874. Um historiador de arte portuguesa,
Belas-Artes. Revista e Boletim da Academia Nacional de Belas-Artes 3rd series (1981) Nr 3: 51-70.]
2
Giving the shortening of Raczyskis biography I am using here the most comprehensive note
written by: Stefan Kieniewicz, Raczyski Atanazy, in Polski Sownik Biograficzny, vol. 29 (Wrocaw-
Warszawa-Krakw-Gdask-d, 1986).
108
Congress re-established borders of Poland from the times of the Third Partition (1795)
and eradicated the existence of the Warsaw Duchy, Raczyski decided to leave the
Saxon diplomacy and came back to Wielkopolska. Inheriting estates from his father,
he did not want to become just a skilful manager with a title of Count. In 1816, he
married Princess Anna Radziwi. This marriage brought him further land/proper-
ties in Maopolska, a historic region of Poland. In the beginning of 1820s, he was
already thinking about establishing an art gallery and started buying paintings, most-
ly old masters, just to name the most famous ones: Bronzino, Domenichino, Anguis-
ciola, Strozzi, Massys, Bassano and Botticelli. At that time, he was traveling across
Europe: to Italy, Germany, Switzerland and France, making purchases and striking
up with various merchants and artists, not shunning such contemporary artists like
Thorvaldsen, the brothers Rippenhausen and many others, mostly Germans. In 1828,
he gathered enough pieces of art to build and open his first gallery in Pozna. While
erecting the building designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the quarrels and lack of
understanding for Raczyskis enlightened ideas in Pozna resulted in the transfer-
ring of the gallery to Berlin. There in Berlin, Raczyski wanted also to continue his
career in diplomacy. In 1830, he started to work for the Prussian government as an
ambassador to Copenhagen. Raczyskis open attitude towards the Prussian govern-
ment during the times when Poland was harassed by Prussian invaders, brought him
many enemies in Wielkopolskas patriotic circles.
While Raczyski had settled down for good in Berlin, he wrote and published
in 1836 his first book Histoire de lart moderne en Allemagne. One year later, in
1837, an official opening of Raczyskis art gallery took place at his palace at Unter
den Linden in Berlin. In 1838, he published the first catalogue of his gallery and
kept on improving the following editions, as the gallery was growing rank
3
.
Coming back to Raczyskis diplomatic career, eight long years after finishing
his mission in Copenhagen, he was recalled to office as the Prussian ambassador to
Lisbon on the 18
th
of December 1841
4
. On the date of 13
th
of May 1842, his adven-
ture with the Iberian Peninsula started and lasted until 1852, as in 1848, after re-
signing from his post in Lisbon, he was moved to Madrid. In December 1843 he
wrote: I liked Portugal from the day I had came to Lisbon. Gradually getting to
know this country I learned also how to love it
5
.
3
One and only known copy of the catalogue from 1838 is kept at the National Library in Warsaw,
pressmark: II 904 222. [Athanasius Raczyski, Katalog der Raczynskische Bildersammlung (Berlin,
1838).]
4
Athanasius Raczyski, Geschichtlische Forschungen, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1862), 474.
5
Athanasius Raczyski, Les arts en Portugal (Paris, 1846), 3.
109
After a few months of his stay in Lisbon Raczyski produced a self-portrait
entitled Prussian minister in Lisbon, after three and a half months doing nothing,
but relaxing, 22
nd
of August 1842
6
. The watercolour shows Count Raczyski sit-
ting on a chair wearing a dressing-gown and keeping an open book on his knees. To
the Counts mouth there is drawn in comic-stripe style, a balloon with a with a
short sentence, Its hot. Using this humorous concept, he excused himself for not
fulfilling his diplomatic activities as being due the weather conditions, to which he
was not used.
Based on retained itineraries
7
and watercolours
8
made by Raczyski, we can
precisely follow his diplomatic stay in Lisbon and travels in Portugal. In September
1842, he visited the Jernimos Monastery in Belm, where he sketched a remarka-
ble watercolour showing the southern wing of the monasterys church and the dor-
mitory
9
. The rich decoration of the Joo de Castilhos southern portal gave Rac-
zyski a chance to practice the effect of the afternoon light skimming on the sur-
face of the white limestone. Later on, in the summer of 1843, Raczyski undertook
the pain of traveling across Portugals countryside, using different means of trans-
port, including a steamer, a sail-boat, a rabelo boat, a carriage, a litter, a horse and
even a mule
10
. He visited Alcobaa, in the interior, where he could not take his
eyes away from beautiful tombs of Ins de Castro and king Pedro the First. Next,
he arrived at Batalha, famous from its great Dominican Monastery of Santa Maria
da Vitria. He was especially delighted with the so called Capellas Imperfeitas. The
6
Le ministre de Prusse/ Lisbonne, aprs avoir passe/ trois mais et demi ne rien/ faire, se repose
de 22 Aout 1842. Watercolour from a so called Raczynskis Album, National Museum in Pozna,
Inv. Nr: Gr 798/30.
7
Athanasius Raczyski, Letter 18. Itinraire. Porto & Letter 28. Itinraire. Caldas, Alcobaa,
Batalha, Leiria, Pombal, Condeixa, Coimbra, Santarem, Thomar, in Les arts en Portugal (Paris,
1846).
8
There are two known so called Raczyskis Albums consisting watercolours made by himself through-
out whole live during numerous travels. First one, a so called The London Album is in fact
entitled Aquarelles du comte Atanazy Raczyski and was given to his beloved granddaughter Wan-
da Walderderft. It consists of 71 watercolours (15 are related with Portugal). Nowadays it belongs
to the daughters of Edward count Raczyski: Ms Katarzyna countess Raczyska, Ms Wanda coun-
tess Dembiska and Ms Wirydiana countess Rey and is kept in London. Second Raczyskis Al-
bum was given to his another granddaughter Anna Lamberg and it is a loose set of drawings,
watercolours and graphics (also made by other artists). It was bought by the National Museum in
Pozna at the art auction in 1962 in Vienna. It includes 17 watercolours schowing views of Portu-
guese towns and monuments.
9
LEglise de Belem/ 1 et 2 Sept. 1842. Watercolour from a so called The London Album.
10
Anna Dobrzycka, Polonica w Londynie. Album Atanazego Raczyskiego, in Nobile Claret Opus.
Studia z dziejw sztuki dedykowane Mieczysawowi Zlatowi, ed. Lech Kalinowski, Stanisaw Mossa-
kowski, Zofia Ostrowska-Kbowska (Wrocaw, 1998), 420.
110
chapels do not resemble a ruin, though remain unfinished
11
. It was finally in
Batalha, where he bought a richly decorated window-frame dated 1528. He first
carried it to his gallery in Berlin, later on donated it to his entails seat in Wielko-
polska Obrzycko. The window-frame, sculptured by Joo de Castilho or in his
workshop in the so called manueline style constitutes since 1857 one of the most
splendid pieces of Portuguese art in the Polish collections
12
. Unfortunately, it is
not widely known either to the Polish nor the Portuguese art historians.
Going back to Raczyskis trip into Beira region, his next stop was Coimbra
with its imposing S Velha, Romanesquely solid, which he studied precisely and
pictured in another of his watercolours
13
.
In October 1843, Raczyski made his second trip, reaching Tomar, famous
from its military Order of Christ convent. He wrote: Convento de Christo, on a
hill off the town, is considered after Batalha to be one of the most important traces
of Portugals past strength and glory. () Tomar gives the most characteristic and
at the same time most interesting example of King Emmanuels fondness for the
arts, which he demonstrated throughout his entire rule and traces of which he spread
all around the Portugal
14
.
In 1844, Raczyski made two more trips, first visiting vora in the Alentejo
region and then moving to the Douro Valley. He could not wait to see Viseu the
hometown of the Gro Vasco, one of the most known and appreciated Portuguese
painters of the 17
th
Century. Going further, Raczyski reached Lamego and Porto,
where he was hosted by James Joseph Forrester, the co-owner of the Offleys Port
wine-producing company and an amateur watercolourist.
Originating from Raczyskis passion for exploring the new country and, especial-
ly its architectural monuments, museums and art collections, he was asked by Berlins
Scientific Society to be a regular correspondent, who would provide the Society with a
history of the Portuguese Fine Arts. His letters, compiled in the volume Les Arts en
Portugal, were edited in Paris in 1846. Later, in 1847, Raczyski published a second
volume Dictionnaire historico-artistique du Portugal. We know from some sources that
he also planned to publish a third volume Rsum or the General Outline of the Fine
11
12
Justyna Galiska, Renesansowy zabytek z Portugalii w Polsce. Obramienie okienne ratusza w
Obrzycku z kolekcji Atanazego Raczyskiego (M. A. diss., Cardinal Stefan Wyszyski University
in Warsaw, 2005).
13
La vielle Cathdrale/ Coimbra le 2, 3, 4 et 5 Sept./ en 12 h. Watercolour from a so called The
London Album.
14
111
Arts in Portugal, to which he commissioned graphical charts referring to the architec-
tural part of the text
15
. But he was discouraged from do so, as he was receiving many
anonymous letters or press cuttings, full of calumnies and insults, sent from Portugal.
However, the two edited books have indeed continued being discussed by art histori-
ans and critics very keenly from the time they arose to the present day.
In order to show the characteristic double attitude of the Portuguese towards
Raczyskis works, I would like to present the two texts written by Joaquim de
Vasconcellos. First, in 1875 Vasconcellos published Raczyskis biography: Conde
de Raczyski. Esboo boigraphico
16
, where he stated: Although the distance of
time, which has elapsed since the time of editing these two vast volumes, they have
not yet grown old, they have not lost their essential value, because they have not
been replaced by others, neither better, nor even comparable. A shameful fact is
that the Portuguese were the ones who slandered and declaimed against the very
book which made our art and our artists known abroad
17
. Vasconcellos enumera-
tes among Raczyskis biggest achievements in the field of the Portuguese history
of art, the publishing of a just-found manuscript of the Roman Dialogs by Francisco
da Hollanda
18
. He stresses the importance of treating matters connected with the
Batalha monastery. He finds it interesting that Raczyski went deeply into the prob-
lems and drawbacks of Lisbons Academy of Fine Arts. Finally, he draws our atten-
tion to the biography and revised oeuvre of Gro Vasco. While Raczyskis judg-
ment about individual private painting collections is considered, his attitude of
severe but fair judgement resulted in him having two or three friends at the same
time as thirty enemies
19
. Many people who were helping Raczyski in his research,
such as Herculano, Juromenha and others were considered to be renegades, plot-
ting for the benefit of an intruder. Vasconcellos compared also the state of re-
search between Portuguese and Spanish art the latter where the historiography
had been flourishing from a long time supported also by the efforts of foreigners
interested in Spanish national heritage. The author asked rhetorical questions And
we? What we have done on this subject after Count Raczyski?, indicating the
ignorance of Lisbons Academy circles in the field of history of art. At the end of
15
Joseph Raczyski, Portugal visto por Raczynski, Jornal de Letras, Artes e Ideias vol. 5, Nr 179
(December 1016, 1985): 16.
16
Joaquim de Vasconcellos, Conde de Raczyski Athanasius. Esboo biographico (Porto, 1875).
17
Ibidem, 9,10.
18
On that subject see also: Maria Rzepiska, Polacy pierwszymi wydawcami Dialogw Rzymskich
Francisco da Hollanda, Biuletyn Historii Sztuki vol. XXVII (1966) Nr 3-4.
19
Joaquim de Vasconcellos, Conde de RaczyskiAthanasius. Esboo biographico (Porto, 1875), 12, 13.
112
the Counts vast biography, Vasconcellos showed the need and importance for car-
rying out comparative studies after Raczyskis model, appointing them very con-
crete aims: Making this program () will be the best and most effective token of
gratitude, dedicated to the memory of the deceased Count. () It will help us to
built a wonderful and solid structure on to the most important elements of the
foundations given to us by Raczyski
20
.
Two years later Vasconcellos published an article entitled About some aspects
of the history of the national art
21
. There, he makes a very critical remark In my
opinion the writings of Raczyski, quoted blindfold what we often do are mag-
nifying the contributions of his works. This may just be harmful, only because there
has not been anyone who would be able to criticize them, who could separate the
wheat from the chaff. After 32 years we need a national critique to draw correct
conclusions from Raczyskis works. They include more contradictions than any
other book written on Portuguese history of art. Moreover, they are dangerous for
uneducated society
22
. Vasconcellos explained the change towards Raczyskis
works as the following: Nobody should not see unfair censorship in my words,
because there are not many people in Portugal, who would read through the two
volumes by Raczyski, line by line and there are very few people who respect their
own efforts and memory as I do.
Prof. Jos Augusto Frana gave the most recent and profound insight into Rac-
zyskis works in his article Raczyski Revistado
23
: For people working in the field
of the Portuguese history of art, the name of Athanasius Count Raczyski is well
known, as he was the founder of that discipline among us () Raczyski was using
his time out from diplomatic duties for the purpose of studying Portuguese art as he
traveled across the country, interviewing artists and intellectuals, observing a chaotic
situation, in order to get familiar with this discipline. () What is interesting, is that
Raczyski did not influence the present, rather an earlier era, his engagement with
researching the past revealed in two of his books. Even today, they serve as indispen-
sable recollections in terms of Portuguese studies, especially for those dealing with
the critique of domestic information, utilising the books as Raczyskis personal ex-
20
Ibidem, 43.
21
Joaquim de Vasconcellos, Sobre alguns pontos de historia da arte nacional, A Renascena. Orgo
dos trabalhos da Gerao Moderna (Porto, January 1878): 31-36.
22
Ibidem, 32.
23
Jos Augusto Frana, Foletim artstico. Raczynski revistado, Diario de Lisboa, August 20, 1981:
3, 7.
113
perience of the Portuguese state of mind and taste in the period of Cabrals liberal-
ism. That is why we can surely call Raczyski a father of the modern history of
Portuguese art studies. The value of his contribution to the development of Europe-
an cultural studies cannot be overestimated. That is why it is important to continue
with studies on Raczyski, an outstanding Polish art historian and collector. Raczy-
skis output, as Prof. Jan Biaostocki already noticed 44 years ago is too little known
among us, because he wrote in foreign languages, but significant and worthy assess-
ment in the light of the artistic historiography of the 19
th
Century
24
. Especially now-
adays, when Europe is redefining its roots, identity and rediscovering its heritage,
seeking common sources of history should be our mutual aim.
Bibliography:
1. Biaostocki Jan, Ostatnia Wieczerza Eugenio Caxesa w Obrzycku, Biuletyn Historii Sztuki vol.
XXII (1960) Nr 2.
2. Danilewicz-Zieliska Maria, Atansio Raczyski1788-1874. Um historiador de arte portu-
guesa, Belas-Artes. Revista e Boletim da Academia Nacional de Belas-Artes 3rd series (1981) Nr
3.
3. Dobrzycka Anna, Polonica w Londynie. Album Atanazego Raczyskiego, in Nobile Claret Opus.
Studia z dziejw sztuki dedykowane Mieczysawowi Zlatowi, ed. Lech Kalinowski, Stanisaw Mos-
sakowski, Zofia Ostrowska-Kbowska (Wrocaw, 1998).
4. Frana Jos Augusto, Foletim artstico. Raczynski revistado, Diario de Lisboa, August 20,
1981.
5. Galiska Justyna, Renesansowy zabytek z Portugalii w Polsce. Obramienie okienne ratusza w
Obrzycku z kolekcji Atanazego Raczyskiego (M. A. diss., Cardinal Stefan Wyszyski Univer-
sity in Warsaw, 2005).
6. Kieniewicz Stefan, Raczyski Atanazy, in Polski Sownik Biograficzny, vol. 29 (Wrocaw-
Warszawa-Krakw-Gdask-d, 1986).
7. Raczyski Athanasius, Geschichtlische Forschungen, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1862).
8. Raczyski Athanasius, Katalog der Raczynskische Bildersammlung (Berlin, 1838).
9. Raczyski Athanasius, Les arts en Portugal (Paris, 1846).
10. Raczyski Joseph, Portugal visto por Raczynski, Jornal de Letras, Artes e Ideias vol. 5, Nr 179
(December 1016, 1985).
11. Rzepiska Maria, Polacy pierwszymi wydawcami Dialogw Rzymskich Francisco da Hollan-
da, Biuletyn Historii Sztuki vol. XXVII (1966) Nr 3-4.
12. Vasconcellos Joaquim de, Sobre alguns pontos de historia da arte nacional, A Renascena.
Orgo dos trabalhos da Gerao Moderna (Porto, January 1878).
13. Vasconcellos Joaquim de, Conde de Raczyski Athanasius. Esboo biographico (Porto, 1875).
24
Jan Biaostocki, Ostatnia Wieczerza Eugenio Caxesa w Obrzycku, Biuletyn Historii Sztuki vol.
XXII (1960) Nr 2: 199 note 4.
114
Kevin Windle
(Australian National University, Canberra)
Russia in 1908: the view from Manila.
Teodoro Kalaws Hacia la tierra del Zar Hacia la tierra del Zar Hacia la tierra del Zar Hacia la tierra del Zar Hacia la tierra del Zar
Imperial Russia in its last years was naturally the object of considerable inter-
est to its neighbours and to its rivals among the world powers of the day. Diploma-
tic staff and journalists from those countries followed developments closely and
reported back to their governments and the readers of their newspapers, especially
in the aftermath of the seismic disturbances of 1905. At a time when violent revolu-
tion threatened and concessions to democracy had been wrung from a frightened
autocracy, analysis and projections by informed commentators concerning the fu-
ture course of the empire were clearly important to allies and potential enemies
alike. Accounts by observers from more distant countries with a less obvious vital
interest are uncommon, however, and for this reason, if no other, the picture of
Russia painted in 1908 by a writer from the Philippines who later rose to promi-
nence in many fields deserves to be considered. This apart, it is one of very few to
be written in Spanish, and comes from the pen of one who is regarded as a leading
figure in the brief flowering of his countrys literature in Castilian.
Hacia la tierra del Zar was the first book written by Teodoro Manguiat Kalaw.
1
In a relatively short life (1884-1940) but a distinguished career Kalaw would later
achieve great renown as a lawyer, a writer and patriot, and a minister in various
governments. Having been a journalist early in his career, he went on to become a
professor of constitutional law and the author of numerous works on legislative
matters, divorce law, political science, the Philippine revolution and the literature
of the country. He was prominent in Masonic circles, holding the office of Grand
Master,
2
and for some years he was Director of the National Library in Manila. In
1
Teodoro M. Kalaw, Hacia la tierra del zar (Manila: Librera Manila Filatlica, 1908), hereafter
referred to in the text by page number alone.
2
Teodoro M. Kalaw, Sr: The great Masonic historian, http://www.glphils.org/kinship/kalaw2.htm
115
1984 the centenary of his birth was marked as a major cultural event.
Most of the academic and popular studies of Kalaw deal with his cultural and
political legacy, and his achievements as a lawyer and legislator. One notable ex-
ception, a 2005 article by Manuel Garca-Castelln, has a firm Hispanicist focus
and deals primarily with Hacia la tierra del Zar,
3
surveying its contents and situat-
ing the work in the context of the Spanish literature of the Philippines, in relation
to the cultural and critical movements of its time and of later periods: positivism,
modernism, orientalism, post-colonial studies, and the like. The present brief study
has a Russian focus; it will consider Kalaws book primarily as a commentary on
the state of affairs prevailing in the Russian Empire three years after the upheavals
of 1905, and the response to it of an observant outsider. It will also attempt to
explore some of the sources which helped shape Kalaws views, since he did not set
out for Russia wholly unprepared and uninformed. On the contrary, he had im-
mersed himself in recent writing on the subject,
4
and in Russia was able to consult
a range of well-placed observers and participants in the processes then in train.
Kalaw was twenty-four when he was invited to travel to St Petersburg in 1908
to attend the International Congress of Navigation, at which he was to serve as
secretary to the Philippines delegation.
5
He had already made his mark in journal-
ism in Manila, writing for El Renacimiento, a leading newspaper of the period,
edited by the poet and patriot Fernando Mara Guerrero (1873-1929), whose liber-
al views Kalaw shared. Guerrero, who was described in a Soviet textbook as
rnnnunt npecrannrent penonmnnonno-pomanrnueckoro nanpannennx`,
6
would
later contribute a colourful preface to Kalaws account of his journey. (I will illus-
trate below what I mean by colourful.) The delegation was led by a figure who
would go on to even greater eminence: Manuel L. Quezn, a fellow-Freemason,
3
Manuel Garca-Castelln, Hacia la tierra del zar (1908): Un joven filipino, Teodoro M. Klaw,
observa de cerca el ignominioso imperio de Alejandro II, Revista Filipina IX, No. 1 y 2 Verano/
Otoo 2005; http://hometown.aol.com/efaro26264/revista.html. Alejandro II should, of course,
read Nicols II.
4
His reading does not appear to have reached far into the past. He gives no indication of knowing
of two of the most famous Russian travelogues from an earlier age, which would have struck a
chord: Alexander Radishchevs Puteshestvie iz Sankt Peterburga v Moskvu (1790) and the Marquis
de Custines La Russie en 1839.
5
The venue and date are as given here, not Moscow and not 1907 as stated by Garca-Castelln.
See http://www.irbs.com/bowditch/pdf/chapt01.pdf and http://www.notmar.gc.ca/eng/services/
2005_annual_e/section_g/notice_44_e.pdf
6
Makapenko, B. A., 4u.unnuucra .umepamvpa [ua pvoewe XIX u XX eeroe] // Hcmopu ece+upuo
.umepamvpi. e 9 mo+ax (AH CCCP; Hn-r mnpono nnr. nm. A. M. Ioptkoro. M.: Hayka, 1983 ...
r. 8. 1994), p. 654. http://feb-web.ru/feb/ivl/vl8/vl8-6542.htm
116
later the president of the country and the object of great national veneration.
7
Kalaws book bears a dedication to his travelling companion Quezn, who is re-
ferred to at occasional points in the text. Curiously, Kalaws account makes no
mention of the official purpose of the journey, or his official duties, perhaps be-
cause according to Quezns biographers the delegation arrived too late to
attend the conference.
8
It had already adjourned by the time they had made their
way across Eurasia to St Petersburg.
Also travelling from Manila with Kalaw and Quezn were Salvador Roxas,
Narciso Alegre and Theo Rogers, an American who resided permanently in Ma-
nila, where he was a prominent journalist. Kalaw, a fervent anti-colonialist, consid-
ers Rogers more Filipino than American (p. 4). It is not clear from Kalaws ac-
count, whether Roxas and Alegre were part of the delegation to St Petersburg, or
merely fellow-passengers and fellow-countrymen on the first leg of the journey.
The party sailed from Manila to Japan, then to Formosa (Taiwan), Shanghai
and Vladivostok, and proceeded across Manchuria on the Chinese Eastern Rail-
way, and onward via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow.
9
From Moscow their
route took them to St Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, and Marseilles, whence they took
ship to Port Said, Suez, Aden, Colombo, Singapore, Hong Kong and eventually
home to Manila. All of these exotic cities and ports receive Kalaws attention. His
short book is not wholly devoted to Russia, but the 140 pages on Russia occupy a
central position, framed by shorter sections describing the journey there and the
onward journey to Western Europe and the voyage from Marseilles.
The book does not take the form of a day-by-day diary. Features characteristic
of the diary form appear only occasionally: Domingo... en que escribo estas lneas
(p. 4); Ayer... mi compaero Quezn... (p. 87); en Petersburgo, donde estoy aho-
ra (p. 108). Rather, the genre may be described as informed travelogue and re-
portage, in the sense that it incorporates much background information and com-
mentary, often based on the authors wide reading and the accounts of contempo-
rary Western writers, to which I shall return shortly. He nowhere claims that he
7
Isabelo P. Caballero and M. de Gracia Concepcin, Quezn: The Story of a Nation and its Foremost
Statesman (Manila: International Publishers, 1935), pp. 94-5.
8
Isabelo P. Caballero and M. de Gracia Concepcin, Quezn, p. 94.
9
Geographical detail is scant on the westward route from Vladivostok, and Kalaws narrative is not
entirely linear; he places his chapter La Mandchuria sangrienta after two chapters on Siberia and
the Trans-Siberian Railway. At the time, however, there was no choice of route as the northern
rail route through Khabarovsk was not completed until 1917.
117
speaks or reads Russian, and the evidence of the text makes clear that he does not,
which meant that he was largely dependent on interpreters and guides who spoke
English, French or Spanish. He has no pretensions to scholarship or specialized
knowledge of the field, and there is no systematic documentation or consistency in
his acknowledgement of sources. He claims to be writing no more than a pequeo
libro de impresiones (p. 92), which will of necessity lack depth of analysis. It has,
however, all the freshness of an immediate and unmediated response.
From the first page to the last, emotion is very much on show. In many ways this is
a book about feelings, having its first chapter entitled Primeras sensaciones, and a
later one Emociones en el Transiberiano. Nostalgia for Manila is expressed in the
very first sentence (p. 3), even before he has left it, and Kalaw is never one to refrain
from the frank expression of his feelings. In Russia his liberal sensibilities are outraged
by the evidence he encounters of oppression and despotic rule, as will become appar-
ent below. Kalaw did not, it seems, make any further visits to the land of the Tsar, or
later, of the Soviets, and it is clear that he would have been persona non grata in the
empire had he sought a visa, on the strength of the adverse commentary in his book.
Kalaws book abounds in exclamation marks; indeed much of it is written in
exclamations, whether of wonder (he is often the wide-eyed tourist), horror, dis-
may or despondency. As soon as he sets foot on Russian soil, the latter feelings
claim possession of him. Vladivostok, which an Australian writer nearly a century
later describes as a slightly down-at-heel provincial port at the end of the Trans-
Siberian Railway, with a charm of its own,
10
creates a different impression on
Kalaw in 1908: the mud, mule-carts and misery producen una sensacin de tristeza
indecible (p. 64).
The exclamatory mode is apparent early and becomes more insistent when the
party reaches Russia: Siberia! (p. 63) is the title of a chapter (a slightly mislead-
ing title, since at this point the author is in Vladivostok (in Primorye) and Manchu-
ria); soon he exclaims Oh, la Siberia helada, la Siberia blanca, grandiosa, terror-
fica! (p. 69); La nieve! La nieve que corona las montaas! El lago Baikal! (p.
75); Qu lago tan inmenso! (p. 76); Oh, la Catedral de Pedro y Pablo en St
Petersburgo! Oh, la Catedral del Arcngel Miguel en la santa ciudad de Moscow!
(p. 108); Peteroff! (p. 110); La polica! Siempre la polica (p. 171). Examples
are legion and many of them no doubt contribute to what Garca-Castelln refers
to as Kalaws rico lenguaje modernista.
10
Robert Dessaix, Feeling Frisky, The Monthly (Melbourne), December 2005 - January 2006, No. 8.
118
Some of these expostulations will already indicate what it is that appeals to or
assails the authors emotional sensibilities, but closer consideration is needed of
the impressions he records, and of his reaction to the unfamiliar phenomena of
Russian life, the Russian landscape, and the socio-political realities he is encoun-
tering for the first time.
Kalaw shows himself sensitive to nature and landscape. The white nights, which
he first experiences while crossing Siberia by train, make an indelible impression.
A short chapter (pp. 85-8) entitled Las noches blancas forms a lyrical interlude,
replete with poetic metaphors, between the horrors of Russian colonialism in Man-
churia and a description of peasant poverty and deprivation. It is clear that the
author remains firmly anchored, mentally and emotionally, in Manila, and his na-
tive country provides the point of comparison in his descriptions.
El espacio y la tierra, en esos momentes solemnes, parece que se unen
en un beso de claridad y de amor. Por eso no hay noches negras, no hay
noches sin sol. Todas las noches son das, con ese claror difuminado de las
seis de la tarde en Filipinas, que es una semi-penumbra, que es una semi-
claridad. (p. 88)
Such moments are few, however, and soon it is the hardships of peasant life
that reclaim Kalaws attention as he explores the causes of the recent serious un-
rest and insurrection. He is armed with facts and figures, as well as anecdotes to
illustrate the agrarian problem, which had deepened with the rapidly increasing
peasant population in the four decades since emancipation. A policy of encourag-
ing migration and resettlement in Siberia and Manchuria, along the new railway
line, showed little promise of alleviating the desperate poverty of the great mass of
the peasantry.
It is not long before Kalaw turns a sceptical eye to the Orthodox Church and
the devotions of the faithful (pp. 99ff.), finding a religious fervour or fanatismo
grosero, ciego, inconsciente (p. 187) which is utterly alien to him. (A chapter on
the subject is entitled El fanatismo popular). The benighted populace is a rebao
dcil (p. 186), asleep en la ms negra noche de los tiempos (p. 185); the image-
worship of the muzhiks and their prostrations are grotesque (p. 100), their blind-
ness worse and their superstition more abominable than anywhere else (p. 185).
In the Russian soul, he claims, the pale light of Christianity is mingled with los
abismos obscuros de las edades medivicas, and its deity never a merciful god but
a vengeful and incomprehensible one, never parted from his sword of war and
119
death (p. 187). To Kalaw the nature of this church is typified and perpetuated by its
earthly masters. The Procurator of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, is
the focus of particular odium, being described (p. 169) as the power behind the
throne:
Por encima, muy por encima, en el alto sitial de la autocracia y del
despotismo, est Pobedonotsef (sic). Es el tirano sanguinario. Es el mon-
arca maldecido. Su figura se levanta terrorfica, implacable. Sus manos,
que empuan el cetro, estn manchadas en sangre de millares de vctimas.
Es el mago-profeta, el rey-dios. El zar sigue sus caprichos.
In Kalaws valedictory lines before moving on from Russia to Berlin and Paris,
he asserts that the empire is crumbling and repeats that at its head stands el dolo
sanguinario, el Torquemada ortodoxo Pobedonotseff (sic) (p. 198). (He has twice
before suggested the analogy of Torquemada in similar contexts, pp. 157, 193.)
Here as elsewhere Kalaw is fully in tune with another Spanish-speaking observer,
the Guatemalan writer, traveller and journalist Enrique Gmez Carrillo, who also
calls Pobedonostsev un Torquemada ortodoxo, in a chapter entitled El gran in-
quisidor.
11
It needs to be said that Gmez Carrillos book, La Rusia actual, published only
two years earlier and based on his Russian travels in 1905, is cited more than once
by Kalaw and is clearly a vitally important source. In his Lneas prefaciales, Guer-
rero, an enthusiastic admirer of both writers, ranks Kalaws prose style with Carril-
los and compares Carrillo and Kalaw with Rubn Daro (p. xii). The two travellers
have much in common, including their liberal Western perspective, and the prima-
cy of feelings in their responses. According to Carlos Wyld Ospina and Edelberto
Torres, Carrillo a friend of Daro and fellow-Modernist was very much the
sensualist, and his whole aesthetic system was founded on la sensacin. He is
reputed to have said that what he sought in the many countries he visited was not
el alma, but rather lo positivo, la sensacin.
12
Carrillos is the longer book and
more detailed in some areas, dealing, unlike Kalaws, exclusively with Russia, but
11
Enrique Gmez Carrillo, La Rusia actual (Paris: Garnier Hermanos, 1906), pp. 45ff. Henceforth
this work will be referred to in the text as Carrillo with page number.
12
Edelberto Torres, Enrique Gmez Carrillo: El cronista errante (Guatemala City: Librera escolar,
1956), with prologue by Carlos Wyld Ospina. See especially p. 13. For brief summaries of Carril-
los career, see http://www.damisela.com/literatura/pais/guatemala/autores/gomezcarrillo/
xwork.htm and http://www.epdlp.com/escritor.php?id=1770
120
only with European Russia. Episodes which occupy several pages in Carrillos book
sometimes reappear in greatly compressed form in Kalaws.
13
Kalaw clearly re-
gards Carrillos work as authoritative, although in reality it is a journalists impres-
sionistic account much like his own, and a far cry from some of the other books he
had read.
14
Anti-clericalism and abhorrence of Orthodox worship and attitudes form a
central motif, common to both Kalaw and Gmez Carrillo. They deplore what
Kalaw calls esta idolatra moscovita (p. 189) and the fanatismo de los estpidos
which he sees in the devotional practices of the Orthodox (p. 100). Kalaw, who is
not always scrupulous about acknowledging his sources, avails himself when it suits
him of useful material from Carrillos book, for example, the nine points differen-
tiating Greek and Russian Orthodoxy (Carrillo p. 36) are reproduced with minimal
variation of the Spanish wording (Kalaw p. 191). Kalaw, however, adds that he
considers these nine points nueve tonteras. Nevertheless, the evidence of Kalaws
book does not suggest that he took irreverence to the point which Carrillo allowed
himself: Alfredo Vicenti, in his Prologue to La Rusia actual, reports Carrillo buy-
ing an icon in its case and replacing the image of the saint with una esplndida
mujer desnuda (Carrillo p. x). He placed it in the corner of his hotel room, lit a
candle in front of it, and enjoyed the effect produced on the god-fearing hotel staff.
(They crossed themselves, of course, in horror, and fled.)
15
Kalaw did not go in for
this kind of practical joke.
Kalaws other sources, when he is not relating his own experience, are up-to-
date and for the most part carry more authority than Carrillo: he quotes figures
from Victor Brard, LEmpire Russe et le tsarisme, published only three years earli-
er (Paris, 1905) (pp. 161). Two other writers are cited in connection with religion in
13
E.g. Carrillo pp. 104-106, where he gives much detail on the wretched condition of the half-starved
peasantry and the squalor of rural life, citing Alexander Ular, whose book Die russische Revolution
appeared in German and French in 1905, only months after the events it describes. Kalaw has a
paragraph (p. 72) which clearly derives directly from Carrillos pages. He acknowledges Ullar (a
mis-spelling taken from Carrillo), without naming his book, and without mentioning at this point
that his source is Carrillo.
14
Carrillo, unlike Kalaw, gives the impression of being able to read the Russian newspapers. He
preserves press cuttings and cites some of these, and Kalaw in his turn cites them from Carrillos
book; see e.g. La Rusia actual pp. 97ff. and Hacia la tierra del Zar, pp. 95ff. Edelberto Torres,
however, in his book on Carrillo, states that the translations were made by his guide. Torres,
Enrique Gmez Carrillo, p. 167.
15
By all accounts, including his own, Carrillo, who admits to a frivolous nature, worshipped noth-
ing so much as the female body and adored the prostitutes of Paris. See the dedication to La Rusia
actual, Vicentis Prologue, and Torres biography.
121
Russia and the malign influence of religious sects: the Spanish historian and lin-
guist Julin Juderas y Loyot (p. 194);
16
and Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu (pp. 195ff.).
The latter is the author of a magisterial three-volume work, published in 1881,
LEmpire des Tsars et les Russes, which Kalaw could have read in the original French
or in English translation. The third volume is entirely devoted to religion in Russia,
and much space is given over to a survey of the sects then practising in various parts
of the empire. There is no doubt that this is the source for much of Kalaws mate-
rial on the rites and practices of the skoptis (skoptsy, also known as palomas blan-
cas (belye golubi)), jlistas (khlysty), bezpopovtsy, los dukhoborg (sic), fedossee-
vetzys (fedoseevtsy), suspiradores (vozdykhantsy), contadores (chislenniki), er-
rantes (stranniki) and others.
17
Kalaws coverage of the political situation is necessarily patchy, reflecting his
contacts and his reading. He provides selective treatment of a small number of
prominent individuals, and reports his first-hand observations of a sitting of the
Duma, whose proceedings he could not, however, follow, not knowing the lan-
guage (p. 134). On the emperor, there is less material than might be expected, but
numerous dismissive references: el zar plido, tembloroso... (p. 98), este pobre
monarca de hoy (p. 102); este dbil monarca de hoy (p. 184), who only follows
the advice of his counsellors. In Carrillos book, Nicholas is spoken of in very sim-
ilar terms, indeed often with the same epithets a favourite of both is dbil.
Kalaws sub-heading El Monarca maldecido (p. 167) in the chapter headed La
Rusia putrefacta, though dealing with the ossified Tsarist bureaucracy, does not
actually refer to the emperor at all, but to the man who pulls the strings, the true
ruler in Kalaws view , Pobedonostsev (see above).
Aside from the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Kalaw has little to say about
individual political figures, whether in government or opposition, the only other
important exception being Pavel Miliukov. One of Kalaws signal achievements
was to secure an interview with Miliukov, the leader of Constitutional Democratic
Party (Kadety), as he reports in a chapter entitled En casa de Milyoukov (pp. 125-
16
On Julin Juderas (1877-1918), see http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julin_Juderas_y_Loyot
17
Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, LEmpire des tsars et les Russes (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1881); in Eng-
lish as The Empire of the Tsars and the Russians, translated by Znade Ragozin (New York, Lon-
don: Putnams, 1896). At some points Kalaw acknowledges this source (e.g. pp. 194-97). Other
passages are utilized without acknowledgement. The distortions in the names of the sects appear
to be Kalaws, since they are rendered accurately in Leroy-Beaulieus book. Carrillo also devotes
several pages to religious sects (La Rusia actual, pp. 37-43), and is also familiar with Leroy-Beau-
lieu.
122
31, and continuing 137-41). Quezn had met him in the cafeteria of the Duma and
received an invitation to visit him. Miliukov was fluent in English, having spent
many years in the USA, and could also converse in Spanish, so Kalaw and Quezn
were able to receive an overview of the current situation first-hand from a leading
participant. In advance of this interview, Kalaw had received the text of a speech
made by Milyukov some months earlier in New York, and this forms the basis for a
summary of the recent upheavals and the history of the Duma (Las cuatro fases de
la Rusia actual, pp. 113-23).
Carrillo, who did not interview Miliukov, gives broader coverage of the politi-
cal scene, referring to other political leaders such as Sergei Witte (Carrillo p. 89)
and the recently assassinated von Plehve, on whom Kalaw is silent. Revolutionar-
ies, be they Social Democratic (Bolshevik or Menshevik), Socialist Revolutionary
or anarchist, as opposed to the loyal opposition, are virtually absent from the nar-
rative of both observers. In Kalaws book only the names of these parties appear
(p. 135). One seeks in vain for the names of Chernov, Plekhanov, Martov, Kropot-
kin or Breshko-Breshkovskaia, to say nothing of Lenin and Trotsky.
For the broader picture, that is, major events which he could not personally
witness, Kalaw relies on journalism and political commentary by other observers.
He would have found little material on the 1900 Manchurian campaign in Carril-
los book, but he had recourse instead to the account of one Kiplinch (evidently
not Rudyard Kipling) in a book entitled Viaje al extremo oriente (pp. 77-83).
18
This
enables him to provide a summary of the military operations and name the army
commanders engaged in a campaign of conquest which clearly reminded him of
recent events at home.
19
Kiplinch is evidently Kalaws source for an extended quo-
tation from a report in the London Times (pp. 80-1), which spares few details of the
atrocity of Blagoveshchensk, or more precisely, Aigun, on the Chinese side of the
Amur, where the town was destroyed and great numbers of civilians drowned by
Russian troops.
20
Later, in the capital, he is able to enrich his understanding of
Russian political life by reading Bernard Pares, the future professor of Russian at
the universities of Liverpool and London, and by meeting in person el amabilsi-
18
Since Kalaw gives no more detail it has not been possible to identify Kiplinch, or the original
language of this book.
19
Most of the names are cited with acceptable accuracy, except for General Rennenkampf, who
appears only as Kennenkampf (twice), a spelling which may derive from Kalaws source.
20
On the campaign of 1900 and the Aigun massacre see R. K. I. Quested, Matey Imperialists: The
Tsarist Russians in Manchuria 1895-1917 (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, 1982), pp. 35-51.
123
mo Mr. Bernard Pares (p. 133), whose newly published book Russia and Reform
(London, 1907) he already knows. His acquaintances include the correspondents
of Associated Press, the Morning Post and the Times (pp. 173, 176), all of whom
broaden his perceptions of the new country and contribute to his narrative.
Kalaw takes more than a passing interest in the lives of national minorities: he
devotes a chapter to Polish nationalism and has short sections headed The Jews,
The Armenians and The Finns (pp. 183-4). This is an interest which he shares
with Carrillo, who also has chapters headed The Jews and The Armenians (though
not The Finns). Kalaw expresses great sympathy and admiration for some of the
subject peoples, especially the resilient Poles (pp. 161, 163), oppressed, as he em-
phasizes, by Germany and Austria as much as Russia. He uses figures and anecdo-
tal material from Brards book to describe the occupiers moves to depolonize
Poland (pp. 161ff.), invokes the names of Polands national heroes, Kociuszko,
Potocki, Dombrowski and Mickiewicz (pp. 154-5), and admires the determination
of the Polish people to achieve national liberation. Not for a moment, he says, have
the Poles lost their faith in the future:
son ardientes, son apstoles, son visionarios. Al travs del horizonte
lleno de sangre y de brumas, columbran todava la ltima esperanza, el
ltimo sueo quimrico. (p. 161)
The anti-imperialist cause is dear to his heart and he is of course deeply aware
of parallels with his home country, where he opposed the American domination
which had so recently supplanted Spanish rule. Much of his information on Poland
derives directly, with acknowledgement, from the work of the liberal Spanish writ-
er, linguist, translator, journalist and traveller Luis Morote (1862-1913), who had
recently visited Russia and met Tolstoi, Gorky and Merezhkovsky (pp. 154ff.).
21
Kalaw is no less indignant at the treatment meted out to the Jews and Armeni-
ans (pp. 179ff.), but his brief account of the Kishinev pogrom and other acts of
arbitrary violence is largely a summary of a fuller treatment found in Carrillo. The
same applies to his pages on the Jewish-Armenian conflict in Baku in February
1905. The lot of these and other minority peoples of the empire is increasingly
21
See Jos Esteban, Luis Morote (1862-1913), Poltica, No. 34, julio-agosto 1999, http://
www.izqrepublicana.es/documentacion/morote.htm. According to Esteban, Morote went to Rus-
sia en busca de la revolucin de 1905. He had translated Merezhkovskys novel Iulian otstupnik
into Spanish.
124
unhappy under the yoke of the Despot and Tyrant (p. 184). Nicholas may be weak
and malleable in the hands of his counsellors, but he remains the ruler of la Rusia
brbara (p. 196), always ready to unleash los fieros zaparogas (i.e. gordye zaporo-
zhtsy, p. 114) and el knut del cosaco (p. 115) at the least sign of popular discontent.
Given his cultural and literary background, it is natural that Kalaw should show
an awareness of Russias writers and take a particular interest in those of the present
who are deeply engaged in the struggle for social justice. How much Kalaw has
managed to read is far from clear, but he is well informed about the contemporary
literary scene, and seems to have read some of Tolstoi, at least, while knowing of
the writings and public statements of others, in particular Gorky, Andreev and
Korolenko.
22
Tolstoi by his pacifist stance and opposition to colonialist wars had
endeared himself to the liberal intelligentsia of the Philippines. Moreover, he had
deplored the American annexation of that country.
23
In the rising revolution which
Kalaw sees coming and is eager to welcome in Russia, Tolstoi is a driving force and
a voice which commands respect:
Hoy Tolstoy se sobrepone al pope. La legin de creyentes del gran viejo
apostlico aumenta en nmero. El maestro rebelde y anarquista va con-
quistando el corazn de los mujiks para prepararle a la libertad y a la repar-
ticin de la tierra. (p. 94)
It is notable that Kalaw should attribute this role to Tolstoi, rather than to the
leaders of the Social Democratic or Socialist Revolutionary parties, and that the
epithet apostlico is attached to Tolstois name in Carrillos account as well (Car-
rillo, p. 178). Kalaw also takes from Carrillo with full acknowledgement a
story about a priest denouncing Tolstoi to his flock as an impostor, blasphemer and
heretic (Kalaw pp. 95-6, Carrillo pp. 97-8).
The dominant colour in many of Kalaws chapters, once he has left behind the
greyness of Vladivostok, is red, less because of the workers flag than because of
the blood shed in 1905 and the continuing repression. Gapons demonstration on
what became Domingo Rojo sets the tone for things to come.
24
In Kalaws ac-
22
Gorky and Korolenko also figure prominently in Carrillos La Rusia actual.
23
See his diary for 8 January 1900, H. H. Toncro, Coopauue co:uueuu e 22 mo+ax (Mockna:
Xyoxecrnennax nnreparypa, 1985), . 22, . 110.
24
This name sometimes appears as Gaponi (e.g. p. 176). Kalaw gives less detail on Gapon than
Carrillo, who notes the general belief that he was an agent provocateur who switched allegiance to
support the revolutionaries (Carrillo pp. 55ff., the chapter entitled Gapn y sus aventuras).
125
count, variations on sangre form a recurrent motif. Not only is Pobedonostsev a
bloodthirsty tyrant; Moscow, the city of another tyrant, the recently assassinated
Grand Duke Sergei, is la sangrienta ciudad de las revoluciones y del despotismo
(p. 99); the author speaks of el suelo virgen y sangriento of Siberia (p. 69); Russia
itself is terrorfica y sangrienta (p. 177); many of its people are at the mercy of el
despotismo sanguinario de los zaparogas (p. 179); even the Russian god must be
un dios sanguinario e incomprensible, que castiga y que maltrata (p. 188).
Fernando Guerreros effusive preface to Kalaws book some might call it
fulsome has much colour of its own. As Garca-Castelln observes, it brims over
with the scent and colour of various exotic flowers, crisantemos del Japn, rosas
de Rusia, miosotis de Berln, violetas de Pars... y lotos de la vieja India (p. viii), all
part of Guerreros extended metaphor as he strives to encapsulate the unique de-
scriptive power of Kalaws narrative. It is characterized, he says, by a happy con-
junction of la fuerza y la belleza, la observacin sociolgica y la inspiracin artsti-
ca (p. ix); it is un ramo joven, primaveral, formado con las ms nuevas y deliciosas
flores de la hodierna literatura (p. xi); there is hardly an episode in it which is not
enveloped in a delicate scent of roses, of gold, and the sweetest tones of the iris. Its
gentle colours, primarily a bright morning blue, are marred only by the bright red
of repressive atrocities in Holy Russia (p. xi).
The highly-coloured preface is a good match for the account that follows, but
underlying Kalaws work and contributing to its appeal is a feeling akin to that
described by Leroy-Beaulieu in his preface to his own book: the mysterious and
irrational pull of the enigma of Russia, which lured foreign travellers before and
after the events of 1905 and continued to do so after the more traumatic events of
1917. This is nowhere made explicit in Hacia la tierra del Zar, and often the author
is repelled by what he sees, but a desire to immerse himself in the subject and
arrive at an understanding is palpable. Leroy-Beaulieu explained the motivation
for his own study as follows:
ctait... le caractre nigmatique de ses habitants, lespce de mystre
qui plane sur la Russie et sur ses destines, ctait par-dessus tout la diffi-
cult mme de la connatre et de la comprendre.
25
Kalaw, one senses, felt the same attraction, and the future of Russia (ses des-
tines) is never far from his thoughts. His travels confirm him in the view that
25
Leroy-Beaulieu, LEmpire, Vol. 1, pp. v-vi.
126
revolutionary change must come soon, and the sooner the better. As he looks back
from Berlin and Paris he finds that Russia from afar seems more backward than
ever, St Petersburg more Asiatic, and Moscow more medieval (p. 201). In its present
parlous condition, as pas del miedo; pas de los pronunciamientos; pas de la bar-
barie (p. 67),
26
the country cannot endure for long: No hay duda, la Rusia neces-
ita una revolucin (p. 177).
Kalaws views on Soviet Russia are not recorded, so we cannot be sure how he
welcomed the eventual dawn of his longed-for Nueva Rusia (p. 96). Had he made
a return visit, would he have felt the same elation as some Western visitors in the
early 1930s, like George Bernard Shaw and the Webbs? In 1935 some younger
socialist pilgrims among them Christopher Mayhew, John Madge, Anthony and
Wilfrid Blunt, and the American Michael Straight turned a resolute blind eye to
the discrepancies between ideal and reality. One of that party is reported to have
gone ashore in Leningrad with eager cries of Freedom at last! as he tripped on a
notice forbidding him to walk on the grass.
27
Would the eminent politician from
Manila have shared their euphoria? The evidence of his 1908 travelogue suggests
that he would have prepared himself well by wide reading, believed the evidence of
his own eyes, and been shocked by injustice if he had actually witnessed any. It is
well known, however, that the rulers of the Webbs New Civilization were much
more adept at erecting Potemkin villages than the deposed and murdered emper-
ors. If Kalaw had visited the USSR, and if he had seen past the Potemkin faade,
he would have observed that the new, godless Russia, without its monarca malde-
cido, had lent new meaning to his words terrorfica y sangrienta.
26
This phrase is used principally of Siberia but elsewhere Kalaw writes in very similar terms of the
Russian empire as a whole.
27
Roland Perry, Last of the Cold War Spies: The life of Michael Straight (Cambridge MA: Da Capo,
2005), p. 42. On this journey see also Barrie Penrose and Simon Freeman, Conspiracy of Silence:
The Secret Life of Anthony Blunt (London: Grafton Books, 1986), p. 162, and John Costello, Mask
of Treachery (London: Collins, 1988), p. 252.
127
Sergey Mikhalchenko
(Bryansk State I.G.Petrovsky University, Russia)
The Historians of the Kiev University and Iberian
Researches (End 19
th
Beginning 20
th
Century)
Kiev St. Vladimir University was organized in 1834 and soon became centre of
scientific and educational activity in the southwest of the Russian empire. The first
contacts of Kiev historians with the Iberian peninsula were in 1880, when one of
the most famous Russian archaeologists of that time, Vladimir Antonovich (1834-
1908)
1
, participated in the Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology
in Lisbon with a report on the graves which had been dug out by him in South-
western Russia territory (his report in French was named as Sur les tumulus de la
valle du Dniper)
2
.
However, Antonovich did not carry out any special research on the history or
archaeology of Spain and Portugal, having limited time according to a diary left by
him.
The first (and actually uniquely) historian who engaged in a study of Iberian
history, became Vladimir Piskorsky (1867-1910)
3
. Successor to Ivan Luchitsky,
Piskorsky became interested in a Southern - European issues when a student. He
wrote his degree work on the history of Italy. Then his attention was switched to
the history of Spain, in which study he reached the greatest success. His master
thesis Cortes of Castile in transition epoch from the Middle Ages to the Modern
Times (1188-1520), defended in 1897, and doctoral research Serfdom in Catalo-
nia in the Middle Ages (1901) became innovative works, investigating for the first
1
About him see: S.Mikhalchenko, Vladimir Bonifatyevich Antonovich, in Istoriki Rossii. Biografii
(Moskva: Rosspen, 2001)
2
Vladimir Antonovich, Tvory, Vol.1 (Kyiv, 1932. 285-300)
3
About him see: O. O. Novikova, Biografichniy narys, in V.K.Piskorski, Vybrany tvory ta episto-
liarna spadscina (Kyiv: 1997); L.T Milskaya, Vladimir Konstantinovich Piskorsky, in Portrety
istorikov. Vremya i sudby, Vol.2. (Moskva, Jerusalem: Hesharim,2000)
128
time major questions of Iberian history. Having been written on a basis of attentive
research into the Castilian archives, they were later translated to the Spanish lan-
guage. The synthetic research A History of Spain and Portugal (2
nd
edition, 1909),
prepared within the framework of a series of books on European history and issu-
ing from the publishing house Brockhaus and Efron, became the end of the crea-
tive biography of Piskorsky.
Piskorsky traveled much on the Pyrenean Peninsula, leaving colourful mem-
oirs. He also wrote a lot of letters with interesting information to his wife. Almost
all of them were published later
4
. His descriptions of Madrid, Lisbon and many
provincial centres of Spain were full of bright characteristics and images.
In his memoirs, he wrote about meetings with some famous Spanish and Por-
tuguese researchers. The first of them was Balaguer
5
a famous historian. Piskor-
skys wrote thus, he entered me into the Congress and Senate Library, where I
spent the most part of time with Pi y Margall, which entered me into close ac-
quaintance with the tasks and aspirations of the Spanish federalists, with Navarro
de Valencia, which in turn entered me into a circle of Spanish journalists, with
Giner de los Ros professor of philosophy and law in Madrid university, with
Azcrate professor of law, with Menndez Pelayo professor of literature, which
then acquainted me with a conditions of Spanish university science and gave me an
opportunity to work in libraries and archives of the University and the Academy of
History, with Paz y Melia director of the manuscripts department of the Royal
Scientific Library (I printed an article in Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo prosves-
cenia [Journal of the Ministry of Education]) about condition of the Spanish ar-
chives and libraries), with Altamira the director of a pedagogical institute and
publisher of a historical Spanish magazine, with Costa notary and scientist, au-
thor of the large work Derecho consulorum, with the poet Mimes de Area, with
orator and scientist Salmern, and, lastly, with Marquise Voidefiera former en-
voy in the USA.
Also Piskorsky got acquainted with Wincenty Lutoslawski the notable Polish
philosopher. Piskorsky spoke much about him in his reminiscences, both about his
views and his way of living, which were quite out of the ordinary.
4
Zagranichnye vospominania V. K. Piskorskogo (Iz pisem k zhene, 1896-1897), in Problemy
ispanskoy istorii, 1992.(Moskva: Nauka, 1992. 178-191)
5
The majority of the Iberian personal names are written according to a spelling accepted by the
author (the text of memoirs was written in Russian, but the names were written by the Latin
letters)
129
Piskorsky spent much time in the Spanish archives, e.g. in Simancas. During
his journey he met with different people, and some of them knew very little about
Russia. In relation to Russia the Spaniards show amazing illiteracy, he wrote. So,
for example, before acquaintance with me, the director of the Simancas archive
was sure, that in Russian, as in Egyptian hieroglyphs, each letter expressed a sepa-
rate concept or, as in China, the syllable, and was extremely surprised, when I ex-
plained to him, that the Spanish and Russian languages originated from the same
Indo-European family. Arriving on a vacation in Simancas to spend time with his
parents, a student of a Madrid school often went for a walk with me and asked
about Russia. The questions mostly were extremely naive. So, for example, he was
interested to know, whether cats and dogs are found in Russia!
Of course, as a specialist in Spanish history, Piskorsky paid more attention to
Spain. But he was interested in Portugal and, especially, in Lisbon. He compared
Lisbon and Kiev, because the two cities are situated on the hills and also on the
banks of the rivers (Tejo and Dnieper). But, of course, there were some differences
between them firstly, in Lisbon the street life is advanced here, as everywhere in
the south, at secondly, The Portuguese represent not only the Roman race, but a
mix of it with various coloured races: you can meet negroes, mulattoes, and third-
ly, is the absence of black soutanes: Piskorsky underlined, that in Lisbon it is
difficult to meet a priest in a cassock. Monks, from times of Pombal, are not present
at all. Thus, it is a unique Catholic country in Europe, where clergy wear civilian
dress. In his memoirs he described one very curious masquerade which he wit-
nessed once, when approaching the Portuguese border: some Spaniards, includ-
ing one priest, went with me in the car. Before the last border station, he took off
the soutane from himself, put on frock-coat, fashionable tie, jockey cap and smoked
a cigar! It was difficult to recognize him. It was done openly and, except for me,
obviously, nobody was surprised at this masquerade: obviously, it is in custom.
Later he found out that in streets of Lisbon it was almost impossible to meet some-
body in priests clothes. The spirit of Pombal sits in every Portuguese, Piskorsky
maintained, in spite of the fact that here a so-called Lisbon patriarchy exists. The
Portuguese free-thinking in religious attitude, represents a reaction against the
former prevalence of the church in the political business of Portugal, a reaction
against inquisition. The women here have equal rights with men in many organiza-
tions: they have access to all higher educational institutions in [...] the University,
Lisbon polytechnical school, medical school [...] etc. They take part in political life,
organizing political clubs [...], the Republican league etc. The former monasteries
130
have been converted either into museums, or into educational [...] establishments.
So, the Academy of Sciences is located in the former Jesuit monastery, another
monastery has been converted into a scientific library, the monastery Dos Gern-
imos in Belm represents now a private museum and a private shelter, where up
to 500 orphans live.
Piskorsky found out some persons who knew Russian in Lisbon David Lopes,
the professor of the Lisbon historical-philological faculty, and Consiglieri Pedroso,
the President of the Lisbon Geographical Society. The last one was according to
his own words the only person who could speak Russian in Lisbon (D. Lopes only
read in Russian). Lopes was also interested in Russian literature and made com-
parative studies e.g. he compared the two great books Don Quixote by Cervan-
tes and Dead souls by Gogol. As for Pedroso, he had in his library a lot of Rus-
sian books mainly, fiction, from Gogol, Turgenev and finishing with Kuprin and
Andreev. He also had the Encyclopaedic dictionary by Brockhaus in 96 vols.
So, all these examples shows the value of the memoirs for the history of Rus-
sian-Iberian contacts.
For organizational reasons, Piskorsky could not remain at Kiev University, at
first moving to Nezhin Historical-Philological Institute, and then to Kazan univer-
sity. With his departure, the tradition of Iberian research in Kiev became lost.
131
Wojciech Tomasik
(Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland)
The Spanish Civil War in colonial discourse
(A General Walter case study)
The so-called post-colonial studies, flourishing at prestigious European uni-
versities for some decades, focus on the texts written by colonized people as well as
those produced by colonizers in the process of imposing or maintaining political,
economic and cultural domination. Western colonial expansion began in the 15
th
century when Spanish and Portuguese explorers conquered new lands, but it
achieved its fully fledged form only by the end of the 19
th
century, resulting in the
creation of a brand new concept: the Orient. Edward Said, whose book Oriental-
ism
1
founds postcolonial studies, argues that Western descriptions of Islamic cul-
tures are stained with notions of power and superiority. They assert the primacy of
the Western values and categories, establishing a patronizing view of the Muslims.
The Western World is male and active, whereas the feminine and weak Orient
awaits the dominance of the West. From the very beginning the concept of the
Orient was associated with the past, and the idea of place untouched by moderni-
zation, isolated from the mainstream of progress in the fields of science, arts and
technology. For the Europeans, Said states, the Orient means the Other, the con-
trasting image of the West. The colonial discourse confirms the Wests intellectual
authority over the Orient. It is grounded on an opposition between the colonizing
subject (male Self) and colonized object (female Other), that is on a relationship
based on power, domination and hegemony. The specifics of the colonial discourse
of a given empire are rare and of less importance for critical studies. In fact Said
presents his work as a model for analysis of all Western discourses on the Other.
Only recently have colonial-discourse studies expanded their application, em-
bracing the more subtle kinds of domination. The most promising approaches that
1
See Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979).
132
concern the less discernible forms of hegemony deal with Russia and the Soviet
Union with their influences, commonly labeled as russification or sovietization.
The Soviet Union gained control over the vast multiethnic territory after the Bol-
shevik revolution and shortly afterwards tried to impose its political domination
onto independent countries, through the use of violence and the implementation
of Communist ideology. After the Second World War Poland, a victim of Soviet
military aggression in 1920 and 1939, became a so-called country of the peoples
democracy, but in fact lying behind the Iron Curtain was a satellite country,
politically dependent on the Soviet empire. If one admits that the primary goal of
colonial discourse is consolidating the unity of the empire, or, to use Saids formu-
lation, confirming imperial identity, it will stand clear that Polish postwar culture
had to portray the Soviet bloc as dynamic, innovative and expanding its progressive
values onto the degenerate, Western world. The present paper discusses Polish
poems on the Spanish Civil War, written in the late 40s and early 50s. However, the
image of Spain, I must insist, was not shaped by the time factor. The Polish postwar
writing on the Spanish Civil War has the traces of colonial discourse, imprinting
the Spaniards with the features of the Others. Needless to say, the power standing
behind this discourse was not genuinely Polish.
For much of the time Spain attracts Poles to its culture as it blends the Europe-
an features with the Oriental ones. In Polish the adjective Spanish means half-
European, exotic. Exoticism in turn evokes the pastoral images and back-
ward tribes. Graham Huggan writes that the value ascribed to exoticism is pre-
dominantly aesthetic and is meant as a cultural difference
2
. In the 50s the cultural
difference of Spain was superimposed by the ideological one. The concept of ex-
oticism is closely connected with exploring; on the other hand ideological he-
gemony entails conquering or metaphorically speaking the redemption, libera-
tion from the false view of the world.
The Spanish Civil War has not received adequate treatment in Polish historical
discussion until now. The propaganda campaign of the Communists was so suc-
cessful that for decades scholars wrote books and articles depicting the Spanish
War as the culmination of struggles between the progressive forces of social reform
and the dark, reactionary forces of ignorance and backwardness. Paul Johnsons
opinion, that no episode of the 30s was more lied about than the Spanish War
3
, is
2
Graham Huggan, The Postcolonial Exotic. Marketing the Margins (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 24.
3
See Paul Johnson, Modern Times (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 326.
133
wholly applicable to the stance presented by the Polish works. The starting point of
the propaganda campaign in Communist Poland can be pointed out precisely. I
mean March 28 1947, the day when Karol Swierczewski was mysteriously killed.
Who was Karol Swierczewski? He was born in 1897 in Warsaw but went to Russia
when he was 20 years old, and spent much of his life in the Soviet Union. After
graduating from the Military Academy, he obtained the rank of general. In 1936,
shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Stalin decided to help the Re-
publican government, furnishing military equipment and so-called advisers. Sw-
ierczewski was among them. By the end of 1936, when the International Brigades
were formed, Swierczewski, known then as General Walter, took command of
one of them. Swierczewski remained in Spain until the end of the War and re-
turned to the Soviet Union in March 1939. In 1943 he began organizing The Polish
Army in Russia under close surveillance of the Soviet authorities. After the Second
World War he was appointed Vice-Minister of National Defense and held that post
until his unexpected death in 1947.
Let us return to the question: who was Swierczewski? What nationality was
he? A sovietized Pole or a Soviet of Polish origins? One of the young Polish poets
reconciled this dilemma describing Swierczewski as being born for the first time
in Warsaw, / for the second in Moscow
4
. Fighting in Spain Swierczewski adopt-
ed the pseudonym Walter, sounding alien both for Soviets and Poles. As a first
name Walter is rare among native Spaniards. So who was he? In 1953 a famous
Polish director devoted a biographical film to Swierczewski, entitled Soldier of Vic-
tory (onierz zwycistwa). The title phrase should be understood as a polemical
device: a soldier of victory does not mean a Polish soldier, it indicates an interna-
tionalist instead, a man who like a true proletarian has no homeland, or who
rejects bourgeois nationalism in favour of class identification. It seems that Sw-
ierczewski embodies a no-land man, an internationalist, suppressing his nationality
and at the same time exposing his social status. The best known poem on Swiercze-
wski, The Story about the Life and Death of Karol Swierczewski-Walter, General,
Worker
5
, clearly suggests that its hero was to be perceived as general and worker.
In both cases, a man of power.
4
Wiktor Woroszylski, wierczewski, in Strofy o Generale wierczewskim, zebra i opracowa Leopold
Lewin (Warszawa: MON, 1952).
5
Wadysaw Broniewski, Opowie o yciu i mierci Karola Waltera wierczewskiego, robotnika
i generaa, in Strofy o Generale wierczewskim.
134
In Polish poems on the Spanish War Swierczewski appears as the general and
at the same time as the worker of a special kind, namely the metalworker. One
of the youngest poets of the 50s wrote a poem Iron name, elaborating the title phrase
as follows: And a person lasts, tempered in fire / Walter. / Walter an iron man
6
.
The very same metallurgical metaphors can be found in poetical works in abun-
dance, for example: The glitters of furnaces had hewed his [Swierczewskis] soul, /
until it became tempered and sincere like metal
7
; or in a shorter form: Swierczews-
ki the man of brass
8
. The most powerful version of metallurgical description
appears in the biographical novel addressing young readers, entitled On a Man who
did not bow to the bullets
9
. It is worth mentioning that the characters features evoked
in this manner not only bring the senses of superhuman power and domination, but
also serve for the precise ideological identification. Since the name Stalin comes
from steel and means made of steel, Swierczewski depicted as made of iron (or
brass) is put in the closest relationship with the Soviet leader.
Swierczewski plays the role of a colonizing subject. His role becomes more
evident when the colonized object will be taken into consideration. Who are the
people awaiting help? Who are the Spaniards of the 30s? First of all, they are divid-
ed into two groups fighting each other. The division and, consequently, the war are
extremely abstract. After reading the poems it is not easy to answer the main ques-
tion: what was going on Spain in the 30s. The most common description of the War
is based on the strictly ideological terms and reads: fascism murders the Repub-
lic
10
. But who stands for fascism? Who represents the Republican side? Le us
start from the victims, who turned to the Western Communists for military aid and
looked for the protection of the Soviet Union. Who needed protection?
Not surprisingly, women and children are placed on the Republican side of the
Spanish conflict: they are the most obvious groups that must be protected from alien
and barbaric forces. The newspaper Pravda, the organ of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union, defined the initial situation in Spain in the following way:
The working people of the world cannot remain indifferent and keep
silent when the fate of the Spanish people is being decided (). The brave
6
Bogusaw Kogut, elazne imi. (fragmenty), in Strofy o Generale wierczewskim.
7
Robert Stiller, Pie o Walterze, in Strofy o Generale wierczewskim.
8
Jan Wyka, Pie o generale Walterze-wierczewskim, in Hiszpaska Warszawianka. 1932-1953
(Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1953).
9
Janina Broniewska, O czowieku, ktry si kulom nie kania (Warszawa: Prasa Wojskowa, 1948).
10
Bogusaw Kogut, op. cit.
135
Spanish people turn their eyes toward the Soviet Union. In our struggle for
socialism the Spanish people find their strength, inspiration and energy
11
.
Let us notice, that the oppressed are consequently labeled the Spanish peo-
ple, whereas their allies are the working people. One should keep in mind that
the working people is used here in an ideological sense. It denotes the proleta-
riat, and hence the leader of all the exploited masses. The Spanish people means
at best the class of peasants, the rural people, accompanying the proletariat in its
struggle for emancipation. There is a common motif in Socialist Realist literature:
a strong alliance between workers and peasants, that is confirmed in the workers
help given to the people from the countryside. Polish poems on the Spanish War
use this motif. The Spaniards protected by Swierczewski are, on the one hand,
children and women, traditionally viewed as the oppressed, and on the other the
peasants, an inferior partner of the proletariat fulfilling its historical mission.
Describing the notion of the Orient Said points out its very important com-
ponent: erotization of the Other. Sexual desire for Oriental women cannot be sep-
arated from the visual imagery of the Orient: the warm climate, shining sun, blue
sky, evergreen plants full of fruits. To put it in a nutshell: exotic means erotic.
The image of Spain, embedded in Polish poems on Swierczewski, is modeled on an
exotic woman, meeting her lover under a lemon tree or in a rose garden. The colo-
nizing subject has two faces. He is both lover and father, confirming his power and
domination in relations with Spanish women.
The Polish equivalent for the noun Spain, Hiszpania, belongs to the femi-
nine gender, and it provides a strong semantic support for the following apposi-
tion: A lady with a bloody temple, / Spain
12
. The gender of Spain strengthens
the effect of personification, used in an exclamation: Take, Spain, this bunch of
freedom! () We love you
13
. The Polish grammar appears to be very useful in
evaluating the two sides of the conflict. Due to the grammatical marking of the
nouns, the abstract phrase mentioned above, Fascism murders the Republic, in-
dicates the male murderer (Faszyzm) and the female victim (Republika). This dis-
tinction in turn makes the commonly used label the young Republic
14
fully com-
prehensible. The abstract notion of the young Republic is equipped with very
11
Quoted in Harry Gannes, How the Soviet Union helps Spain (New York: Workers Library Publ.,
1936), p. 15.
12
Wiktor Woroszylski, op. cit.
13
Jan Wyka, Madryt i Warszawa, in Hiszpaska Warszawianka.
14
Ibidem
136
concrete features of a beautiful, black haired girl, who will wait for her lover on
a bed of flowers
15
. The erotic overtones of such an image are beyond question.
Who are the murderers of the Republic? What do the fascists look like? The
man of power (both lover and father) comes from Europe: he is the Same, or to
use the poets words he [Swierczewski] was a Spaniard when fighting
16
. Fran-
cos military conquest is strongly associated with the notions of savagery, death and
blind destruction. There are two ways of explaining Francos cruelty. Firstly, it has
social roots: the War is viewed as a struggle with those who defend their economic
interests, and hence who hate the working people; secondly, it has a cultural
background: the invaders come from North Africa, thus the War seems to be a
repetition of medieval Islamic conquest.
The literary works repeatedly emphasize the sacrifice, discipline and unity of
the Republicans, fighting against en enemy who is sinisterly alien. Although the
geographical parameters of the War are established vaguely, the poets consequent-
ly view the capital of Spain as a place of a decisive battle. Red Madrid becomes
the Spanish Warsaw, and as such it draws the deepest sympathy of Polish read-
ers. What distinguishes the fate of the Spanish capital is its barbaric invader. We
are informed about the Moroccan divisions
17
or about the Moors who will
break into Madrid soon
18
. The enemies storming Madrid are marginalized in a
geographical sense. Labeling the enemies as the Moors entails time marginaliza-
tion too. The invaders come from the remote, barbaric past as the innocent victims
are decapitated with medieval swords
19
. It must be added that the model of the
second Reconquista was intensively exploited by Nationalists. Franco accused the
Republicans of being the traitors, and declared himself the defender of Spanish
tradition and culture
20
.
In July 1936 Dolores Ibarruri ended a radio speech with the following declara-
tion: The fascists shall not pass!. The Spanish phrase no pasaran!, used by Polish
writers, shows the practice of mingling of cultural signs taken from both the colo-
nizing and colonized cultures. The poems on Swierczewski incorporate numerous
foreign words and phrases, and create a specific Polish dialect. One of the poets
15
Adam Wayk,Ballada o czterech z trzynastej brygady, in Strofy o Generale wierczewskim.
16
Wiktor Woroszylski, op. cit.
17
Robert Stiller, Wiersze o generale wierczewskim, in Strofy o Generale wierczewskim.
18
Zofia Szleyen,Jeli zechcesz pisa, in Strofy o Generale wierczewskim.
19
Tadeusz Kubiak,Poemat o generale wierczewskim, in Strofy o Generale wierczewskim.
20
See Antony Beevor, The Spanish Civil War (London: Cassell, 1982), pp. 412-413.
137
21
Tadeusz Rewicz, Gwiazda Proletariatu, in Strofy o Generale wierczewskim.
22
Hugh Thomas words quoted in Antony Beevor, op. cit., p. 416.
declares: the words libertad adelante no pasaran remain, suggesting that, like the
new Polish language, El General Polacco Carino
21
will never die.
Polish colonial discourse should be viewed in a broader context. It seems to me
that an analysis of Soviet writing on the Spanish Civil War (by Koltsov and Ehren-
burg, for example) would probably strengthen the notion of an imperial war car-
ried on at home
22
.
138
Pau Freixa Terradas
(University of Barcelona, Spain)
Aspects of the Reception and Image
of Gombrowicz in Argentina
From the time of his first arrival in Buenos Aires in August of 1939, where as
of yet no one had so much as heard of his existence, until the present day, the figure
and life of Witold Gombrowicz has shown itself to be difficult to categorize both in
respect to the Argentine literary establishment and to the average reader. Never-
theless, the interpretation of his public persona, intellectual posture and his litera-
ture, though always somewhat tenuous, has evolved along certain lines.
From the nearly twenty-four years the Polish writer passed in that South Ameri-
can country rarely do we find articles that speak about his literature. Consequently,
it is difficult to speculate about how he was received there in those years. Gombro-
wiczs early attempts to situate himself, in one form or another, in the local literary
scene failed for various reasons, and the few connections he was able to make with
people associated with the magazine Sur or in other literary circles only served to
supply the anecdotes about the author that, over the ensuing years, contributed to
the legend he became, and to place him intellectually in the Argentine literary
scene in relation to his falling out with Borges. If it is clear that with the legendary
1947s Caf Rex collective translation of Ferdydurke there appeared a pair of very
interesting reviews in literary magazines, the novel passed from the public eye with-
out inspiring intense passions hot or cold and its author once again sank into near
total anominity. Even so, it is clear that Ferdydurke was read by at least some bud-
ding writers and intellectuals who with time were to be important in the diffusion
of the Poles work. He had still worse luck with the second and last Spanish lan-
guage version of one of his works. With the failure of The Wedding (1949) the
author would opt for a radical change in his promotional strategy in the nineteen-
fifties that took him farther from his original aims in Argentina. In this epoch he
would look to re-situate himself in the world of Polish letters, and then to gain the
139
recognition of the dominant European cultures, through his epistolary contacts
with Polish writers-in-exile and especially through the publication of his Diary in
the French Polish emigr magazine Kultura.
In this sense, the first decades of contact between Gombrowicz and Argentina
interest us, above all, for the gestation in this time of the whole series of key epi-
sodes that subsequently were to make up, with pertinent contributions of his disci-
ples and friends, the myth of the writer that has come down to us. Without a doubt,
these episodes were essential in the concrete configuration of his public image as a
personality, and also as a writer, insofar as it has conditioned to the extreme the
reading of his work.
In any case, the history of his reception, understood as a phenomenon with a
somewhat social dimension, we can not start to consider until the beginning of the
sixties. It is curious how Gombrowicz only began to be read in his adopted country
from the moment he abandoned it in 1963. This false coincidence is as logical as
it is strange. Gombrowicz had already for some time been dedicated to promoting
himself in Europe, where he saw more possibilities for recognition than in Argen-
tina. His intuition was correct, and his efforts were not to be in vain. When the time
was ripe, he simply went to Europe to harvest the fruits of his labour. As a conse-
quence of his growing fame in Europe he began to become famous in Argentina, a
country always sensitive to Paris.
It has to be noted here that as he grew more famous in Europe and word of his
genius started to arrive in Argentina, he had already spent twenty-four years of his
life there without hardly a critical article of interest being published. This is impor-
tant in the sense that those who were engaged in reviving the author in those years
of fame when he was already living in Europe were, generally speaking, the au-
thors friends, and the type of articles they published came larded with personal
memories and anecdotes about the authors life. The few articles that really ad-
dress his work, do so superficially and always from a biographical perspective. This
aspect is seen even more clearly if we compare it with the case of his reception in
France or Poland. In Poland his reception and the creation of a critical apparatus
followed a normal enough course, starting with the publication of the books, fol-
lowed by the appearance of criticism, lectures, polemics, essays, etc. In France it
was a little different, but, ultimately, did follow the normal pattern of the reception
of authors unknown to the dominant cultures, but well known and highly praised in
their country of origin. An important editor discovers an unknown or forgotten
masterpiece; a translation appears, often supported by a significant publicity cam-
140
paign, with the consequent critical reviews. From there the development continues
along the lines indicated above.
The case of Argentina is different. Gombrowicz was almost completely un-
known to the average reader, though some journalists, writers and people with
links to the cultural world knew of him to varying degrees. Some degree of embar-
rassment can be noted in the first articles presenting him, a certain uncomfortable-
ness in the form. It was not dealt with as either a discovery or rediscovery, or as
news of the international enthronement of a local author. At any rate, the amor-
phous nature of the formal problem was resolved with the obligatory biographical
note, a solution that allowed for the joyful inclusion of many an extravagant and
jocular anecdote that his life entailed. All of these notices, that rarely make men-
tion of his literature, further than a strict bibliographic enumeration, are to have a
crucial weight in the imaginary configuration of the authors figure which is in-
creasingly superimposed on the work itself. Obviously, this was to condition the
way he was read, making favourites of the authors autobiographical or self-refer-
encing texts to the detriment of the works Gombrowich considered artistic, and
the cream of his production.
At any rate, in the 1960s, with his canonization in Europe, and especially from
the time of the issue number five of Eco Contemporaneo dedicated to him that
appeared in 1963, we find a marked augmentation in the number of people reading
his work. His audience is wider, though still, as always comprised of young people
and people of letters. This trend is reinforced by the appearance in 1964 of a new
edition of Ferdydurke, this time supported by a prologue by Ernesto Sbato, and of
the Argentine Diary in 1968, even though few will read it with the attention that it
will be lent years later. Despite of the presence of these and other books by the
author, the press continued to assign him little importance. In the few articles we
find in this decade he is still treated as an unknown. And, in truth, the Pole re-
mained a minor author on the margins of the literary scene.
A crucial factor to take into account in this first period of Gombrowiczs re-
ception in Argentina is the typology adopted in the mythification of his local life.
This will be conditioned, above all, by the display Miguel Grynberg effects in his
magazine Eco Contemporaneo. It must be noted here that the article becomes im-
portant in the context of the particular magazine it is published in and its relation
to the target audience of that magazine. In those days, Eco had become one of the
most important underground youth magazines in Argentina. It was through its
pages that key writers of different countercultural movements, especially the beat-
141
niks, were imported in the sixties. The attention called to Gombrowicz by Eco
heralded the increasing perception of the Pole as a marginal figure, an outsider,
provocateur, etc. The articles dedicated to Gombrowicz in the issue number five,
were loaded with personal anecdotes that emphasized the extravagant and icono-
clastic aspects of his personality. Thus, from the time the legend began to grow
around him, due to these articles and those that followed, the reading of his litera-
ture will feel the weight of this biographical and radicalized context, and his works
will be often perceived as provocative, extravagant and as desiring to be marginal.
Such a reading may be considered unnecessarily narrow and limited. In contrast to
other icons of Eco, the desire for centrality in Gombrowicz is beyond question.
Once again it is instructive to compare the situation in Argentina with how he was
perceived in France, where he was also seen as avant-garde, launching his discourse
from the margin, but where, however, it was clearly understood that the will of this
discourse was aimed directly at the center, whether to occupy it or collapse it. The
fully central place Gombrowicz was accorded in the Polish system of letters pro-
vides the starkest contrast to the reception in Argentina.
Among his readers in Argentina, in this period of increasing popularity follow-
ing his departure from that country and the subsequent successes he enjoyed in
Europe, were a series of young writers who desired a renewal of Argentine letters.
In particular, he was to have a certain influence on some writers associated with
the magazine Literal, such as Luis Guzman, Germn Garca, and, most notably,
Osvaldo Lamborghini, who were also to contribute to the cultivation of this partial
and restricted vision of Gombrowiczs figure and work. We should also think about
the subversive and anti-academic content of the morelliana Cortzar dedicated to
the Pole in The Hop-scotch that was a specie of Bible for many youth of the age. In
any case, the radicalized or partial perception of the author and the consequent
supremacy of the biographical focus in the reading of his work are two constants
that from the start will govern the visualization of the mark of Gombrowicz in
Argentina and will continue to consistently subordinate the alternative visions we
will find evolving.
Nevertheless, the 1970s bring us the consideration of Gombrowicz as drama-
turge. In fact, his works for the theatre were virtually unknown to the average read-
er further than their bibliographic enumeration accompanying those few notes that
were occasionally appearing in the newspapers cultural supplements. However,
the translation of The Wedding had gotten into the hands of the young Argentine
director Jorge Lavelli, who produced the work for the Paris stage with great suc-
142
cess that resulted in his becoming well known in European theatrical circles, though
as yet he was completely unknown in his home country. When leading Buenos
Aires cultural institutions decided to bet on Lavelli and planned his return and
popularization in the city, Lavelli once again chose to stage a work by Gombrow-
icz. With Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy, not only Lavelli, but also Gombrowicz would
be discovered by a good part of the capitol and the countrys theatre-going public.
Thanks to the spectacular success of the production, Gombrowicz went from being
a virtual unknown, to being well known as a playwright! On one hand, he became,
and is to this day, a cult figure for the world of local theatre. On the other hand, the
copious press the stage production generated brought his work to the attention of
many more strata of Argentine society to which he had been previously unknown.
The stage production of The Wedding in 1981 by Laura Yusem was to reinforce this
tendency. Although this work was not as successful, and did not garner such good
reviews, the notices in the press were again abundant. The return of Gombrowicz
to the scene, again in the hands of a director very much in fashion, was announced
to be the seasons great theatrical sensation, which shows at least the level of pop-
ularity among the local audiences that theatre critics and cultural journalists would
attribute to the Polish author. The idea of the perception of the author closely tied
to his work as a dramatist, coupled with the already classic image of the outsider
and provocateur of the inevitable biographical notes which preceded every article
about him in the press, was entrenched by the incredible quantity of notices related
to the two aforementioned stage productions. If the amount of interest they gener-
ated is surprising, no less surprising is the scarcity of serious criticism or reviews
providing commentary on his literary works, in a decade that had seen new editions
of many of those works come out, mainly in Spain. It is a paradox that this author,
who detested the theatre and never saw any of his works performed, became rela-
tively popular in his adopted country only as an author of works for the stage.
Right around the time these articles about Yusems production of The Wed-
ding begin to appear in the press, Ricardo Piglias Artificial Respiration will be pub-
lished and begin to be read with fervour. This novel, even more than being the first
and best example of the rewriting of the figure of Gombrowicz, introduces a new
perspective on the intellectual legacy of the Pole in Argentina that will give a new
version, expanded, though still restricted, of the pre-existing Argentine view of the
author. In every way, Piglias critical contributions, to which are added later those
of Juan Jos Saer and others, enrich the preceding views always built upon bio-
graphical poses. As such, what it will do, above all, is more deeply colour them, and
143
in that way reinforce them, making even more difficult the birth a view of the au-
thors work free from the weight of his figure.
Through the metaphoric figure of the exiled Polish philosopher, Vladimir Tar-
dewski, the literary counterpart of Gombrowicz, Piglia introduces a new view of
the author, his literary position, and the semantic gestures of his posture and dy-
namic course of his life. Nevertheless, Pigliaa novelistic meditation does not set
out as such an analysis of the Poles artistic work, but rather considers some of his
certain, specific intellectual premises. These premises and the global examination
it makes of the figure of Gombrowicz, are not considered as things unto them-
selves, but instead used to reflect on national literature, one of the central themes
of the novel. Thus, the themes in Gombrowicz which interest Piglia most are those
that speak specifically about Argentina and those related to the nation as a con-
cept, for instance, the relation between the individual and the nation, between the
centre and the periphery, the consequences of these for the artist, etc. As much as
Piglias first thematic group seems, basically, to feed off the Argentine Diary and
other texts that are autobiographical to varying degrees, the second is drawn from
other parts of the Diary, and, clearly, from a global reading of all his works and also
from the analysis of the significance of Gombrowiczs life, lived in two countries
peripheral to the metropolitan cultures. It is that Piglia and Saer see in the life,
work and thought of this foreign artist and intellectual someone who would come
to complete the long tradition of outside views of Argentina initiated by Pedro de
Angelis a very useful revelation for the elucidation of certain aspects around the
concept of national life, as much in the abstract as in the specific case of Argentina.
These considerations will bring Piglia and Saer to a reformation of Argentine liter-
ary tradition and the birth of the modern in it. It is precisely in these years Gom-
browiczs place in that tradition is being formulated and reformulated with great
attention to the relation or non-relation of the Pole to different members of the
Sur magazine group, above all, Jorge Luis Borges. The dubious association of these
two figures started by Piglia and Saer has been a considerable dead weight in the
collective literary imagination of Argentina ever since. Quite paradoxically, in many
cases, Gombrowicz functions in imagination only through Borges, an author to
whom he attached an indifference and enmity as proverbial as this association es-
tablished by Piglia and Saer. The charisma of each of the two authors encouraged
that perspective.
The superior quality of Piglias essays about Gombrowicz, the extraordinary
diffusion, repercussion and critical attention that Artificial Respiration received in
144
the 80s, and the seminars that Piglia himself gave at the University of Buenos
Aires, on one hand, increased the popularity and the number of readers Gombro-
wicz had in Argentina, but on the other hand were to very much condition his
reading to the standpoint we would call national. This quantitative and qualita-
tive movement solidified the earlier biographicalism in the reception of the Poles
work, brought with it a renewed interest in his figure and again favoured the read-
ing of a reduced series of texts related to Argentina and according to the theoreti-
cal postulates unleashed in his popularization by Piglia and Saer. If it is true then,
and not without a certain irony, that Piglia proclaimed Gombrowicz to be the best
Argentine writer of the 20th century, and that Saer demanded an Argentine read-
ing of his work, this reading they proposed and at the same time conditioned, will
stick closely to the national aspects that that can offer us, and the Polish author
will continue to be considered an external agent who, if meditating on the country,
is doing so from an exterior point of view. This horizon of expectations which is
forming in the 80s will actually impede the objective reading of Gombrowicz,
something that any other Argentine writer would get, just because their work is not
branded in national terms, and his will be read only in relation to the patriotic
tradition without ever coming to be integrated in it.
It is not until the nineties that the first critical studies of any size or weight
begin to appear that, at last, attempt to reflect on the poetics of Gombrowicz. Ger-
mn Garca demands in The Style and the Heraldy a de-localized reading of the
Poles artistic work. However, because his new reading is above all a psychoanalytic
one it, too, would fall into the trap of the stereotypical biographical viewpoint.
Other critical works will choose to continue to explore the fictional recreation of
the author initiated by Artificial Respiration. Witoldo, or The Foreigners Gaze by
Guillermo David is decidedly along these lines Piglia has begun. Moreover, the
same old anecdotes about the writer will keep cropping up in the different fictional
Gombrowiczs that continue appearing. In many cases the various writers that in-
troduce him into their works are seeking more to make literary use of his figure,
conscious of the interest he awakens in the Argentine reader and themselves fasci-
nated by the Poles manifest extravagances, than to make a critical analysis of his
work or to become a real intertexual accomplice or critic. Considering the sheer
number of examples we find of authors recreating or playing with the figure and
image of Gombrowicz, it is indeed quite startling the absence of clear examples of
texts reflecting his artistic influence or other forms of literary intertextuality on
local writers.
145
During recent years the tone of the reading of Gombrowicz in Argentina seems
to have changed considerably, returning to the as yet unconditioned view of the
first readers of critics of 47s Ferdydurke, or, if you wish, a more broad and free
focus. This change seems, in a good part, due to the publication of the complete
works by the editorial Seix-Barral with the promotion and distribution machinery
an edition like that brings to bear and the host of celebrations and homages related
to The Year of Gombrowicz (2004), that commemorated the centennial of his birth.
The result is that now, for the first time, the bookstores of the Rio de la Plata are
full of his books.
We will have to wait some years in order to see how evolve this sensation of
constant rediscovery of Gombrowicz in Argentina, the biographical tendency in his
reception and his representation in the imagination of the reader, marked by a
stronger presence of the figure of the author, than by the simple reading of his
work, also necessarily conditioned by preconceptions about the life of the author.
Bibliography:
1. Gombrowicz, W., Diarios, Seix-Barral, Barcelona, 2005.
2. Gombrowicz, W., Diario argentino, Beatriz Viterbo editora, Buenos Aires, 2001.
3. Gombrowicz, R., Gombrowicz ntimo, Ediciones del Dragn, Madrid, 1987.
4. Piglia, R., Respiracin artificial, Seix-Barral, Buenos Aires, 2004.
5. Saer, J. J., El concepto de ficcin, Seix-Barral, Buenos Aires, 2005.
6. Garca, G. L., El estilo y la herldica, Atuel, Buenos Aires, 1992.
147
IV. TRANSLATION
STUDY
149
Arijana Medvedec
(Piaget Institute, Lisbon, Portugal)
Croatia and Portugal:
Meeting Points through Literary Translation
Croatia and Portugal are two geographically distant countries whose peoples
nevertheless share a common Christian and Mediterranean background. Thus,
despite the early disappearance of the independent Croatian state in 1102, and the
sixty years period of the Portuguese loss of sovereignty from 1580 to 1640, they
have established a series of political, social and cultural contacts and have even
suffered mutual influences. It seems that this mosaic is much more intricate and
complex than it is known both to the general and academic public. There is every
reason to believe that, due to the delicacy of some historical contexts, many of
these meeting points were often dissimulated or simply hidden, and that new find-
ings may contribute to creating a more realistic picture of the past, and conse-
quently, of the present. So, the first International Conference on Iberian and Sla-
vonic Cultures provided an excellent opportunity to account for the existing evi-
dence and, more specifically, to highlight the areas where little or no research has
been done so far.
The first contacts can be traced back to the Middle Ages, to Croatian, and
especially Ragusan, pilgrims coming to St. Jacobs sanctuary in Compostela, Spain,
not only by the French way via Bordeaux, but also by sea, along the Portuguese
coast, and through its ports
1
. Besides these early pilgrims, the 11
th
century also
1
Most information is taken from Nikica Talan, Hrvatska Portugal: kulturno povijesne veze kroz
stoljea / Crocia Portugal: Relaes Histrico-culturais no Decorrer dos Sculos (Zagreb: Drutvo
hrvatskih knjievnika / The Croatian Writers Association, 1996).
The book was also presented in Lisbon in March 1997, and belongs to the collection The Rela-
tions Library of MOST / THE BRIDGE, asopis za meunarodne knjievne veze / Croatian Jour-
nal of International Literary Relations, published by The Croatian Writers Association. The collec-
tion is bilingual, and presents extensively documented and annotated overviews of historical and
cultural contacts between Croatia and a number of other countries, including Australia and New
150
witnessed the presence of some Croatian scientists, military commanders and princ-
es at the service of the Iberian Peninsulas Arab dominators like, for example, Her-
man Dalmatin / Hermanus Dalmata
2
, a philosopher, astronomer, astrologist and
the first translator of the Koran into Latin. There is also evidence of many Portu-
guese sailors and merchants coming to Dubrovnik during the 13
th
and 14
th
centuries.
As a matter of fact, the Republic of Dubrovnik or Ragusan Republic was, due
to its deeply rooted seafaring and trading tradition, responsible for the most part of
these contacts since, up to the beginning of the 19
th
century, it remained the only
free Croatian territory and thus the most powerful source of Croatian national
identity. From a practically inexistent 7
th
century village, Dubrovnik grew into the
15
th
century central port for the whole East Adriatic coast, supplied with a series of
advanced civilization attainments, such as the sewage and the water supply system,
a medical and pharmaceutical service, an old peoples home and an orphanage,
and a legal base for the prohibition of the slave trade. Its Golden Period lasted
throughout the 16
th
century, and its fleet of approximately 300 ships sailed to all
the Mediterranean ports and up to Flanders and England, while Ragusan mer-
chants could be found doing business in the Americas and the in Portuguese In-
dies, especially Goa. Ragusan presence in Goa can be dated between 1530 and
1535, and although the history of the St. Blasius community they established there
has not been fully researched yet, it certainly was an example of mutual friendship
and successful business relations.
However, during the course of history, Croats were more than once forced to
side with Portuguese enemies. Some of these events also took place in the Indies,
more specifically in the failed Portuguese attack on Diu in 1530, when Croats fought
for the Muslim Indian governors, and again, in 1358, in the also failed Turkish
attack on the same town, in the meantime subjected to the Portuguese rule, when
they integrated the Turkish armada. More details might be known when the two
manuscript travel accounts written by a Croat called Juraj Hus in the 16
th
century,
apparently completely unknown in Portugal, are duly researched
3
.
Zealand, Brazil, Chile, France, Italy, Hungary, Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Great Britain
and the Holy See.
The journal itself is another precious source of information since it publishes articles on Croatian
writers literary output both in the country and abroad, as well as information on the reception of
world literature in Croatia. Also, about a third of it is dedicated to translation of Croatian, mostly
contemporary, literary works into English, German, French, Spanish or Italian.
2
Curiously there is a book on Hermanus Dalmata in the National Library holdings: arko Dadi,
Janko Paravi, Herman Dalmatin (1996).
3
Nikica Talan, Hrvatska Portugal: kulturno povijesne veze kroz stoljea / Crocia Portugal: Re-
151
Unfortunately, the contacts made on opposite sides of the battlefield did not
end there. Philip IIs Armadas in 1580 and 1585 also had plenty of Croatian men
aboard, since from the 14
th
century onwards, but especially during the 16
th
and 17
th
centuries, Ragusans sided with the Spanish, the most powerful fleet of the time,
offering official or private services as sailors or higher officials to Spanish commer-
cial or war ships. It is important to stress that much of the historical evidence on
the topic has been produced through research according to a specifically Croatian
field of interest aimed at obtaining a clearer insight into the long tradition of
Croatias most famous seafaring families of captains and sailors.
Furthermore, it would be most interesting to contextualize and even translate
into Portuguese a curious juvenile book, a historical novel of adventures Jaa Dal-
matin, potkralj Guderata / Jaa Dalmatin, Viceroy of Gujarati
4
by Ivana Brli-
Maurani (1874 1938)
5
, which also takes place in the Portuguese Indies. The
novel was not well received at the time, and thus has remained little known in
Croatia and practically unheard of in Portugal. Its writer was maybe the most im-
portant feminine voice in all Croatian literature, often called Croatian Andersen
for the virtuosity of her storytelling, or Croatian Tolkien for the abundance of
Slavonic mythology in her writings. Due to the value of her children and of juvenile
prose, which is a synthesis of unique life forces, idealism, natural expression and
delicate humour, and a series of pedagogical works, she was twice proposed for the
Nobel Prize (in 1932 and 1938), and was the first woman writer to be admitted as
member by correspondence to the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (1937)
6
.
laes Histrico-culturais no Decorrer dos Sculos (Zagreb: Drutvo hrvatskih knjievnika / The
Croatian Writers Association, 1996, 32 36).
4
Ivana Brli-Maurani, Jaa Dalmatin, potkralj Guderata / Jaa Dalmatin, Viceroy of Gujarati,
(Zagreb: Knjiara Vasi, 1937).
From now on, Croatian titles will be quoted, when possible, together with their already published
Portuguese or English translation. When no such translation exists, an English title will be provid-
ed by the author of the article and dully annotated.
5
Ivana Brli-Maurani essentially wrote two types of stories: fairy tales for younger children, full
of exotic mythological elements and beings of the pre-Christian world of the Croats, such as Prie
iz davnine / Tales of Long Ago (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 1916), and adventure stories for school
children, full of sentimental and humoristic elements, such as udnovate zgode egrta Hlapia / The
Marvellous Adventures and Misadvetures of Hlapi the Apprentice (Zagreb: Hrvatski pedagoki
knjievni zbor, 1913). Her works have been translated into all more important world languages,
and in 1971, a book prize named after her was established to foment writing for children and
young people.
6
Slobodan Prosperov Novak, Povijest hrvatske knjievnosti, vol. II: izmedu Pete, Bea I Beograda
(Split: Marjan tisak, 2004, 198 201).
Translation study panoramic views
152
The development of Croatian Portuguese cultural contacts was most directly
enhanced in the very last years of the 15
th
century, and throughout the whole 16
th
century by the fact that the Republic of Dubrovnik accepted hundreds of Jews
fleeing from the Iberian Peninsula. By 1546 they already had a legally organized
and established a community whose main activity was transit trade and commerce,
and were respected as rich, clever, experienced and learned people. Although Por-
tuguese Jews were not as numerous as the Spanish ones, there were two very im-
portant people among them: Diogo Pires / Didacus Pyrrhus Lusitanus / Didak Pir
(1517 1599), one of the biggest Renaissance Latinist poets, who created an out-
standing poetic monument to Dubrovnik, and Amato Lusitano / Amatus Lusita-
nus (1511 1568), one of the leading European doctors and natural scientists of
the time, who dedicated the 6
th
volume of his pedagogical medical work Centrias
to the city and its inhabitants. Both of them have been quite extensively researched
on, either in Croatia or, more recently, in Portugal, especially in the academic cir-
cles.
Contrary to the 16
th
century, which was the golden age of both Portuguese and
Croatian cross-cultural contacts and literary production, the following two centu-
ries were much less prolific as a result a period of decline in Dubrovnik economy in
the 17
th
century, caused by the shift of maritime trade routes from the Mediterra-
nean to the Atlantic and by a terrible earthquake and fire that hit the town in 1667,
also partially due to the Portuguese loss of sovereignty. Anyway, the contacts con-
tinued and switched to some important new fields, such as musicology and geogra-
phy.
Thus, a Croatian theologist, pan-Slavist and musicologist called Juraj Kriani
/ Georgius Crisanius (1618 1683) became involved with Lusitanian culture through
his supervision of the printing of the Portuguese King John IVs works of music in
Rome. It is not certain if Kriani ever visited Portugal, but he surely indebted the
Portuguese, and the world history of music and music sociology for that matter,
with his theoretical writings and international contacts. The life and work of this
baroque scientist was much researched in the pioneering work of the Croatian
theologist Ivan Golub (1930), who also promoted Croatian Portuguese scientific
collaboration in the areas of music history and, somewhat incidentally, in early
Christian iconography.
In the 18
th
century the contacts revived, and Dubrovnik opened a consulate in
Lisbon in 1758, thus establishing the most direct and official state link between the
two countries. The consulate proved to be the source of extremely valuable politi-
153
cal and commercial information, and functioned until 1806, nearly up to the offi-
cial end of the Republic in 1808. Also, instrumental were the Amazon discoveries
following the decision by King John V of Portugal and Ferdinand VI of Spain to
ratify the borders of their South-American colonies. They needed mathematicians,
astronomers and geographers, and a Croatian Jesuit called Ignacije Szentmrtony
(1718 1793) was summoned from Rome to Lisbon to join the Brazilian mission.
Promoted to royal mathematician and astronomer by Joseph I, he actually went to
Par and Mariu, and produced maps that were the highest expression of the Ge-
ography of his time. Unfortunately, political interests changed and the expedition
resulted in the imprisonment of Szentmrtony in Portugal for seventeen years due
to the unauthorized humanitarian and pedagogical work he had carried out with
the Indigenous population, and the overall political hostility towards the Jesuits.
Contrary to some other cases, Szentmrtonys name is registered in some Portu-
guese and Spanish encyclopaedias although there are still a lot of unveiled aspects
concerning the lives and work of both of these most peculiar humanists.
When dealing with cultural contacts through literary translation it is the Portu-
guese translation of Marko Maruli / Marcus Marulus (1450 1524) European
bestseller De institutione bene beateque vivendi per exempla sanctorum that made an
impact, although it remained the only Croatian work translated into Portuguese
throughout the following four centuries. This father of Croatian literature, an
extremely competent humanist, wrote his poetical and didactic works either in Latin,
Italian or Croatian, and drew on classical, pagan and Christian medieval traditions,
being thus comparable to Dante, Francisco S de Miranda or Gil Vicente. De institu-
tione was first published in Venice in 1506, and up to 1586, there were, together
with the Latin original, 56 editions in seven European languages. The Portuguese
translation came out in 1579, and became famous due to the preference for it shown
by St. Francis Xavier, a Franciscan priest, who used it on his mission to Goa. Marulis
work has been the subject matter of a number of conferences, studies and publica-
tions, some of which are part of the Portuguese National Library holdings
7
even if
7
http://opac.porbase.org and http://sirius.bn.pt/sirius/sirius.exe/query accessed on February 7 and
October 4, 2006 presented some thirty titles either by Maruli, or on him and his work, including
samples of Bene vivendi translation.
The National Library PORBASE The National Union Catalogue, which includes the holdings
of the National Library and of the other member libraries, was searched for the entries Croatia,
Croatian and Serbo-Croatian, as well as for some specific names of authors, book titles and
topics expected to be found according to the personal information of the author of the article.
154
published in Croatian. But the literary and theological reception of this most po-
pular Croatian book has not yet been thoroughly researched, especially in terms of
a didactic influence on Portuguese moralist and religious writers, and the ambigu-
ous attitude towards it by the Inquisition.
There is now a leap from Marko Maruli to the end of the 19
th
century, the
period that witnessed the beginning of sustained literary translation. There is also
evidence that the major Portuguese authors were known to the main Croatian schol-
ars and writers before that, even at the beginning of the century, because either the
authors themselves, or their Portuguese motives and themes were referred to in
the Croatian originals. Moreover, the translation from Portuguese into Croatian
took off much earlier than that from Croatian into Portuguese, the result being
that, nowadays, Portuguese culture is much closer to Croatian than vice-versa.
The first translations included two episodes from Cames Os Lusadas, namely
Tempestade and Adamastor
8
, dated 1884, and Eugnio de Castros (1869
1944) symbolist drama Belkiss, published with an overview of Castros work in 1897
9
.
The latter was very well received and even influenced some Croatian theatrical
works at the time. Unfortunately, Trinidade, Coelhos (1861 1908) story Me
came out only in 1939, included in an anthology of the most beautiful world sto-
ries
10
. Shortly after, there were two Jos Maria Ferreira de Castro (1890 1974)
novels that had marked the beginning of social realism in Portugal, namely Emi-
grantes in 1940
11
, apparently not rendered from the original, and A Selva, in 1940
or 41, also apparently not based on the original, but accompanied with a foreword
situating the author and the phenomenon of rubber exploitation in Brazil
12
. Then,
Joo de Barros prose adaptation of Cames Os Lusadas, destined for the juve-
nile public, appeared in 1952
13
, and the legendary Mariana Alcoforados (1640-
1723) Les Lettres portugaises, traduites en franais in 1953
14
.
8
Translated as Morska pijavica and Adamastor by Ante Tresi Pavii. Cf. Nikica Talan, Hr-
vatska Portugal: kulturno povijesne veze kroz stoljea / Crocia Portugal: Relaes Histrico-
culturais no Decorrer dos Sculos (Zagreb: Drutvo hrvatskih knjievnika / The Croatian Writers
Association, 1996, 197 198).
9
Translated as Belkis by Mato Ostoji. Cf. idem, 198 200.
10
Translated as Mati by Jaka Sedmak. Cf. idem, 200 201.
11
Translated as Emigranti by Ante Rojni. Cf. idem, 201 203.
12
Translated as Kauuk, zeleni demon by Dragutin Bian. Cf. idem, 201 203.
13
Translated by Josip Tabak. Cf. idem, 203 204.
14
Translated as Portugalska pima prevedena na francuski i tiskana prvi put u Parizu kod Clauda Barbi-
na by Ivo Hergei, the founder of the comparative studies at the Zagreb University. Cf. idem, 200
203.
155
The 50s accompanied Ante Cettineo, a writer, teacher and translator, dedi-
cating himself to systematic translation of contemporary Portuguese poetry. In 1954,
he presented seven Portuguese poets: Jorge de Sena, Fernando Pessoa, Miguel
Torga, Alberto de Lacerda, Alexandre ONeill, Raul de Carvalho and Rogrio Fern-
andes, in 1956 more Cames, Natrcia Freire and Sebastio da Gama, and quite
boldly, some 63 Modernist Brazilian poets, and in 1965, more Cames, Antnio
Nobre, Mrio de S-Carneiro, more Pessoa, Adolfo Casais Monteiro and Miguel
Torga
15
. Cettineo was not only the first to translate Pessoa into Croatian, but also
to point out the outstanding particularity of his poetic personality.
In 1961, it was the turn of Nikola Milievi, a journalist, anthology maker,
literary critic, translator from nearly all Romance languages, professor at the Za-
greb Faculty of Philosophy, and a fertile poet and literary critic, to translate three
Pessoas heteronyms (Alberto Caeiro, lvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis) with a
bibliographical note on the poet. Then in 1965, he published sixteen Cames son-
nets together with an extensive presentation of the poets life and work. He was
also an excellent anthology maker, and his anthologies, where he included a wide
variety of authors from medieval Galician-Portuguese poets to Gil Vicente, Cames
and Almeida Garrett, Joo Dinis, Antnio Feij, Antnio Nobre, Pessoa and Natlia
Correia, were extremely important for presenting the Portuguese poetry to a wider
Croatian public
16
.
Another poet and translator from Romance languages, Drago Ivanievi, de-
veloped an interest in Portuguese poetry through his friendship with Natlia Cor-
reia. Thus, in 1963 he published her poem Cntico do Pais Emerso, the political
context of which allowed for a most favourable reception in Croatia. It was reis-
sued in 1975 as a separate book with the translators own illustrations and an exten-
sive presentation of contemporary Portuguese poetry from Teixeira de Pascoais to
Herbeto Helder
17
.
15
Translated in Mogunosti, nr. 2, a periodical from Split, and in Zadarska revija, nr. 3 from Zadar,
and in two anthologies: Suvremena brazilijanka lirika / Contemporary Brazilian Poetry (Belgrade:
Nolit, 1956) and Antologija svjetske lirike / An Anthology of World Poetry (Zagreb: Naprijed, 1965),
respectively. Cf. idem, 204 205. English translation by the author of the article.
16
Translated in Zagreb periodicals Republika, nr. 1, and Forum, nr. 11 12, and in Antologija svjetske
ljubavne poezije / An Anthology of World Love Poetry (Zagreb: NZMH, 1968), Zlatna knjiga panjol-
ske poezije / The Golden Book of Spanish Poetry (Zagreb: NZMH, 1972), Zlatna knjiga svjetske
ljubavne poezije / The Golden Book of World Love Poetry (Zagreb: NZMH, 1973) and Antologija
evropske lirike od srednjeg vijeka do romantizma / An Anthology of European Poetry from the Middle
Ages to Romanticism (Zagreb: kolska knjiga, 1974), respectively. Cf. idem, 205 206. English
translation by the author of the article.
17
Translated as Pjesma o zemlji uskrsloj iz mora. Cf. idem, 206 207.
156
Before moving on to the most prominent and influential Lusitanian literature
researcher and translator, a collection of verse called Vijesti iz tvrave / News from
the Fortress, selected and rendered by Nikola Mareti, and published in 1980, has
to be mentioned. Despite the anthologys ideological and political intentions, aes-
thetic criteria were also accounted for, so it is still a faithful guide through contem-
porary Portuguese poetry. The biggest part is devoted to Fernando Pessoa, fol-
lowed by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen and Miguel Torga, and also including
Antnio Gedeo, Manuel da Fonseca, Antnio Borges Coelho, Mrio Dionsio,
lvaro Feij, Joaquim Monteiro-Grilho, Daniel Filipe, Jos Gomes Fereira, Jos
Rgio, Pipiniano Carlos, Joo Apolinrio, Carlos de Oliveira, Egito Gonalves
and Jos Terra
18
.
So in the 70s, it was Mirko Tomasovi, a now retired professor of the Zagreb
Faculty of Philosophy, who continued the work on translating the hallmarks of
Portuguese literature, as well as many Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and
Latin poets. He also further developed research and pedagogical work in Romance
literature from Renaissance to Romanticism, as well as in Croatian literature in the
West-European context, including Marko Maruli. His studies and publications also
include comparative references and deal with the literary reception of Portuguese
authors, and thus have a high scientific, pedagogical and even promotional value.
Fernando Pessoa is definitely the central figure of his work, so between 1973 and
1986 four books of his verse were published
19
, covering the heteronyms Alberto
Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and lvaro de Campos, as well as the orthonym Fernando
Pessoa in more than five thousand lines. He books also offered extensive surveys on
this heteronymous poetic personality and thus incorporated the poet biographically
and bibliographically into Croatian cultural background. Mirko Tomasovi has also
translated other Portuguese poets, such as Cames, Cesrio Verde, Mrio de Sa-
Carneiro, Alexandre ONeill, D. Dinis, Herberto Hlder, Jorge de Sena, Mrio Ce-
sariny de Vasconcelos, Eugnio de Andrade, Herberto Hlder and Sofia de Melo
Breyner Andresen. The most important contribution of the theoretical texts includ-
ed in these selections was the fact that he demonstrated a continuity in Portuguese
18
Nikola Mareti, Vijesti iz tvrave (Banja Luka: Glas, 1980). Cf. idem, 209 210. English transla-
tion by the author of the article.
19
Tomasovis books of Pessoas verse are Posljednja arolija / The Last Spell (Zagreb: 1973), Pomor-
ska pjesan / Ode Martima (Rijeka: 1976), Dvije poeme lvara de Camposa / Two Poems by lvaro
de Campos, a bilingual edition (Split: Logos, 1982), and Poezija / Poetry (Sarajevo: Veselin Masle-
a, 1986). Cf. idem, 177 185. English translation by the author of the article.
157
poetry, and thus corrected the idea that Cames and Pessoa were two self-made and
self-risen giants in otherwise narrow and marginal culture
20
.
Consequently, in the two last decades of the 20
th
century a tradition of modern
Portuguese poetry reception was already established as a Croatian cultural fact,
whose numerous manifestations vary from literary and translation criticism to public
lectures and poetry readings (such as on the fiftieth anniversary of Fernando Pes-
soas death in 1985), from recurrent adoption of Portuguese themes and motives to
conscious imitations of Pessoas poetical proceedings (the latter having already
produced a substantial corpus for literary and/or ethnological research), from di-
rectly addressing and honouring certain Portuguese poets to incorporating trans-
lated Portuguese verse into real-life situations
21
. And the fact that the Department
of Portuguese Language, Literature and Civilization of the Portuguese-speaking
Countries opened in 1982, establishing a two years Free Course in Portuguese
Language and Culture sponsored by the Cames Institute, further contributed to
increment the numbers of the Portuguese language and literature admirers. The
Course has been recently transformed into a full undergraduate course, and its
twenty-four year existence has already produced a group of eminent researchers
and translators, such as Ana Simeon, Borko Augutin, Simona Deli, Nina
Lanovi
22
, Snjezana Mihai
23
, Tatjana Tarbuk
24
, elimir Brala, the founder of
20
The selections include: Pet portugalskih pjesnika / Five Portuguese Poets (Zagreb: Drutvo hrvatskih
knjievnih prevodilaca, 1974) with Cames, Cesrio Verde, Mrio de Sa-Carneiro, Pessoa and
Alexandre ONeill, Prepjevi iz romanske lirike / Translations from Romance Lyric Poetry (Split: 1979)
with D. Dinis, Cames, Pessoa, Mrio de S-Carneiro, Mrio Cesariny, Eugnio de Andrade,
Alexandre ONeill, A. Maria Lisboa and Herberto Hlder, Potugalski kvartet / The Portuguese
Quartet (Zagreb: Znanje, 1984) with Jorge de Sena, Mrio Cesariny de Vasconcelos, Eugnio de
Andrade and Herberto Hlder, and Prepjevi iz romanskog pjesnitva / Translations from Romance
Poetry (Split: 1990), actually the 1979 edition enriched with verse by Sophia de Mello Breyner
Andresen and more Jorge de Sena. Cf. idem, 177 185. English translation by the author of the
article.
21
Two curious examples are mentioned by N. Talan. One is the case of a contemporary Croatian poet
Borben Vladovi who, after the death of Alexandre ONeill, published an in memoriam surrealist
poem in Zagreb daily Veernji list on February 10, 1987. The other is the inclusion of an lvaro de
Campus laude into an obituary of a family member, published in Zagreb daily Vjesnik on June 30,
1991. Cf. idem, 208-209).
22
More details on each persons contributions can be seen in idem, 213 218.
23
Snjezana Mihai translated Jos Saramagos Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo as Evanelje po
Isusu Kristu (Zagreb: V.B.Z., 2002). Retrieved from www.instituto-camoes.pt on February 7, 2006.
24
Besides publications in periodicals and journals, Tatjana Tarbuks translations, often done in col-
laboration with the Cames Institute and the Instituto Portugus de Livros e Bibliotecas, include:
Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta, Maria Velho da Costas Novas Cartas Portuguesas as
Nova portugalska pisma (Zagreb: Hrvatsko filoloko drutvo, 2005), Mia Coutos Sob a Varanda
do Frangipani as Pod stablom farngipanija (Zagreb: V.B.Z., 2003), Jos Saramagos O Ano da
158
the Department and it first head, and Nikica Talan, the present-day head and proba-
bly the most prolific of all of them. Besides a series of translated works
25
, Talan has
also published a series of pedagogical tools, such as a Portuguese Croatian /
Croatian Portuguese dictionary
26
, a grammar book, a history of literature, and
numerous studies in Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and contemporary Portu-
guese literature, especially poetry. Obviously, the studies of the Portuguese
Croatian contacts have also extended and covered a variety of fields ranging from
old to contemporary Portuguese literature, history especially that of the Discov-
eries
27
, philosophy
28
, linguistics and art, and have been presented in a number of
Morte de Ricardo Reis as Godina smrti Ricarda Reisa (Zagreb: V. B. Z., 2002), Memorial do Con-
vento as Sjeanje na samostan (Zagreb: V.B.Z., 2000), Antologija suvremenoga portugalskog pjes-
nitva / Antologia da Poesia Portuguesa Contempornea Portuguesa (Zagreb: Ceres, 1999), and
Antologija suvremene portugalske pripovjetke / Antologia do Conto Portugus Contemporneo (Za-
greb: Ceres, 1999). She also participated in the Umjetnost azuleja u Portugalu / The Art of Azulejo
Tiles in Portugal (Zagreb: Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti Gliptoteka, 2002), a trilin-
gual edition in Croatian, Portuguese and English. Retrieved from www.instituto-camoes.pt, http:/
/opac.porbase.org and http://sirius.bn.pt/sirius/sirius.exe/query on February 7, 2006.
25
Nikica Talans most important anthological and translation works include: Rasputen ritam: an-
tologija pjesnitva brazilskog modernizma / Loose Rhythm, An Anthology of Modernist Brazilian Po-
etry (Zagreb: Hrvatsko filoloko drutvo, 2004), Razvaline ljubavi: mala antologija najnovijeg portu-
galskog pjesnitva / Ruins of Love: A Short Anthology of Most Recent Portuguese Poetry (Zagreb:
Hrvatsko filoloko drutvo, 2004), A Problemtica Metafsico-religiosa na Poesia de Jorge de Sena /
Metaphisical and Religious Questions in Jorge de Senas Poetry (Zagreb: Hrvatsko filoloko drutvo,
2003), Pjesnitvo Eugnia de Andradea i srednjovjekovna galjeko portugalska lirika / Eugnio de
Andrade and Medieval Galician Portuguese Poetry (Zagreb: Hrvatsko filoloko drutvo, 2001), U
poast zelenoj papigi / In Honour of the Green Parrot (Zagreb: Hrvatsko filoloko drutvo, 2004),
Lus de Cames Lrica Completa II as Kad ljubav razumom vodena bude (Zagreb: Ceres, 2002),
Pessoas O Livro do desasossego as Knjiga nemira (Zagreb: Konzor, 2000) and Ea de Queirs
Contos Escolhidos as Odabrane pripovjetke (Zagreb: Hrvatsko filoloko drutvo, 2005). Retrieved
from www.instituto-camoes.pt, http://opac.porbase.org and http://sirius.bn.pt/sirius/sirius.exe/query
on February 7, 2006. English translation by the author of the article.
26
Nikica Talans Hrvatsko portugalski rjenik / Dicionrio Croata Portugus (Zagreb: kolska
knjiga, 2004) with about 25,000 Croatian entries and 25,000 phrases and expressions, and Portu-
galsko hrvatski rjenik / Dicionrio Portugus Croata (Zagreb: kolska knjiga, 2004), with about
30,000 Portuguese entries with pronunciation, 30,000 phrases and expressions, basic grammar
and a list of abbreviations, are by far the best dictionaries of the kind and can be trusted as quality
translation tools. Retrieved from http://opac.porbase.org and http://sirius.bn.pt/sirius/sirius.exe/
query on February 7, 2006.
27
In 1989, the April edition of UNESCO Courier was dedicated to Portuguese Discoveries. Thus,
Ana Simeon wrote a text on Ferno Mendes Pinto, adding the translation of four chapters of
Pintos Peregrinao, and another one on Maruli, Diogo Pires and Kriani, while Stjepan Veka-
ri wrote on maritime and commercial connections between Portugal and the Republic of Du-
brovnik.
Also, on the occasion of the 500
th
Anniversary of the Discovery of America, elimir Brala pub-
lished two texts on Portuguese discoveries: one on the discoveries of Ceuta, Brazil, China and
159
periodicals and journals, as well as in separate books and masters and doctoral
thesis
29
.
Unfortunately, the above-mentioned Croatian tradition of receiving, adopting
and absorbing Portuguese cultural elements is not paralleled by the situation found
in Portugal. However, the Portuguese have been offered a few opportunities. One
of them was in 1986 when The Croatian Writers Association issued no.3 of the
already mentioned journal Most / The Bridge with three texts in Portuguese, namely
Mirko Tomasovis theoretical text on literary history entitled Reales Literrias
Croato lusitanas, the translation of a contemporary Pavao Pavliis story Spo-
jene posude / Vasos Comunicantes, and the translation of twelve poems by anoth-
er Croatian poet, Danijel Dragojevi
30
. It is a pity that the National Library hold-
ings searched for the purpose do not include at least one copy of the journal. But
they include some other interesting things and offer some more opportunities to
make contacts with Croatia. Firstly, there are all the existing Portuguese Croatian
/ Croatian Portuguese dictionaries, some bilingual works sponsored by Portu-
guese institutions, and quite a few titles referring to Marko Maruli. Secondly,
there is an apparently random choice of books and brochures, and languages they
are printed in for that matter, which range from the topics such as Croatian state
borders, cuisine or paper mills to the Croatian Parliament, the history of the Croatian
language and architecture, and include books in Croatian, Italian, English, Ger-
man or French
31
. But thirdly, there are however a few Portuguese translations of
Japan, and the other on colonial policy towards Castilla, the colonization of Asia and Ferno
Mendes Pintos travels. The texts were accompanied with the translation of Pro Vaz de Camin-
has letter to King Manuel, and with chapters from Pintos Peregrinao. Cf. Nikica Talan, Hrvats-
ka Portugal: kulturno povijesne veze kroz stoljea / Crocia Portugal: Relaes Histrico-culturais
no Decorrer dos Sculos (Zagreb: The Croatian Writers Association, 1996, 213 218).
Talans Hrvatska Brazil: kulturno povijesne veze / Crocia Brasil: Relaes Histrico-culturais
(Zagreb, The Croatian Writers Association, 1998) also deserves to be mentioned here..
28
Ljerka Schiffler analyzed the philosophical connotations expressed by Pessoas heteronym Ber-
nardo Soares in Livro de Desassossego. Cf. idem, 213 218).
29
Further details in idem, 213 218.
30
Translated by the Portuguese lecturer at the time, Rui Loureiro, and elimir Brala.
31
Only the books referring to humanistic topics will be listed here: Milan Rado, Dicionrio de
Srvio e Croata Portugus e Portugus Srvio e Croata (Oporto: Porto Editora, 1997), Radoslav
Runko, Rjenik portugalsko hrvatski, hrvatsko portugalski (2001), Milan Mogu, A History of the
Croatian Language (1995), Charles Bn, Sudbina jedne pjesme: Carmen de Doctrina, Domini Nos-
tri Iescu Christi Pendentis in Cruce, Marci Maruli (1994), Mostra in occasione del convegno interna-
zionale Marco Marulic poeta croato e umanista catollico, una porposta per lEuropa del terzo millenio
(1998), Marko Maruli, Epistola ad Adrianum VI. P.M. (Lisboa: Biblioteca Nacional, 1994), O
Humanista Croata Marko Maruli: Exposio Comemorativa do 550 Aniversrio do Seu Nascimen-
160
Croatian authors, including two Miroslav Krleas books of stories: O Grilo sob a
Cascata, a choice of four stories, and Enterro na Cidade de MariaTeresa, both
translated from a French translation and published in 1961
32
, and quite a few Ivo
Andris titles in different languages: A Ponte sobre o Drina, apparently translated
from English in 1962 and existing also in Italian, French and Garman, O Ptio
Maldito in a recent Portuguese 2003 translation from the original, as well as in an
English, French and Spanish translation, and A Velha Menina in a recent 2003 edi-
tion, probably republished from the previous one dating from 1963, which has no
indication of the source text and which also exists in Spanish and German
33
.
Obviously, the aim of the 60s translations was to offer a common reader an
insight into the Yugoslavian literature of the time, so in some cases less concern
was taken about mentioning the source text or the procedures applied to its ren-
dering into Portuguese. Nevertheless, the choice of Krlea and Andri was a good
one: while the first dominated the 20
th
century Croatian literary, and even social,
scene by his volcanic personality and gigantic work, the latter was the finest expres-
sion of the art of storytelling based on local Bosnian, central Balkan mentality, and
the only Nobel prize the men of letters in those countries have ever won.
to (2001), arko Dadi, Branko Fui, Croatian Glagolitic Epigraphy (1999), Jean-Louis Depier-
ris, Ivan Lackovi Croata (1997), Tomo Bosanac, Nikola Tesla: Moji pronalasci (1990), Andre
Mohorovii, Nedeljka Batinovi, Architecture in Croatia: architecture and town planning (1994),
Mislav Jei, Kroatien im Herzen Europas: Mediterrane und Mittleleuropische Kulturlandschaffen
kroatiens, eljko Sabol, Croatian Parliament (1995), International Symposium Southeastern Eu-
rope 1918 1995 (Zadar, 1995, published 1996), Marijan Sunjik, La Croatie entre la guerre et
lindpendance (1991). Retrieved from http://opac.porbase.org and http://sirius.bn.pt/sirius/
sirius.exe/query on February 7, 2006.
32
Miroslav Krlea, O Grilo sob a Cascata, translated by Irondino Teixeira de Aguilar from Le cricri
sous la cascate (Lisbon: Livros do Brasil, 1961), and Enterro na Cidade de MariaTeresa, translated
by Irondino Teixeira de Aguilar from Enterrement Thrsienbourg (Lisbon: Livros do Brasil,
1961).
Curiously there is also a book of studies by Marijan Matkovi, La vie et loeuvre de Miroslav Krlea,
translated from the Serbo-Croatian original by Janine Matillon (Paris: UNESCO, 1977).
33
The titles include: Ivo Andri, A Ponte sobre o Drina, translated by Fernando Moreira Ferreira and
H. Silva Letra (Lisbon: Europa Amrica, 1962), Il ponte sulla Drina, translated by Bruno Meriggi
(Verona: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1967), Il est un pont sur la Drina: chronique de Vichgrad, translated
du serbocroate by Georges Luciani (Paris: Plon, 1961), Die Geliebte des veli Pascha: novellen,
translated by Milo Dor and Reinhard Federmann (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Bucherei, 1962),
O Ptio Maldito, translated by Lcia and Dejan Stankovi (Lisbon: Cavalo de Ferro, 2003), The
Damned Yard and Other Stories, translated by Celia Hawkesworth (London: Forest Books, 1992),
La Cour maudite (Paris: Stock, 1962), A Velha Menina, translated by Ilse Losa and Manuela Del-
gado (Lisbon: Bibliotex, 2003), A Velha Menina, translated by Ilse Losa and Manuela Delgado
(Lisboa: Livros do Brasil, 1963), La seorita / El lugar maldito: Cuentos, translated by Mariano
Orta Manzano and Jos Antnio Bravo (Barcelona: Lus de Ceralt, 1986), and Das Fraulein:
Roman (Verlag DTV, 1960).
161
A closer look at Miroslav Krlea
34
(1893 1981), whose work amounts to 80
volumes of novels, dramas, stories, poetry, essays, diaries and memories, will de-
fine the writer as deeply rooted in the historical and social environment of his home-
town Zagreb, which in turn was one of the stages where the fall of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire after World War I, the birth of the first South Slavonic state,
World War II and the rise and development of Titos communist Yugoslavia could
be seen. His best novels
35
are sophisticated and extensive texts written within the
tradition of the Middle-European intellectual novel and existential perspective of
a mans destiny. The most famous dramas
36
, still widely performed, deal with mor-
al and social disintegration of Zagreb high society, while the stories
37
, the most
prestigious genre realizations in Croatian literature, deal with three big themes:
the suffering in the First World War, the neurotic Croatian intellectuals conflict
with his snobbish middle-class environment, and the financial rise and moral fall of
the middle-class. But certainly one of the most emblematic Krleas works, and the
one that would represent an enormous challenge for the translator, is the poetic
compendium Balade Petrice Kerempuha / Petrica Kerepuhs Ballads (1939), written
in the Kajkavian dialect of the Croatian language and in a hybrid idiosyncratic
language that is mixture of Latin, Hungarian, German, Italian and other lexemes
and stylemes. An expression of socially and nationally oppressed popular Croatian
spirit, The Ballads are at the same so universally tragic and so specifically national
that it is difficult to render them in any other language, including standard Croatian.
This gigantic opus was rendered into Portuguese in two pocket-size books in
the Livros do Brasil project Coleco Miniatura, intended to present the most
famous world writers to the general Portuguese public. Thus they also included
samples of the Yugoslavian literature of the time, considered a minor one. But
while Enterro na Cidade de MariaTeresa (1961) brings no other information be-
sides the text itself, O Grilo sob a Cascata (1961) supplies a short, although not
34
Slobodan Prosperov Novak, Povijest hrvatske knjievnosti: izmeu Pete, Bea i Beograda, vol. II
(Split: Marjan Tisak, 2004, 231 246).
35
Such as Povratak Filipa Latinovicza / The Return of Filip Latinovicz (1932), Na rubu pameti / On the
Edge of Reason (1938), Banket u blitvi / Banquet in Swiss chard (1962) and Zastave / Flags (five
volumes published during his lifetime). English translation by the author of the article.
36
Namely the so-called Glembaj cycle: U agoniji / In Agony, Gospoda Glembajevi / The Glembaj
Family, and Leda, published between 1928 and 1931. English translation by the author of the
article.
37
Most of the stories were published and republished in journals and magazines over a period of
years, maybe the most famous collection being Hrvatski bog Mars / Croatian God Mars (1947).
English translation by the author of the article.
162
signed, introduction, which pretty much does justice to the author when it contex-
tualizes his stories within the history of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and es-
tablishes the war, the only unnatural and inexplicable phenomenon to which man
is helplessly submitted, and the decay of the old Austro-Hungarian and Zagreb
high classes, portrayed through the heroes psychological conflicts, as his favourite
themes. But the introduction somewhat oversimplifies Krleas aims when it claims
that his only struggle is to defend the Man and contribute to his fight in an artistic
way
38
. However, as Krlea has never been translated again, it was not possible to
analyze what improvements might be achieved when the translation is done from
the original, the only visible perspective of translating realia in the above-men-
tioned editions being the fact that native personal names and toponyms are adapt-
ed to Portuguese pronunciation and rendered without the original diacritics. Also,
the impact these two works might have had remains unknown, although the fact
that the pages of the two books were still uncut gives the impression that at least
the National Library examples have not been much read
39
.
The other translated Croatian writer, Ivo Andri
40
(1892 1975), can be char-
acterized as belonging to the amalgamated Balkan cultural background by birth,
heavy reliance on the culturally, ethnically and religiously mixed Bosnian heritage,
and a conscious choice to write in Croatian up to 1920, and in Serbian from then
on. Although this Yugoslavian unitarist also served as diplomat in many European
capitals between the two World Wars, he is at his best in historical chronicles where
narration is the means to express Bosnian genius loci, where the whole Balkan
history and its hopelessness, slowness and mute participation of foreign forces is
condensed into a sort of autistic merry-go-round, and where a strong inspiration in
the best Bosnian oral narrative tradition, European realistic novels or even film
techniques can be found. This narrative technique can be fully appreciated in Trav-
nika kronika / The Days of the Consuls (1945), Na Drini uprija / The Bridge on the
38
Both quotations are from Introduo to Miroslav Krlea, O Grilo sob a Cascata (Lisbon: Livros
do Brasil, 1961). English translation by the author of the article.
39
Actually, there was a curious warning on the inside cover which will be transcribed in full: Ad-
vertncia ao leitor: No seu prprio interesse, prezado Leitor, verifique se este livro mantm o
lacre branco que sela algumas das suas pginas; neste caso abra-o, por favor, como abriria um
livro no guilhotinado, isto , com uma faca, at com um simples carto, e assim no rasgar as
folhas. Se o livro estiver todo aberto, rejeite-o, pois indcio de que j foi lido. Defenda a sua
sade no manuseando livros usados. In Miroslav Krlea, O Grilo sob a Cascata (Lisbon: Livros
do Brasil, 1961).
40
Slobodan Prosperov Novak, Povijest hrvatske knjievnosti: izmeu Pete, Bea i Beograda, vol. II
(Split: Marjan Tisak, 2004), 288 294.
163
Drina (1945), Gospoica / The Woman from Sarajevo (1945), and Prokleta avlija /
The Damned Yard (1955), and was sufficient to make him the Nobel Prize winner in
1961.
The Portuguese translation of Gospoica as Velha Menina, dated 1963, be-
longs to the already mentioned Colecao Miniatura, and follows the same proce-
dure of text editing since it publishes no introduction or comment but only the text
itself, and adopts the transcription of Serbo-Croatian words without their specific
diacritics, thus probably following in the steps of the French translation despite the
curious option to quote the original Serbo-Croatian title as Ttulo da Edio Orig-
inal
41
. Unfortunately, the 2003 re-edition of the book within the series Coleco
Prmios Nobel by the magazine DN Iniciativas, the supplement of a Portu-
guese daily Dirio de Notcias, reproduces the 1963 text
42
.
On the other hand, the Portuguese edition of A Ponte sobre o Drina (1962) is
made from an English translation, and shows more concern about Serbo-Croatian
specificities. The text is accompanied by a glossary, somewhat ambiguously called
Glossary of Turkish, Orthodox and Austrian Terms
43
, which reveals the publish-
ers consciousness that oriental cultural background and the corresponding typical
expressions may not be perceptible to a common reader. Although the edition still
omits the diacritics, it chooses the closest possible Portuguese transliteration to
keep trace of the original pronunciation.
Besides these renowned authors, two more cases discovered in the Porbase
deserve to be mentioned as they complete the mosaic of Croatian works translated
into Portuguese, and explain at least one part of the adopted procedures, namely
the choice of French versions as source texts. As the capital of European culture,
Paris has always been much closer to both Zagreb and Lisbon, so, while the first
sought in it an inspiring artistic medium and a more universal language in which it
41
Ivo Andri, A Velha Menina, translated by Ilse Losa and Manuela Delgado (Lisbon: Livros do
Brasil, 1963).
42
Ivo Andri, A Velha Menina, translated by Ilse Losa and Manuela Delgado (Lisbon: Bibliotex,
2003).
Some more background information is given in Antnio Carvalhos article published on Novem-
ber 4
th
, 2003 in the same supplement by means of a simple account of the authors bio-bibliogra-
phy. However, there is two slight inaccuracies there when the sequence of completely separate,
although most important, books The Days of the Consuls, The Bridge on the Drina and The Wom-
an from Sarajevo is called a trilogy, and when the title of the first one is wrongly quoted as A
Histria de Bsnia, probably based on some English version that rendered it as The Bosnian Story.
43
Glossrio de termos turcos, ortodoxos e austracos in Ivo Andri, A Ponte sobre o Drina, trans-
lated by Fernando Moreira Ferreira and H. Silva Letra (Lisbon: Europa Amrica, 1962).
164
was easier to obtain international recognition and publicity, the latter used it as a
credible source of information on the most important events, trends and values.
One of these cases refers to two books of essays called Brevirio Mediterrni-
co
44
and Epistolrio Russo: de Brejnev a Jirinovski
45
by Predrag Matvejevi
46
(1932),
a Zagreb professor of French literature, writer and socially engaged figure. Al-
though Croatian literary criticism has been somewhat indifferent to the authors
purely literary achievements, he has become immensely popular, both at home and
abroad, through his Brevirio (1987), and saw it translated into many different
European languages, including Portuguese. The writers strong connections with
the French-speaking medium can be seen from the note on the inside cover of both
books stating that translation was done from the French version approved by the
author.
The other case
47
is that of O Dirio de Zlata
48
by Zlata Filipovi, an extremely
popular book that went through 15 editions from 1994 to 2002, thus proving the
fact that real-life unfortunate incidents like the war in Bosnia can trigger public
interest and foment re-editing of the already published works. The diary is also an
embodiment of some Balkan paradigms. The official language Zlata wrote in was
called Serbo-Croatian at the time, although she could not really define herself ei-
ther as a Serb or as a Croat, since she was from a Muslim Sarajevo family. And the
44
Predrag Matvejevi, Mediteranski brevijar (1987), translated as Brevirio Mediterrnico by Pedro
Tamen (Lisbon: Quetzal, 1994).
45
Predrag Matvejevi, Epistolrio Russo: de Brejnev a Jirinovski, translated by Pedro Tamen (Lisbon:
Quetzal, 1995).
46
Slobodan Prosperov Novak, Povijest hrvatske knjievnosti: sjeanje na dobro i zlo, vol. III (Split:
Marjan Tisak, 2004), 228 229.
47
Two more childrens titles that could not be traced in the Porbase were accidentally found in the
Lisbon Fnac bookshop after they had been previously read and enjoyed in Croatian. They are
Stanislav Marijanovi, Guia Familiar para Os Monstros L de Casa and Guia Familiar para Os
Monstros L de Casa II, dated 2002, and excellent examples of successful rendering of fictional
monsters names and characteristics into natural childrens Portuguese. They are both illustrated
by the author and have also been translated into Spanish, German and Polish.
Portuguese translation was done from the English one: A Family Guide to House Monsters (Lon-
don: Siphano Picture Books, 1998) and A Family Guide to House Monsters II (London: Siphano
Picture Books, 1998)
Croatian editions are Kuna udovita ilustrirani prirunik (Zagreb: Sipar, 1997) and Kuna u-
dovista ilustrirani prirunik II (Zagreb: Sipar, 2000).
48
As it was not possible to check all the 15 Portuguese editions of the diary, the edition Zlata Filipovi,
O Dirio de Zlata, translated by Maria do Rosrio Quintela (Oporto: Asa Editores, 2002) from
the French original Le Journal de Zlata (Paris: Fixot et ditions Robert Laffont, 1993) was worked
on.
165
suffering described in her diary could only become known to the readers after hav-
ing been published in a foreign language, French in this case. However, much con-
cern can be observed in the treatment of realia, probably due to the fact that it is a
teenage diary. It has an introduction retelling the genesis of the first publication,
and tries to reproduce as closely as possible the original graphics of the handwrit-
ten diary including family and friends photographs, drawings, notes and other kinds
of inscriptions. It also includes a simple and quite accurate pronunciation guide
establishing the equivalents between Croatian and Portuguese sounds and letters,
having thus managed to avoid transliteration of native names of people and places
So, apparently it was the war that, at the beginning of the 90s, made the gener-
al Portuguese public transpose the geographical distance between the two coun-
tries as the news from Croatia and Bosnia made the opening lines of news bulletins
and hit the front pages of newspapers and magazines. Luckily though, in the last
few years Croatia has also become an exotic tourist location persistently advertised
as the summer draws closer. Also the countrys preparations for the EU ascension
have drawn it closer to the rest of Europe, so more and more language schools
make potential offers of Croatian language courses, sometimes still wrongly an-
nounced as Serbo-Croatian ones. At least one institution was successful: Lisbon
Instituto Superior das Cincias do Trabalho e da Empresa and its Centro de Cultu-
ra e Lnguas managed to run the first two levels of a ten levels course in 2005. It
was a very enthusiastic start, and more initiatives of this kind are hoped for in the
future as there are more and more Croatian language enthusiasts looking for a
place to study
49
.
And probably it was not just by accident that in April 2006 the Portuguese
public had the opportunity to attend the first presentation of a small sample of
recent Croatian poetry translated into Portuguese by Tatjana Tarbuk. A luxury bi-
lingual monograph entitled Causa Portuguesa
50
and sponsored by the Croatian
Ministry of Culture offered Tahir Mujis poems
51
and Hrvoje ercars graphic
works in a mutually enriching comment upon their Portuguese travels, and upon
the similarities and differences between a more universal Atlantic culture and a
more intimate Mediterranean one.
49
The courses were taught by the author of the article, who is also frequently asked to give private
lessons of Croatian.
50
The monograph is to become part of the National Library holdings.
51
Slobodan Propsperov Novak, Povijest hrvatske knjievnosti suvremena knjievna republika, vol. IV
(Split: Marjan tisak, 2004, pp. 121 122).
166
Furthermore, a Lisbon publishing house called Cavalo de Ferro Editores
52
started to translate Croatian writers within their audacious project, launched in
2001, to translate exclusively from the originals. The project has been successful
and has obviously challenged some of the Portuguese translation canons by estab-
lishing a tight collaboration between the translator, the literary reviser and the
proof-reader, as well as by publishing the translators name on the front cover, by
making public presentations of the books with the presence of the authors and by
promoting their reception in the press. This innovative approach is clearly visible
from, for example, Nota prvia to their 2004 edition of Ivo Andris The Damned
Yard: it is a commitment to present the literature of less known countries, written
by frequently ignored or forgotten authors who nevertheless deserve to be shown
to the general Portuguese public. Thus, Eastern and Northern European coun-
tries, the Near, Middle and Far East, as well as South America were a natural
choice. And more specifically, the project states that in the case of Eastern Euro-
pean literature, nearly everything is still to be done due to historical circum-
stances that have been helping to maintain and strengthen the closure of these
countries to the West
53
.
The first Croatian literary work Cavalo de Ferro chose to publish was the above-
mentioned O Ptio Maldito by Ivo Andri. Its reception was accounted for in four
newspaper and/or magazine articles
54
. Two of them are in fact short pieces of news
that make a general presentation of the authors life and work, retell the main
points of the plot and convey its general meaning. They also repeat some of the
ideas contained in texts that accompany the translation with the conscious or un-
conscious intention of understanding the Balkan turmoil and inferring a possible
solution for it. Unfortunately, they also include some factual inaccuracies. Thus,
the article in Revista OP Revista de Msica e Cinema, no.11, labels the main char-
acter, Frey Petar as a Christian orthodox monk and not as a Catholic one, while the
52
The editors site www.cavalodeferro.com provides an excellent insight into the companys activi-
ties in general. It also offers links to book reviews of their titles.
53
Summarized from Nota prvia in Ivo Andri, O Ptio Maldito (Lisbon: Cavalo de Ferro Edi-
tores, 2003).
At present, Cavalo de Ferro Editores is preparing another Andris translation, as well as a Du-
bravka Ugreis one.
54
They are: anonymous, Ivo Andri, O Ptio Maldito, Cavalo de Ferro, 2003 in the magazine
Revista OP- Revista de Msica e Cinema, nr. 11, 2003, 45; Sofia Rato, O Ptio Maldito, Ivo An-
dri in Correio da Manh Magazine, May 11, 2003; Jos Prata, O Contrabandista de Histrias
in Independente, June 27, 2003; and Pedro Caldeira Rodrigues, Ivo Andri, O Poeta da Remota
Europa do Sul, Maio 31, 2003.
167
other, published in the Domingo Magazine supplement of a Lisbon daily Correio
da Manh, somewhat hastily calls the author malogrado, probably referring to
his somewhat pessimistic attitude in life, and assumes that it was this very title that
gave him the Nobel Prize. But Jos Pratas article published in Independente stud-
ies the structure of the novel, the process of narrating and the incorporation of
traditional oral storytelling techniques, and it correctly concludes that a prison is a
perfect place for a novel because it allows for an easy unity of time, space and
action, as well as for the business of smuggling stories, that is for continuous
embedding of a story inside a story up to the point where it all becomes an alienat-
ing activity of telling yourself into someone that is not you.
The extensive three-piece article by Pedro Caldeira Rodrigues called Ivo
Andri, O Profeta da Remota Europa do Sul, published in the Mil Folhas sup-
plement of a Lisbon daily Pblico, is by far the most complete and reliable. It gives
an exhaustive portrayal of the writers life, ideas and attitudes, knowingly drawing
on sources such as personal comments of some of the authors friends, the Nobel
Prize archives and some specific critical works
55
, although the analysis eventually
becomes quite a traditional one when it attempts to finding a global meaning of the
book. Curiously, Andri is characterized as a prophet from that remote Southern
Europe, showing that geographical distance still matters a great deal, and might
also be responsible for the wrong assumption that O Ptio Maldito is the only An-
dris work published in Portugal or for such exclusive syntagms as the Slav that
has told the Orient. But the article correctly characterizes Bosnia as the place
where the decisive meeting between the West and the East happens, and Andri
as the writer who gave Bosnian people a legible historical chart which the majority
could recognize themselves and identify with. As a result he also solved their iden-
tity problem of being part of a hybrid culture, where clear distinctions between
Western and Oriental elements have been gradually dissolved, and where religion
became a decisive element in ethnic identification. When analyzing the text itself,
Caldeira Rodrigues mentions its sober and lapidary style, drawn on the long tradi-
tion of popular oral poetry and legends. After a somewhat exaggerated warning
against Dantesque imagery at the beginning of the text, the novel is described as
being the quintessence of Andris narrative art, an allegory that gains universal
meaning through a series of mise-en-abme stories triggered off by simple misun-
55
Namely to Wayne S. Vicinich (ed.), Ivo Andric Revistited: the Bridge Still Stands (Berkley: Univer-
sity of California, 1995).
168
derstanding. A famous Istanbul prison is a social microcosm where all sorts of
nations, religions, human natures, characters and experiences come together, and
where successive narrators become successive listeners. Quite journalistically, the
prison is eventually seen as a curious anticipation of Gulag and Guantnamo. There
is also a short note on the quality of translation, already anticipated in a Nota
prvia by the editor, who points out the difficulties met by the translators in ren-
dering the dense writers style and his multiple lexical references. The problem
with local terminology starts already with the title: prokleta meaning something
like abandoned by God or damned, and avlija being a Bosnian popular term of
oriental origin for courtyard or yard, the whole being rendered as ptio maldito.
There are also plays upon words: a real first name Rastislav is the basis for an
actually inexistent variant, Raspislav is attributed to a person who is given to
excessive and uncontrolled spending, the pair being successfully rendered as Ras-
tislav vs. Gastislav. And the difficulties continue with the authors option to
transmit the ethnographic roots of these stories through vocabulary, using Serbo-
Croatian words of Turkish, that is, of oriental origin. Their archaic quality was
maintained through the use of words of Arab origin that have a similar relationship
to standard Portuguese. The translation also kept Serbo-Croatian orthography ex-
cept in the cases where this would lead to strange Portuguese pronunciation
56
.
The second Cavalo de Ferros Croatian choice was Miljenko Jergovis (1966)
Marlboro Sarajevo (2004)
57
. Jergovi
58
is the first worldwide known Croatian writ-
er who grew in the post-communist times, and is translated into English, German,
French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese at least. Having started with a series of
poetry books
59
, he built the biggest part of his work from books of stories, the first
and the most famous being Marlboro Sarajevo (1994), a collection of peculiar mel-
odramatic war anecdotes on destinies of common Bosnian people
60
. In 2003 came
56
Namely in the case of the Serbo-Croatian palatal sound j which is left out in such names as Mijo
> Mio or Vojislav > Voislav.
57
Miljenko Jergovi, Marlboro Sarajevo, translated by Arijana Medvedec (Lisboa, Cavalo de Ferro,
2004).
58
Slobodan Propsperov Novak, Povijest hrvatske knjievnosti suvremena knjievna republika, vol. IV
(Split: Marjan tisak, 2004, pp. 235 256).
59
His most famous books of poetry are Opservatorija Varava / Warsaw Opservatory (1988), Ui li netko
noas u vom gradu japanski / Is Someone Learning Japanese in This Town Tonight (1990), Himmel
Comando (1992), Preko zaleenog mosta / Over the Frozen Bridge (1996), Hausmajstor ulz (2001),
and an anthology of the most recent Bosnian poetry Ovdje ivi Konan / Conan Lives Here (1997).
60
In 1995, the collection Karivani followed, speaking about Sarajevo, the city where everything is
former; in 1999 it was the case of Mama Leone, a tender autobiographical book, close also to
169
out Dvori od oraha / The nut-tree palace, Jergovis most ambitious project, an epic
novel where the main character is the whole 20
th
century, the longest and most
dramatic century of human history, and where reality is conveyed through a series
of frescoes made of banal everyday objects while the references to global catastro-
phes or events map personal lives. On the other hand, Inallah, Madonna, Inallah
/ Insallah, Madonna, Insallah, considered his best book so far, relies on musical
tradition: sad Bosnian love songs, sevdalinke and Dalmatian songs, capela are
mixed with a traditional Muslim topos of a dead person who takes the role of the
storyteller. Jergovis stories are a mixture of classical and traditional storytelling,
they are both old-fashioned and provocative, while his sentences flow one from the
other as fluid yarn weaving texts about small people and everyday objects whose
existence acquires the dimension of destiny. He is surely one more magic Bosnian
bred in the spiritual soil that has already grown great storytellers like Matija Divk-
ovi in the 17
th
century, and the Nobel Prize Ivo Andri in the 20
th
.
The reception of Marlboro Sarajevo was analyzed on the basis of four maga-
zine and/or newspaper articles published on the occasion
61
. All are relatively short
and mostly dedicated to the books promotion through brief bio-bibliographical
notes on the author and the summary of the plot, although they always stress that
Marlboro is something different, deeper, something that appeals to feelings and
thus produces an effect on the imagination that news and documentaries have not
been able to achieve. The structure of the book is also commented on, being con-
sidered a novel shattered into stories, or to paraphrase Paulo Barrigas article A
Guerra aos Pedaos in Dirio do Alentejo, it is a construction of a goldsmiths
precision where each story is a precious stone shining with the help of the others.
Barriga also stresses the poetic quality of the text and its universal meaning, which
seems to emerge from the very Bosnian mentality, where love, beauty, incompre-
hensible vitality, friendship, laughter and the respect for differences under the uni-
ty imposed by the war owners, stand side by side with the horrors. However, some
journalists prefered to make a historical reading of the novel. Thus, Ricardo Lem-
oe in his article Marlboro Sarajevo stresses the fact that Jergovi is of ex-Yugo-
Historijska itanka / A History Book of Texts, dated from 2000, which is an autobiographical ac-
countancy of a generation whose world was built by their fathers, and who will too soon be substi-
tuted by their children because they have never really lived in their time.
61
They are: anonynous, Marlboro Sarajevo in the Expresso supplement Expresso Actual, A
Guerra aos Pedaos by Baulo Barriga in Dirio do Alentejo, Marlboro Sarajevo by Ricardo
Lemoe, and Ensaios sobre a Fragilidade e a Esperana by Pedro Caldeira Rodrigues in the
Pblico supplement Mil Folhas, June 2004.
170
slav origin, and sees the references to Tito as a cloud of vaguely nostalgic memory
of a country that ceased to exist. The article also reminds the readers of some
previously published Cavalo de Ferro books, namely of Ivo Andris O Ptio Mald-
ito (although it erroneously refers to it as belonging to the same collection), and
compares Jergovi to the Andri, Yugoslav Nobel.
Finally, Pedro Caldeira Rodrigues article Ensaios sobre a Fragilidade e a Es-
perana, published in the Pblico supplement Mil Folhas, curiously dedicates nearly
one third of the article to the explanation of the title of the book, probably because
the Sarajevo Tobacco factory is seen as an epitome of at least some continuity within
the Bosnian turmoil. Caldeira is well documented and already conscious of the lin-
guistic changes that took place in the ex-Yugoslavian countries, and thus classifies
Jergovi as a Croatian writer of Bosnian origin, and interprets the front cover infor-
mation on the translation done from the Croatian original as a death penalty of
Serbo-Croatian, the language institutionalized by the old Yugoslavia, the country
that ceased to exist. The stories themselves are characterized as stories of paradox,
written by someone who, knowing he couldnt stop history from happening, chose
to describe it. The culminating idea is that the only constant in life is the unpredict-
ability and effemerity of people and things. The writer is furthermore correctly pre-
sented through the most relevant bio-bibliographical details, except for a slight inac-
curacy that Marlboro was the first book Jergovi published. The article also mentions
that Jergovi has been widely translated and has gained a series of prizes, being com-
pared to Andri, although it does not make any reference to the oral narrative tradi-
tion both writers have sprung from. And the fact would be most pertinent in the case
of Marlboro since the text is very often a flow of nearly spoken sentences, full of
juxtaposed phrases, enumerations, corrections and everyday expressions, thus abun-
dantly drawing on typically Bosnian and ex-Yugoslavian realia, on local colour con-
veyed through real-life objects, local names, foods, habits, place descriptions, school
education processes, and even literary or comic strip references. Once these ele-
ments were understood as essential for the meaning of the text, and not just as mere
ornaments, the solution, which required exceptional linguistic dexterity on the part
of the translator and literary reviser, was to leave the original words, including per-
sonal names and toponyms, in their original spelling, and when absolutely necessary,
resort to the much hated footnotes, where these items were succinctly explained.
Thus the translation hoped to achieve a reasonable degree of fidelity in preserving
the original taste of the text while at the same time it construed a text that is legible
and readable to the general Portuguese public.
171
Finally, to summarize this long history of Portuguese and Croatian contacts, it
can be said that the two countries have recently managed to get a better hold of
their cultural relationships and have enlarged the scope of Croatian cultural ele-
ments that are generally known about in Portugal. However, there is a lot more to
be done. As it has been pointed out throughout the article, there are many scientif-
ic and cultural fields that remain undisclosed and open to research. This applies to
literary translation in particular, where Croatian poetry, both old and contempo-
rary, as well as the enormous production of short stories, theatrical works, and
childrens and juvenile literature is still to be discovered. Special attention should
be given to contemporary writers who grew into adulthood after the 90s war and
are now the spokesmen of the new pluralist and democratic Croatian society that is
trying to (re)integrate into the European Community it has always belonged to.
Obviously, Portuguese editors would make a giant step forward if they could afford
to publish less commercial titles, so seeking partnerships with leading Croatian
institutions may be a solution. Language barriers also need to be transposed, and
setting up language courses or even establishing a university course in Croatian
language and literature should also be considered once it has been proved that,
after a short period of time, it inevitably leads to the creation of an academic com-
munity able to engage in sustained research on Croatias culture, and subsequent
publicity.
Bibliography:
1. Anonymous, Ivo Andri, O Ptio Maldito, Cavalo De Ferro, 2003, Revista Op Revista De
Msica E Cinema, Nr. 11, Lisbon, 2003.
2. Anonynous, Marlboro Sarajevo, Expresso Actual Supplement, Expresso, 2004.
3. Andri, Ivo, O Ptio Maldito, Translated By Lucia And Dejan Stankovi (Lisbon: Cavalo De
Ferro Editores, 2003).
4. Andri, Ivo, A Ponte Sobre O Drina, Translated By Fernando Moreira Ferreira And H. Silva
Letra (Lisbon: Europa Amrica, 1962).
5. Andri, Ivo, A Velha Menina, Translated By Ilse Losa And Manuela Delgado (Lisboa: Livros Do
Brasil, 1963).
6. Andri, Ivo, A Velha Menina, Translated By Ilse Losa And Manuela Delgado (Lisbon: Bibliotex,
2003).
7. Barriga, Baulo, A Guerra Aos Pedaos, Dirio Do Alentejo, 2004.
8. Brli-Maurani, Ivana, Jaa Dalmatin, Potkralj Guderata (Zagreb: Knjiara Vasi, 1937).
9. Carvalho, Antnio, Ivo Andri Coleco Prmios Nobel, Iniciativas Supplement, Dirio
De Notcias, Lisbon, November 4, 2003.
172
10. Filipovi, Zlata, O Dirio De Zlata, Translated By Maria Do Rosrio Quintela (Oporto: Asa
Editores, 2002).
11. Maras; J., Dark Back Of Time (New York: New Directions, 2001).
12. Matvejevi, Predrag, Mediteranski Brevijar, Translated By Pedro Tamen (Lisbon: Quetzal, 1994).
13. Matvejevi, Predrag, Epistolrio Russo: De Brejnev A Jirinovski, Translated By Pedro Tamen (Lis-
bon: Quetzal, 1994).
14. Novak, Slobodan Prosperov, Povijest Hrvatske Knjievnosti: Raspeta Domovina, Vol. I (Split: Marjan
Tisak, 2004).
15. Jergovi, Miljenko, Sarajevski Marlboro, Karivani I Druge Prie 1992 1996 (Zagreb: Durieux,
1999).
16. Jergovi, Miljenko, Marlboro Sarajevo, Translated By Arijana Medvedec (Lisboa, Cavalo De
Ferro, 2004).
17. Krlea, Miroslav, O Grilo Sob A Cascata, Translated By Irondino Teixeira De Aguilar (Lisbon:
Livros Do Brasil, 1961).
18. Krlea, Miroslav, Enterro Na Cidade De MariaTeresa, Translated By Irondino Teixeira De Agui-
lar (Lisbon: Livros Do Brasil, 1961).
19. Lemoe, Ricardo, Marlboro Sarajevo, 2004.
20. Marijanovi, Stanislav, Guia Familiar Para Os Monstros L De Casa (Verona: Dinalivro, 2002).
21. Marijanovi, Stanislav, Guia Familiar Para Os Monstros L De Casa Ii (Verona: Dinalivro, 2002).
22. Novak, Slobodan Prosperov, Povijest Hrvatske Knjievnost,: Izmedu Pete, Bea I Beograda, Vol. Ii
(Split: Marjan Tisak, 2004).
23. Novak, Slobodan Prosperov, Povijest Hrvatske Knjievnosti: Sjeanje Na Dobro I Zlo, Vol. Iii (Split:
Marjan Tisak, 2004).
24. Novak, Slobodan Prosperov, Povijest Hrvatske Knjievnosti: Suvremena Knjievna Republika, Vol.
Iv (Split: Marjan Tisak, 2004).
25. Prata, Jos, O Contrabandista De Histrias, Independente, June 27, 2003.
26. Rato, Sofia, O Ptio Maldito, Ivo Andri, Domingo Magazine Supplement, Correio Da Manh,
Lisbon, May 11, 2003.
27. Rodrigues, Pedro Caldeira, Ivo Andri, O Poeta Da Remota Europa Do Sul, Mil Folhas
Supplement, Pblico, Maio 31, 2003.
28. Rodrigues, Pedro Caldeira, Ensaios Sobre A Fragilidade E A Esperana, Mil Folhas Sup-
plement, Pblico, June 2004.
29. Talan, Nikica, Hrvatska Portugal: Kulturno Povijesne Veze Kroz Stoljea / Crocia Portugal:
Relaes Histrico-Culturais No Decorrer Dos Sculos (Zagreb: Drutvo Hrvatskih Knjievnika /
The Croatian Writers Association, 1996).
30. http://opac.porbase.org
31. http://sirius.bn.pt/sirius/sirius.exe/query
32. www.instituto-camoes.pt
33. www.logos.it
Iberian and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Comparison Iberian and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Comparison Iberian and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Comparison Iberian and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Comparison Iberian and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Comparison Iberian and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Comparison
173
Barbara Pregelj
(University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia)
Kritof Jacek Kozak
(Koper University of Primorska, Slovenia)
Mapping the Literary Contacts
between Spain and Slovenia
I.
It is sad, but unfortunately true, that the sphere of contacts between Slovenia
and Spain in terms of literary and also broader cultural influences has not yet been
thoroughly examined. It is quite clear that what we can present here are solely the
influences of the larger Spanish on a smaller Slovenian literature. However, there
are traces of Spanish tradition and culture to be found in Slovenian spoken litera-
ture. There are, namely, references to the Spanish king in a Slovenian folk song
which seem to be one of the safest indications about the old age of the poem while
the Spanish have also been mentioned in a folk song about Lepa Vida [Fair Vida].
Regardless, because of this non-probed realm and apparent feeling of terra incog-
nita, Slovenian literary history tends to ignore even the smallest contacts and influ-
ences suggesting across the board that there have been none or, at least, very few.
A Slovenian saying about the Spanish village may provide an additional, albeit
self-evidence, of this statement. Perhaps it is precisely the same village as that in La
Mancha, the name of which even Cervantes did not want to remember. This saying
describes a quality that is unknown and distant, and in a parallel English version,
sounds like its all Greek to me.
Despite that, the older Slovenian literature, on the basis of certain similarities
in content, lends itself to ruminations about direct influences from Spanish litera-
ture and culture. For example, baroque theatre The Passion Play of kofja Loka,
1721 has been modeled after autos sacramentales, while baroque sermons repli-
cated Gracins conceptos, and the meditative prose mirrored Spanish mystic au-
thors. Furthermore, Spanish examples were also of substantial importance during
174
Romanticism, where the Spanish model was used in the transfer of Italian para-
digms (the mentioned folk song about Lepa Vida was used also by France Preer-
en, the Slovenian Romantic bard, in his rendition of the poem). Certain questions
about the Slovenian verse come to the fore during translation efforts (Stanko Vraz,
France Preeren in Romanticism) of Spanish romances, glosses, and seguidillas
(Oton upani in the period between the two World Wars). Among the classical
Spanish authors of the Siglo de Oro the priority has been rightfully assigned to the
translations of Cervantes Don Quixote (the first fragment was translated in 1890),
but also to Caldern, Lope de Vega, and Tirso de Molina (Oton upani, Janko
Moder, Danilo Gorinek, Matja inkovec, Joe Planini, Mirko Federico Ri-
javec, and Niko Koir).
It was not until after World War II though that an increase in the number of
translations of the prose [Blasco Ibez], and poetry, later followed by drama [both
by Federico Garca Lorca], could be noted. Yet the upsurge in the heterogeneity of
translations can be noticed only after the 1960s. Additional attention has been paid
to the Latin American authors together with more recent Spanish and Portuguese
classics (Miguel Delibes, Camilo Jos Cela, Javier Maras, Bernardo Atxaga, Jos
Saramago, and Fernando Pessoa).
Regardless of its modest volume, the extent of the contacts is still too large to
be rendered in one article. Therefore, while taking into account important anni-
versaries on the one hand, and the importance and influence of particular authors
of Slovenian literature on the other we will present only selected examples of all
three literary kinds: the prose (Miguel de Cervantes), poetry (Federico Garca
Lorca), and drama, that is, the case of performed plays.
II.
Cervantes Don Quixote was first translated into Slovenian in 1890, although
an escalation in interest could be noticed before that date. More significant rep-
resentatives of the generation of the Young Slovenians [Mladoslovenci] (Jan-
ez Mencinger, Josip Stritar, Janez Trdina, Fran Levstik, and Josip Juri) read it in
German, even though these translations of the period, as Trdina noted, had been
rather poor.
1
1
The Young Slovenians, in opposition to the Old Slovenians, was a group that had been active
in the second half of the 19th century and held a liberal or even liberal-democratic worldview in
tandem with a Slovenian nationalist bent. In terms of literary endeavours they supported realist
tendencies with enlightenment and romantic elements.
175
In terms of the reflection on the reception of Cervantes, Trdina (1830-1905)
appears particularly interesting from a number of points of view. He was among
those who had been swept off their feet by the great novelist. In accordance with
the times, Trdinas reading of Cervantes novel is geared solely towards the plot
and the main character:
Only one novel received the grace the old and always young Don Quixote.
He appeared to me somehow silly then, I liked reading the episodes, even better
the story, how the cloak-and-dagger novels that fuddled Dons brain and have at-
tacked me and many others are condemned to death. Especially that heavenly com-
ical story about the reign of the famous Sancho Panza. In Vienna I took these
books again and I liked them much better than the first time, in Rijeka I read them
twice more, each time with more pleasure. I even might read them sometime again
(Memoires, 173).
Trdinas memoires, revealing a safe distance of several years with which he
remembers his own youthful quixotic literal understanding of the cloak-and-
dagger novels, are interesting too, as a reflection of his personal attitude. His per-
severance at any price became obvious in his Rijeka period and also later on when
he wrote for the journal Ljubljanski zvon during which F. Levec labeled him a devil
while looking for a way to curtail him, seems similar to Don Quixotes actions.
Furthermore, Trdinas failure to understand his own time while living in a self-
created idealistic reality seems similar to a romantic, distinctly naive reception of
Don Quixote, especially in terms of the opposition between the idealistic and the
realistic, the high and the low, the magnanimous and the small-minded. Trdinas
attention towards folk creativity seems still to be quite romantic and he introduced
folk elements into his own literature (Fables and Stories about Gorjanci [Bajke in
povesti o Gorjancih], 1882-88). In that work, through his description of fables and
stories, Trdina not only realized Levstiks literary programme from The Journey
from Litija to ate [Popotovanje iz Litije do atea] (1858) about the fusion of the
auctorial and folk literature, but he also preserved the contrast between the sim-
ple, clear, concise expression and the midnight fantasy, which sees and believes
what in broad daylight not a living soul would see and believe, as Ivan Cankar
commented about Fables and Stories about Gorjanci in his essay on the Slovenian
modernist poet Dragotin Kette.
In Trdinas time, the interest in Cervantes can be ascribed also to the general
interest in prose as a consequence of the creation of the first Slovenian novel. Trdi-
na, who is believed to be one of the doyens of the Slovenian prose utilizes, namely,
176
quite similar narrative procedures to those Cervantes did. There is a narrative frame
(the narrator Jera) into which Trdina threads stories within a story (Under the Pear
Tree [Pod hruko]) claiming not to distinguish between holy and folk tales. Similar
to Cervantes, Trdina himself appears in his fables (The Treasure [Zaklad], Ivan
Slobodin). Yet, most of all, Trdina reaches for superstitions, folk imagination, fan-
tasy, and mythological-fairy beings (fairies, witches, water sprites, dwarves and gob-
lins). One would expect Trdina to distance himself from these themes yet, by not
doing so, in similar fashion to Cervantes, he thoroughly shakes the readers hori-
zon of expectation. The story frame that usually serves for the author to distance
him/herself from the narrative, because the inserted part does not always follow
empirical reason (M. Kmecl 1973/74: 74), is important for both, Cervantes and
Trdina. Nevertheless, it is possible to notice that by the introduction of flirting
between the two narrators of the two tales and the authors obvious favouring of
the second one, they appear to distance themselves from the narration. That dis-
tance though seems rather to be a proof of social pressures, real in Trdinas situa-
tion and projected in the case of Cervantes.
Simultaneous reading of Don Quixote and Trdinas opus Fables and Stories
about Gorjanci underscores another distinct element, the one linked to the fascina-
tion with a fictional and irrational way of thinking: the oral element. Through the
introduction of a second narrator, Trdina remains committed to the spoken word
and, hence, the auditive reception of literature. During the reading of Cervantes,
one also becomes aware of the fact that the process of reading was different to
todays quiet and solitary one. The flirtation with the spoken word and its auditive
reception in Slovenian literature is supported by Margit Frenks hypothesis about
the incremental change of habits during reading, offering the thesis that both ways
of reading, the quiet and the loud one, have co-existed for centuries. According to
G. Genette, it was not before the end of 19
th
century that the auditive reception of
literature became very limited. Even though the discussion of the auditive recep-
tion of Slovenian literature (or, for that matter, the genres that enabled it) exceeds
the limits of this analysis, the fact remains that Slovenian authors of the 19
th
centu-
ry, such as Trdina, Levstik, Jenko, and Tavar, introduced texts in which the co-
existence of both forms of reception has been well documented.
III.
Beside Cervantes Don Quixote which, in addition to the already mentioned
first Slovenian publication, also appeared in multifarious translations and adapta-
177
tions in 1933, 1935-37, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1972, 1977, 1978, 1988, 1989, 1993,
1994, and 2001 (Pregelj 2005b: 45-6), is Federico Garca Lorca the Spanish poet
and playwright who, as Jolka Mili, one of his translators put it, is so well known
and popular, that he does not need a special introduction to Slovenian reader-
ship,
The translations of Lorcas poetry appeared relatively soon: in 1943 four of his
poems (Ballad of the Sleepwalker [Romance sonmbulo], The Hunter [Cazador],
The Faithless Wife [La casada infiel], and Song of the Horseman [Cancin del jinete])
appeared in a translation by a well known Slovenian poet A. Gradnik and were
included in the anthology with the title Modern Spanish Lyric Poetry [Moderna pan-
ska lirika]. All four have been (in Gradniks translation), a decade and a half later
(1958), included in the selection of Lorcas poetry A Poem Wants to Be Light [Pesem
hoe biti lu].
2
Thus, it is possible to say that by now most of Lorcas seminal poems
could be read also in Slovenian.
3
Soon after these first editions, the Slovenian literary scene was enriched by the
translations of Lorcas plays: Mariana Pineda (1956), The House of Bernarda Alba
[La casa de Bernarda Alba, 1957], Blood Wedding [Bodas de sangre, 1972], Doa
Rosita the Spinster [Doa Rosita la Soltera o el lenguaje de las flores, 1978], The
Public [El pblico, 1991], Yerma (1994), and The cricket [El grillo, 1995]. In addition
to those dramatizations of his poetry Romance of the Moon [Romance de la luna],
and Lullaby [Nana] have been staged in theatre.
4
Many translators tackled Lorcas poetry, some of them poets in their own right:
Alojz Gradnik, Peter Levec, Joe Udovi, Niko Koir, Ciril Bergles, Jolka Mili,
Marko Kravos, and Ale Berger. It has to be ascribed to the importance of the first
translator (A. Gradnik) that even in later selections or anthologies, such as the
anthology of world poetry chosen by Slovenian poets Orpheus Chant, and the bi-
lingual edition of Lorcas poems of 1998, the original Gradniks translations have
appeared again even though he had made some rather severe semantic mistakes.
2
The selection was reprinted in 1969 and 1983.
3
In 1978 there appeared another selection of Lorcas poetry with the title Lorca, Cante jondo was
published in 1993, The Poet in New York in 1995, while a bilingual selection of his poetry Federico
Garca Lorca: Bilingual Edition in 1998. In different journals appeared Sonnets of the Dark Love
(trans. Ciril Bergles), and Suites (trans. Jolka Mili, Zdravko Vatovec, and Marko Kravos).
4
These texts have also been reprinted and performed as follows: Mariana Pineda in 1958, The
House of Bernarda Alba in 1958, 1994, and 2004, Blood Wedding in 1982, 1989, and Doa Rosita the
Spinster in 1990.
178
One of the best known of Lorcas poems, Song of the Horseman [La cancin
del jinete], is frequently understood as if it foretold the poets own death and has
been thus translated twice, once by A. Gradnik as a Song of a Knight, while the
other time by N. Koir who remained more faithful to the original calling it the
Song of the Horseman:
Trans. N. Koir
JEZDEEVA PESEM
Kordova.
Daljna, samotna.
rna kljusa, velika luna,
pest oliv v popotni torbi.
eravno poznam vsa pota,
nikoli ne pridem v Kordovo.
ez planjavo, skozi veter,
rna kljusa, rdea luna.
Smrt gleda name
s stolpov v Kordovi.
Joj, ta cesta brez konca!
Joj, moja ilava kljusa!
Joj, da smrt me aka,
preden prijezdim v Kordovo!
Kordova.
Daljna, samotna.
Federico Garca Lorca
CANCIN DEL JINETE
Crdoba.
Lejana y sola.
Jaca negra, luna grande,
y aceitunas en mi alforja.
Aunque sepa los caminos
yo nunca llegar a Crdoba.
Por el llano, por el viento,
jaca negra, luna roja.
La muerte me est mirando
desde las torres de Crdoba.
Ay qu camino tan largo!
Ay mi jaca valerosa!
Ay que la muerte me espera,
antes de llegar a Crdoba!
Crdoba.
Lejana y sola.
Trans. A. Gradnik
VITEZOVA PESEM
Kordova.
Daljna in sama.
Kobila rna, luna velika,
in olive v moji bisagi.
eprav poznam vse ceste,
nikdar ne pridem v Kordovo.
Na ravnini, v vetru
kobila rna, luna rdea.
Smrt me oprezuje
s stolpov v Kordovi.
Joj, kako dolga je cesta!
Joj, moja vrla kobila!
Joj, ko me smrt priakuje,
preden e pridem v Kordovo!
Kordova.
Daljna in sama.
Needless to say, there have been numerous differences that influenced the
character of these translations.
Koirs translation follows the original in that it pays attention to the (octosyl-
labic) verse. More importantly it preserves the assonance which is seminal to Lor-
cas melodiousness and rhythm, only occasionally using the pair u a instead of
o a, broken by the screams ay [ai] in the second to the last strophe of the
original poem. Regardless, Gradniks translation appears to be auditively more
effective on the basis of the first strophe that sets the tone for the entire poem,
while in Koirs attempt it comes through in a more lapidary fashion. Even though
179
Gradniks semantic deviations appear to have been caused not by the imperative of
the verse but rather by his inadequate knowledge of Spanish and the poetic re-
creation of the poem, it is his Slovenian rendition that nevertheless commands
serious respect.
Thus, it is possible to say that Slovenian translations of Lorcas poetry sprung
out of compassion for the poets tragic fate, yet they survived because the poems
themselves are immortal and eternal literary works of art.
IV.
In terms of drama, the theatre responsible for the popularization of Spanish
drama in Slovenia around the turn of the 20
th
century was initially solely the Pro-
vincial Theatre of Carniola, in those times still an inner Austro-Hungarian prov-
ince. It was only after World War I, already in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenians, that the theatre changed its name and became the Slovenian National
Theatre [Slovensko narodno gledalie]. The performance records go as far back
as 1867 and on the repertoire there were mostly plays from German and French
cultural space. This establishment mostly covered Spanish drama to the end of the
World War II. As already stated, only Spanish authors were taken into account,
while Portuguese were, more of less, left out. Interestingly, even though Lus de
Cames had not yet been translated at the time, in 1925 a note appeared in a
theatre programme on the 400
th
birth anniversary of the poet.
5
It praised the poet,
referring to his work as if it were known by the general public. If this were true, it
was only known in foreign translations.
The same conclusion as above can be made for the theatre. Namely, before the
end of World War I there were sporadic performances of Spanish texts. Their pres-
ence increased somewhat during the period between the two World Wars, while
the real landslide of performances, similar to the situation in the field of poetry and
prose, took off after World War II.
The first play to have ever been performed on the Slovenian stage was, accord-
ing to the sources, actually not a classic from the Golden Age in Spanish theatre
but a then contemporary text that, furthermore, was not even written in Spanish,
but in Catalan, namely ngel Guimers Martha of the Lowlands [Terra baixa, 1896]
in October 1908. Accidentally, this has been without a doubt the most performed
5
It has to be noted that a translation of a selection from Cames epic poem The Lusiad by Andrej
Capuder, otherwise a noted translator of Dantes Divine Comedy, appeared as late as in 1976.
180
drama on Slovenian stages of this pre-World War II period, receiving altogether
eight different performances: only a month later it was put on stage in Trieste, in
1912 it was staged in Maribor and then again in Trieste. In 1913 the theatre goers
saw it in Celje where it was repeated in 1919, while in 1920 one could see it in
Trieste and Maribor again. Interestingly, after this sudden outburst, Guimer as
good as disappeared from Slovenian stages. The number of these performances is
truly startling and offers little explanation, although the most plausible one would
be in the parallel, national freedom-seeking aspirations of the then Catalans and
Slovenians under Austro-Hungarian rule.
The Lowlands must have been a resounding success, since the following year,
1909, the Provincial Theatre of Carniola in Ljubljana performed Jos de Echega-
ray y Eizaguirres The Great Galeoto [El gran galeoto, 1881]. This was only five
years after the playwright received the Nobel Prize for literature. By the following
month, it was also was performed in Trieste, the then lively location for Slovenian-
speaking theatre.
The year 1912 was a successful one for Spanish drama. It started with Echega-
rays last appearance on Slovenian stage, Madman or Saint [O locura o santidad,
1877] and was followed immediately by the first performance of a classic, Caldern
de la Barcas The Mayor of Zalamea [El alcalde de Zalamea, 1643] in an excellent
translation by our modernist poet Oton upani. Ever since, Caldern has re-
mained a steady guest on Slovenian stages, visiting them at least once almost every
decade.
The period between the two World Wars brought about tectonic changes with-
in this region. Political change also trickled down to into cultural issues. Thus, in
1920, Slovenian National Theatre was established. At that time, theatre life in
Ljubljana had already been well developed. There were daily papers of different
political orientation with their respective critics. Yet, the first and foremost among
them, Josip Vidmar, a man who through his critical public appearances managed
to have the public consider him an arbiter elegantiarum of the period, was the editor
of his own magazine called The Critique [Kritika, 1924-26].
In theatres, once again, attention was first paid to more recent texts. This time,
it was an important representative of the generation which had rejected Echega-
rays melodramatic feelings on stage, that is the generation of 1898, namely Jacinto
Benavente y Martnez. His play Bonds of Interest [Los intereses creados, 1907] was
first performed in Ljubljana in 1925 (and later once again in Maribor in 1959).
181
The theatre programme for the play appears to have taken it very inconse-
quentially. Even though Benavente received his Nobel Prize only three years be-
fore the production there, very little has been written about him. His entire person-
ality and role in the Generation of 1898 has been described only through the means
of three skits from his life.
An even more suspect article appeared next and was signed only with initials
D. A. (most probably by a poet, translator and critic Anton Debeljak), and was
placed under the heading Miscellanea, namely The Spanish Theatre. There, the
author talks about the topic in rather general terms. Namely, Spanish theatre audi-
ences are, according to the author, quite benevolent. Among all the artistic forms,
it is theatre that interests populace the most and it is the theatre that offers mostly
courtly comedies, since the necessity of a natural, folk stage has, apparently, not
risen yet. At the same time, theatre criticism does not yield any particular fruit. The
problem, states the author, is that the audience calmly accepts inadequate actors
choruses as well as unpretentious scenic apparati that are in general still under the
spirit of 1880 (13). According to the author, only three theatres exceeded the
average at that time: La Princesa, Reina Victoria and Apolo, where luxurious per-
formances on the French model take place. Their main problem the article states,
is the agenda: There is no real programme (ibidem), the author complains. This
lack of a programme may be seen in the choice of plays: for the most part only new
plays are staged. Also, quite a large number of plays are translated, such as French
vaudevilles etc. It is difficult to judge whether this introduction is to be read
condescendingly or was only supposed to be understood as a manner of speech.
Regardless of the authors intentions, the fact is that Benaventes play was
received with what might, despite the historical distance, be called excessive criti-
cism. Josip Vidmar wrote almost a page-long diatribe, first against the too obvious
idea of characters becoming puppets and, secondly, against the local crew. Even
though the actors were the best that the theatre had to offer (Marija Vera/Frani-
ka Eppich, the first Slovenian academically schooled actress, a Russian migre
Marija Nablocka/Marija Nikolajevna Borislavska with Ivan Levar and Fran Lipah),
nobody could satisfy the scathing critic. Unfortunately for Benaventes piece, the
real intention behind Vidmars invective was the attack against the director of the
play, Josip Osipovi, another Russian migr. Vidmar was, namely, on a crusade
against the Russian contingent, claiming that they did not deserve such an illustri-
ous position in Slovenian theatre since they did not have a proper command of the
language etc. To be honest, even if that might have been true, he wholly disregard-
182
ed their artistic capacity. Be it as it may, even if this suggestion is of little help to
Benaventes play, it is important to note that Vidmars was an astute, yet very sub-
jective recounting of the performance and not a definitive commentary upon the
play, which is why it has to be taken with at least a grain of salt.
Even so, it is not difficult to notice that after this altercation it took Slovenian
theatre quite a while before another Spanish play was staged in Ljubljana. This did
not happen before 1944, with Agustn Moreto y Cabanas Disdain met with Disdain
[El desdn con el desdn, 1676] under the title Dona Diana. It means that it took
almost two decades after Vidmars scorn such was the influence he exerted over
the cultural life even though in 1935 the musical section of the National Theatre
successfully staged Manuel de Fallas A Brief Life [La vida breve, 1905/1913].
The aforementioned reluctance towards staging plays from Spain changed sig-
nificantly after World War II. The latest period was, quite properly, introduced in
1947 by the giant of Spanish literature, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra with four of
the eight new interludes, namely The Cane of Salamanca [La cueva de Salamanca,
1611?], The Vigilant Sentinel [La guarda cuidadosa, 1611?], The Miracle Show [El
retablo de las maravillas, app. 1585], and The two chatterboxes [Los dos habladores].
This time around, it was the classical literature that received due attention, be-
cause Cervantes was followed by Calderns second appearance with the comedy
The Phantom Lady [La dama duende, 1629] and Flix Lope de Vega Carpio with
his Lady Nitwit [La dama boba], both in 1949.
It was not before 1950 that Federico Garca Lorcas [La casa de Bernarda Alba,
1945] was introduced. It was followed by more Lope de Vegas pieces, Fuente Ove-
juna, The King and the Farmer [El villano en su rincn] in 1951 and Premeteno dekle
[La discreta enamorada] in 1952.
Those mentioned were joined in the following decades by their additional pieces
as well as completely new names, such as Tirso de Molina (Don Gil of the Green
Breeches [Don Gil de las calzas verdes], 1954), Alejandro Casona (Trees Die Stand-
ing [Los rboles mueren de pie 1958, 1960), Fernando Arrabal (Picnic on the Battle-
field [Picnic], 1962; The Architect and Emperor of Assyria [El arquitecto y el empera-
dor de Asiria], 1968), Ramon Mara del Valle-Incln (Divine Words [Divinas pala-
bras], 1973), Fernando de Rojas (La Celestina, 1984) and others. Even though the
number of performed Spanish and Portuguese playwrights is still quite limited, it is
no longer possible to say that theatre from the Iberian Peninsula is presently a
completely unknown quality. The contacts have become if not more intense then,
at least, more up-to-date.
183
Slovenia has just had the pleasure of watching Compaa Nacional de Danza,
with its ballet triptich Rassemblement / Castrati / Por vos muero, the choreography
of which was done by the famous Spanish choreographer Mr. Nacho Duato. Fur-
thermore, at the and of April 2006, a premiere of a ballet Wings [Alas] took place in
Santander. Mr. Duato, in collaboration with the Slovenian theatre director Toma
Pandur, created this ballet along the script lines of the Wim Wenders film Sky
above Berlin.
In terms of translations of literature, there has been a lot going on for some
time. Every effort has been put into the introduction of these literatures to one
other. With such prospects, it is our contention that it will only be a downward
spiral from now on. And, in the end, one might even finish speaking of the Sloveni-
an influences on Iberian literatures and cultures. So far, such names as Andrej
Blatnik, Alojz Ihan, Drago Janar, Sreko Kosovel, Ale Debeljak etc. have been
translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan. However, the number is steadily
increasing.
Yet, in terms of a swallow that brings the spring, the first Slovenian influence
that could be measured in international terms has been the novel by Paolo Coelho,
Veronika decides to die (Veronika se odloi umreti, Veronika decide morrer). The
story takes place precisely in Ljubljana
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1. Debeljak, Anton. 1924-1925. Lus de Cames. 14-15. Ljubljana: SNG Drama.
2. . 1924-1925. pansko gledalie. 13-14. Ljubljana: SNG Drama.
3. Frenk, Margit. 1982. Lectores y oidores: la difusin oral de la literatura en el Siglo de Oro.
Actas del sptimo Congreso de la Asociacin Internacional de Hispanistas, 101-23. Vol. 1. Roma:
Bulzoni.
4. Garca Lorca, Federico. 1993. Cante jondo. Ljubljana: Karantanija.
5. . 1998. Federico Garca Lorca. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.
6. . 1978. Lorca. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.
7. . 1995. Pesnik v New Yorku. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.
8. Garca, Olga. 2004. Esloveno-espaol / espaol-esloveno. Una desigual relacin literaria. Quad-
erns. Revista de Traduccin, no. 11: 105-16.
9. Genette, Gerard. 1969. Figures II. Paris: Galimard.
10. Gradnik, Alojz, ed. 1943. Moderna panska lirika. Ljubljana: Umetnost.
11. Grafenauer, Niko, ed. 1998. Orfejev spev: antologija svetovne poezije v izboru slovenskih pesnikov.
Ljubljana: Nova revija.
12. Kmecl, Matja. 1973-1974. Okvirjenost Tavarjeve pripovedi. Jezik in Slovstvo, no. 19: 73-79.
13. Kmecl, Matja. 1981. Rojstvo slovenskega romana. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.
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14. Kocijan, Gregor. 1983. Kratka pripovedna proza od Trdine do Kersnika. Ljubljana: Dravna zaloba
Slovenije.
15. . 1981. Pripovednitvo Janeza Trdine. In: Bajke in povesti o Gorjancih. Janez Trdina, 135-51.
Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.
16. Paternu, Boris. 2001. Trdino bo treba brati znova. In: Knjievne tudije. Boris Paternu, 124-30.
Ljubljana: Gyrus.
17. Pregelj, Barbara. 2005a. Trdina in Cervantes. In: Zastavil sem svoje ivljenje. Monografija o ivljenju
in delu Janeza Trdine. Ed. Aleksander Bjelevi, 87-94. Vol. 1. Menge: Muzej.
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zbornik Drutva slovenskih knjievnih prevajalcev. Ed. Tone Smolej, 45-48. Ljubljana: Drutvo
slovenskih knjievnih prevajalcev.
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ra. Madrid: Castalia.
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22. Udovi, Joe, ed. 1987. Antologija panske poezije 20. stoletja. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva zaloba.
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185
Alejandro Hermida de Blas
Patricia Gonzalo de Jess
(Complutense University of Madrid, Spain)
Translation of Czech and Slovak Literature
in Spain: an Approach
0. Introduction.
The history of literary Spanish-Czech-Slovak relations is marked by an evident
inequality. The knowledge and influence of Spanish literature in the Czech lands
and in Slovakia has been incomparably deeper than those of Czech and Slovak
writers in Spain
1
. For want of more profound analyse, this imbalance in mutual
reception can be attributed to three factors: a) the different geographical and de-
mographical magnitudes of the countries involved (40 millions of Spaniards against
10 of Czechs and 5 of Slovaks); b) their opposite historical perspectives (the impe-
rial Spanish past against the Habsburgs domination of Czechs and Slovaks during
many centuries); and c) the traditional lack of knowledge of Slavonic cultures and
their diversity in Spain.
One of the aspects of this issue, which objectively and clearly reflects the re-
ception of a specific culture in a particular area, is the translation of its authors.
Therefore, the aim of this paper is to make an approach to the history of transla-
tion of Czech and Slovak literature in Spain from its beginnings to the present. We
try to analyse successive stages and forms of reception taking into account several
factors, such as: the influence of sociopolitical questions on Spanish publishers and
readers interest in Czech and Slovak culture; the genres and writers translated, as
well as the best-known works of each period; the direct or indirect character of the
translations; the national and professional origins of their translators; and, finally,
their linguistic and literary quality.
1
For a historical overview of Czech-Spanish cultural relations, see Slab 1933, 80 ff.
186
On the basis of this information we attempt to define the Spanish readers
image of Czech and Slovak literature, including deficiencies, inaccuracies and de-
formations of their perceptions as well as causes and possible solutions. We have
appended two bibliographical lists of Czech and Slovak works translated into the
four official languages of Spain, elaborated from the dispersed facts available in
several catalogues (Czech National Library, Spanish National Library, Spanish ISBN
Agency) and other secondary sources (see bibliography)
2
. In the majority of cases
we have verified these facts de visu.
Because of operational reasons and due to the wide scope of the analysed
material, we had to limit our study (without prejudice to further research) to trans-
lations that have been published independently, such as books or issues of a jour-
nal devoted to Czech or Slovak literature (exceptions to this rule have been cited
on footnotes). Even though our research work concentrates on the history of trans-
lation, it also focuses on documenting the reception of Czech and Slovak culture in
Spain. Consequently, we have deliberately excluded both technical and childrens
literature, whose demand, publication and reception are ruled by different param-
eters than those of literature aimed at the general public.
Furthermore, we have not taken into consideration Spanish (Castilian) ver-
sions published in Latin America (mainly in Cuba, Argentina and Mexico), in the
Czech lands or in Slovakia (mainly in former Czechoslovak Socialist Republic).
The reason for making this decision is the fact that, even though the quality of the
published works and writers is undeniable (Ladislav Fuks, Rudolf Jak, Zdenk
Jirotka, etc), those books were in general hardly accessible or actually inaccessible
to the Spanish public, which resulted in poor or inexistent reception (even more
limited than the reception of French, German, English or Italian editions). On the
contrary, we have included the translations into the other official languages of Spain
(Catalan, Galician and Basque), because their reception, although limited to the
speakers of these languages, is very effective and, in some cases, maybe owing to
certain parallelisms in the development of national identity, remarkable. Excluded
genres and geographical areas surely deserve a thorough research, but including
them would extend this paper more than reasonably.
A first look at the list of translations (see appendixes) allows us to establish a
periodisation of the translation and reception of Czech and Slovak literatures in
Spain which takes into account both literary and extra-literary causes.
2
Essential pieces of information were provided by Alexandra Terezie Berendov, Karlos Cid Aba-
solo and Kateina Vlaskov.
187
1. Translation of Czech Literature in Spain.
According to different literary, sociopolitical and linguistic aspects, the history
of the translation of Czech literature in Spain can be divided in four different stag-
es, whose limits, however, are not absolutely clear.
1.1. First stage (19181938).
As far as we know, the first time that Spanish readers got in touch with Czech
literature was after the creation of the independent Czech Republic in 1918. Ro-
dolfo J. [Rudolf Jan] Slab (18851957), a Czech linguist, translator and lecturer
who lived in Barcelona for more than a decade (between 1914 and 1926) was the
figure who acted as a liaison and undertook the translation of Czech classics and
contemporary authors both to Castilian
3
and Catalan. The translator himself com-
ments on his works (many of them still unpublished or about to be published) in his
essay Checoslovaquia (1933), an extended version of the article written for Enciclo-
pedia Espasa about his country. In the list, apart from technical literature, Slab
mentions various translations of writers such as Boena Nmcov, Julius Zeyer,
Jaroslav Vrchlick, Jaroslav Kvapil, Karel Sabina, etc. The most translated genre is
drama (comedy and opera librettos), but, due to its cultural importance, we would
like to highlight Nmcovs novel Babika, whose Castilian (La abuela) and Cata-
lan (Lvia) versions were published in 1924.
In 1922, another Czech classic was published, although as an incomplete ver-
sion: Jan Nerudas Malostransk povdky (Cuentos de la Mal strana), in this case
translated by W. F. Reisner. This translation was better known than Slabs one and
has been reprinted several times up to the present. Nevertheless, there is no doubt
that Slab played a pioneering part in the history of Spanish translation and Czech-
Spanish literary and cultural relations.
The best-known representative of Czech modern literature in Spain in this
stage was Karel apek, especially for his play R.U.R., which was staged for the first
time in 1928 in Barcelona and a few years later, in 1930, in Madrid. apek was a
cultural and political figure of great significance during the Spanish Republic and
the Spanish Civil War, thanks to his solidarity and support of the legitimate repub-
lican government. His ethical engagement with democracy and humanism is re-
flected in his anti-totalitarian drama Bl nemoc, translated into Spanish with the
3
In order to avoid mistakes with the other languages of Spain, we use this historical term to desig-
nate the language world-widely known as Spanish.
188
title La peste blanca by Federico Pascual and Vctor Kauffman in 1937, the same
year as the first Czech edition.
Even though it is beyond the strictly literary limits, we cannot omit the rele-
vance of Tom Garrigue Masaryk, achieved in Spain during 1930s. The philoso-
pher and first Czechoslovak president was considered the embodiment of liberal
republican democracy. During those years, several biographical sketches about his
life and ideas, both original or translated, were published
4
.
1.2. Second stage (19391969).
During World War II (19391945), Bohemia and Moravia became a German
protectorate and, as a consequence, temporarily lost their independence. During
that time an independent Slovak state was established under the tutelage of the
Third Reich. This situation, together with General Francos victory in the Spanish
Civil War, resulted in a decrease in the attention paid to Czech culture, which was
not accompanied by any increase in interest in Slovak culture. Czechoslovakia still
aroused some suspicions because of its republican or liberal connotations, which
got worse after World War II as a result of the electoral victory of the Communist
Party (1946) and the subsequent entry of the country into the area of influence of
the Soviet Union. A possible sign of this prolonged atmosphere of distrust is the
late printing on the state publishing house of an essay written by the Croat exile
Pablo Tijan, which was intended to disparage the so-called Masaryk myth, as a
polemical response to the republican veneration for this figure
5
.
Furthermore, the ideology of Francos regime, in addition to the isolation of the
Soviet bloc countries, interfered with the activity of the possible intermediaries and
addressees of Czech literature. The logical effect of this ideological conflict was the
impoverishment of mutual cultural relations: there was an almost complete absence
of Czech titles in the catalogues of Spanish publishers during the first decades of the
regime, except for K. apek (regarded only as a humorist or a science fiction au-
thor), whose works were translated into Spanish from English, French or other lan-
4
We can mention the following: Kybal, Vlastimil. 1930. Tom G. Masaryk. Madrid: Compaa
Ibero Americana de Publicaciones; Sosa, Luis de. 1935. Masaryk y Checoeslovaquia. Madrid: Mundo
Eslavo; LUDWIG, Emil. 1937. Conversaciones con Masaryk, pensador y hombre de Estado (Teo-
doro de Villegas, trans. from German into Castilian). Barcelona: Juventud; tern, Even. 1929.
Masaryk (Ramon Fabregat, trans. into Catalan). Barcelona: Les Edicions de lArc de Bar.
5
Tijan, Pablo. 1958. Crisis del liberalismo en la Europa Central (El mito Masaryk). Madrid: Editora
Nacional.
189
guages. Czech poetry is still unknown, bar the review of Angelo Maria Ripellinos
book Storia della poesia ceca contemporanea in an academic journal
6
.
1.3. Third stage (19701979).
During the second half of the 1960s the interest in Czech literature began to
increase. This is probably the result of both the reforms leading to the so-called
Prague Spring (1968) a process in which writers played a big part and the
progressive liberalisation of General Francos regime. As we will see, the early
publication of a novel by the Slovak author Ladislav Mako (1967) is an exception
to the publishing scene, which was in the tow of political events. It was not until the
1970s, after the end of the Prague Spring, the military occupation of Czechoslova-
kia and the consequent political backward step, that Spanish publishers decided to
take the risk of publishing Czech (and to a lesser degree, Slovak) works: novels,
more or less literary reports or essays written mainly by dissident and exiled au-
thors (with the traditional exception of K. apek). Pavel Kohout stands out be-
cause of the (comparatively) significant number of translated works, but the inven-
tory includes Milan Kundera (whose novel ert La broma was translated from
French as early as 1970), Zdena Salivarov, Ota Filip and, a few years later, Jan
Prochzka and several authors of philosophical, aesthetic or political studies like
Jan Patoka, Jan Mukaovsk and Artur London.
During this period, as during the previous one, the majority of the translations
were carried out by making use of a bridge-language, mainly German, English or
French. As a consequence, their accuracy and faithfulness to the original are quite
questionable. An exception to the rule is the anthology of Vladimir Holans poetry
Una noche con Hamlet y otros poemas, translated in 1970 by Josef Forbelsk in
collaboration with Guillermo Carnero, which was the foundation stone for mod-
ern translation of Czech literature in Spain.
1.4. Fourth stage (1980 to present).
The most important period concerning the diffusion of Czech literature in Spain
can be traced back to the first half of 1980s. During that time poetry had a key role,
due to two facts: first of all, the personal interest of the Spanish poet and translator
Clara Jans in Vladimr Holans work and in Czech poetry in general; secondly, the
6
Arce, Joaqun. 1951. La poesa checa contempornea. Revista de la Universidad de Oviedo (offprint).
Oviedo: Imprenta La Cruz. The author of the review translated from Italian short fragments of Jaroslav
Seifert, Ji Kol and Kamil Bedns poems.
190
Nobel prize that Jaroslav Seifert was awarded in 1984. Thanks to the translations
carried out by Jans, Spanish readers could become acquainted with the work of
these two outstanding and, in a sense, complementary Czech contemporary poets.
Moreover, Seiferts memoirs Vecky krsy svta, translated into Spanish by Monika
Zgustov and Elena Panteleeva as Toda la belleza del mundo (1985), brought inter-
war Pragues atmosphere, with its rich literary life, closer to the Spanish public.
This pragocentric and, at the same time, multicultural image of Czech reality as
Europes cultural melting pot intensified after the translation (1991) from Italian
into Spanish of Ripellinos essay Praga magica.
But, above all, the 1980s was the decade which witnessed the boom in the
publication of Czech prose, mainly thanks to Milan Kundera, and, more precisely,
to his novel Nesnesiteln lehkost byt (La insoportable levedad del ser). Even though
some of his works had already been translated from Czech by Fernando de Valen-
zuela before 1985, it seems there was not response to them among readers or crit-
ics. The sudden success of this novel may be due to the combination of literary and
extra-literary factors. The story of the characters is told on the historical and polit-
ical background of the Prague Spring. Besides, the publication of the novel coin-
cided with the first steps of the perestroika in the Soviet Union and the liberalisa-
tion reforms in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, a process that brought
to the foreground the literatures of these nations.
Kunderas unexpected success boosted the publication of contemporary Czech
writers, whose reception has been diverse. Bohumil Hrabal and Vclav Havels
works have been repeatedly and regularly published, while authors such as Josef
kvoreck, Ivan Klma, Daniela Hodrov, Ji Kratochvil, etc did not find the gen-
eral public acceptance they surely deserve.
1.5. Translations into Catalan, Galician and Basque.
When describing the overview of Czech literatures presence in Spain, we can-
not overlook the translations into Catalan, Galician and Basque. Even though their
addressees constitute a limited number of readers, they are specially motivated
and greet with enthusiasm the literature of similar small nations they identify
with.
In addition, translations to minority Spanish languages have come to fill many
gaps in the publishing market. For example, the only available (at the time of writ-
ing this paper) Castilian edition of Jaroslav Haeks novel Osudy dobrho vojka
vejka (Las aventuras del valeroso soldado vejk) is an indirect translation from a
191
German version, whereas Catalan and Basque editions are direct translations from
Czech; we can read Ji Suchs short stories in Galician, but they have not been
translated into Castilian, and so on.
The history of Czech literature translations to Catalan dates back to Rudolf
Slabs stay in Barcelona during 1920s. Nevertheless, the majority of Catalan trans-
lations came out during the fourth stage, partly thanks to the intense activity of the
Czech writer resident in Barcelona, Monika Zgustov, who translated the works of
some of the most important Czech authors: K. apek, J. Haek, V. Havel, B. Hra-
bal, M. Kundera, J. Seifert and J. kvoreck.
The number of translations into Basque is modest. We would like to highlight
those by Karlos Cid Abasolo, who undertook the translation (directly from Czech)
of J. Haek, M. Kundera and J. kvoreck.
At the moment, only two authors have been translated into Galician, both of
them directly from Czech: J. Such and B. Hrabal.
2. Translation of Slovak Literature in Spain.
Sadly, Slovak literature has always been terra incognita in Spain. One of the
possible reasons for this situation was the numerical minority of Slovaks in the
Czechoslovak state and their delayed cultural development in comparison with
Czechs. But even more decisive was the simple lack of information: Spanish people
were not usually aware of the fact that the term Czechoslovak was a compound
word referring to two different nations: Czech and Slovak. They used to under-
stand it as the redundant expression Czechoslavonic, so until the independence
of Slovakia in 1993 they were sure that Czechoslovakia was just the country where
the Slavonic nation of Czechs lived.
In the biographical article about Rudolf Jan Slab in the Encyclopedia Espasa
it is pointed out that he translated not only Czech authors, but also Slovak classics
like J. M. Hurban and M. Kukun. Nevertheless, it is not concretely mentioned
which works he translated, and we have no confirmation that these translations
were actually published.
A lost chance for Slovak literature to be known in Spain was the time of the
Slovak state, which enjoyed a relative independence from 1939 until 1945, even
though it was controlled by the Third Reich. Its catholic and nationalist regime was
on good terms with that of General Franco in Spain. During that time Slovakia
192
established an embassy in Madrid and published a few pamphlets in Spanish in
order to present its history and economy. We have registered certain signs of an
intensification of cultural contacts during that period, as Milo Ruppeldts (trans-
lator of Unamuno and Benaventes works into Slovak) study stay in Madrid in 1943
or the presence of Slovak books from these years in the library of the National
Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and in the National Library. Nevertheless,
we have not been able to confirm the publication of any translation of Slovak liter-
ature in Spain
7
.
The first well-known Slovak author in Spain was Ladislav Mako, one of the
leading intellectuals of the Czechoslovak reformist movement in 1960s. His polit-
ical novel Ako chut moc (Cmo gusta el poder) was translated into Spanish from
the first German edition as early as 1967, paradoxically even earlier than the Slo-
vak and Czech editions (1968), which were delayed because of the censorship. A
symptom of Slovak invisibility is the fact that in the Spanish edition it is not men-
tioned that Mako is a Slovak, not even Czechoslovak writer. In the next years a
few more books of this author were translated, always from German versions
(Mako went into exile to Austria in 1968).
Makos success is an isolated case; until very recent times the translation and
diffusion of Slovak literary works was very sporadic in Spain. A pioneering initia-
tive was the issue of the literary magazine Equivalencias devoted to contemporary
Slovak poetry, which appeared in 1993. The anthology of Slovak texts was chosen
by Jn Zambor and translated into Spanish by Vladimr Olerny, Miroslav Leng-
hardt and Justo Jorge Padrn. In 1997 an anthology of Milan Rfuss poetry was
rather freely translated by Clara Jans and Jos Alonso Lpez. The rest of the
translations were carried out by members or collaborators of the specialization of
Slovak Language and Literature at the University Complutense in Madrid. Be-
cause of the academic background of the translators, they are mostly bilingual edi-
tions of classics or modern classics. The books published until now are the follow-
ing: two 19
th
century short novels Pani Rafikov (La vicerregenta) by Janko Jesen-
sk and Rysav jalovica (La novilla bermeja) by Martin Kukun, both translated by
Salustio Alvarado and Renta Bojnianov and Milan Rfuss poetry book Zvony
(Campanas), translated by Alejandro Hermida. Other similar translations are in
progress or have been recently published in Slovakia, such as the first Spanish issue
7
In 1958 Ruppeldt translated into Spanish Peter Zvons comedy Tanec nad plaom, but this transla-
tion was not published in Spain.
193
of Slovak Literary Review (December 2005), in which several Spanish translators
took part (Salustio Alvarado, Renata Bojnianov, Mnica Snchez Presa, Alejan-
dro Hermida de Blas and Patricia Gonzalo de Jess)
8
.
3. Conclusions.
The main conclusion of the research work is that the interest in Czech and
Slovak literature in Spain has been late and discontinuous mainly owing to extra-
literary causes. A first determining factor was the historical situation of the Czech
lands and Slovakia and, although to a lesser extent, Spain. The dates of edition
suggest that the attention aroused by Czech and Slovak literature emerged, in-
creased or decreased always in accordance with the political status of both Slavonic
nations. This interest began in 1918, when they achieved political visibility; rose in
moments which could be defined as social or political turning points; and declined
or stagnated during periods of stability.
A second factor was the lack of qualified Spanish translators of Czech and
Slovak languages until recent times. As a consequence, the human factor had a
great influence on the translation process, for example on the preference for cer-
tain genres or authors. The responsibility for the popularisation of these literatures
was in the hands of a reduced group of translators, whether Spanish or native speak-
ers who settled temporarily or permanently in Spain and who translated from their
mother tongue into Castilian, Catalan, etc, in many cases with the more or less
explicit help of a target language speaker. This situation led to a decrease in the
amount of original translations and an increase of (not so accurate and faithful)
translations through other bridge-languages such as German, English, French or
Italian in phases in which these crucial personalities did not exist.
After this overview, which is necessarily incomplete, we must shortly comment
upon the current situation of Czech and Slovak literature translation and recep-
tion in Spain.
Except for a few authors, the interest in Czech literature has decreased in com-
parison with the boom of 1980s and the early 1990s. Nowadays it is weaker than
the interest aroused, not only by widespread literatures that are more recognised
8
This issue includes prose, verse and drama fragments by 18 Slovak writers, from Dominik Tatarka
(1913-1989) to Monika Kompankov (born in 1978). Nevertheless, as it is an institutional journal
published in Slovakia, it has not awakened any echo in Spain.
194
and time-honoured in Spain, such as Russian and Polish, but also by numerically
equivalent literatures like Hungarian (10 million speakers) or minority ones like
Croatian (5 million speakers). In the same way, Slovak literature (5 million speak-
ers) is less translated than Slovenian (2 million speakers). What could be the expla-
nation for the cool reception to Czech and Slovak literature in Spain?
For obvious reasons, we have not taken into account the assumption (pointed
out by some sectors of the Slovak and, to a lesser extent, Czech intelligentsia) that
these literatures have nothing to offer to foreign readers. The causes of this crisis
do not seem to be strictly literary and connected to the quality of Czech and Slovak
authors, but related to the subordination of publishing policy and cultural industry
to extra-literary factors. After the Velvet Revolution and the pacific division of the
Czech and Slovak Republics, the Spanish public seem to have forgotten their exist-
ence to the advantage of more complex situations and hot topics that have emerged
in the post-communist landscape.
Another reason for this indifference is the conservative attitude of Spanish
publishers, who are reluctant to take risks and generally tend to accept only books
which have already achieved a huge success in their original languages or in other
Western languages (English, French or German). But success is not always export-
able. Some commercial novels have been very successful in recent years amongst
Czech and Slovak readers because they differ from the Slavic tradition of literature
as an ethical and philosophical matter. However, sex, violence or cynicism have
quite a long tradition in Spanish literature, so such novels are not perceived as an
original literary contribution by Spanish readers.
A concrete problem with the reception of Czech literature is a certain tenden-
cy towards simplification of a extremely rich literary scene. Just as Czech culture is
not only Prague culture, Czech literature is not restricted to a select club composed
only by Haek, Hrabal and Kundera, the supposed representatives of a supposed
Czech soul. The superficiality of this perception is such that Spanish tourists who
have visited Prague usually think that the main Czech writer is Franz Kafka, an
author who never wrote a single book in Czech. According to this reasoning, the
most representative Slovak writer would therefore be the well-known Hungarian
writer Sndor Mrai, who was born in the Slovak town of Koice. We can discuss
Kafkas relationship and influence in Czech culture and literature, but only if we
speak with full knowledge of the facts, which is impossible when we content our-
selves in advance with reductionist stereotypes.
We have mentioned the translations that have been done, but the number of
195
translations that are still to be done is much higher. Just to give an example, Czech
prose writers of the first half of the 20
th
century not to speak about 19
th
century
writers are still almost unknown to Spanish readers. Authors such as Vladislav
Vanura, Ivan Olbracht or Jan Weiss have not been translated in Spain yet. The
image of this period and this literary genre is almost completely limited to two
renowned personalities: Jaroslav Haek and Karel apek. Concerning the transla-
tions into Spanish of the works of these authors, we must emphasize publishers
idleness: there are only a couple of direct translations from Czech of their works in
the market, while old translations from English, German or French, whose faith-
fulness to the original is rather dubious, are still being reprinted.
As regards Slovak literature, it is almost virgin territory for translation in Spain.
The main problem is to break down the barrier of readers and publishers prejudic-
es against the literature of a small nation. We agree with George Steiner that when
a language dies, a total vision of life, of reality, of consciousness a vision like no
other dies with it. When a language is swept away or reduced to impotence by the
planetary idiom, an irreparable diminution occurs in the fabric of human creativi-
ty, of the ways in which we can experience the verb to hope. There are no small
languages
9
.
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Fernando Presa Gonzlez, 155163. Madrid: GRAM Ediciones.
2. Hermida, Alejandro. 2004. Osudy slovenskej (a eskej) literatry v panielskom prostred. In
Slovo a svet. Perspektvy prekladania slovenskej literatry, 5156. Bratislava: Literrne informan
centrum.
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Espaa y los pases iberoamericanos. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
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ca, cultura y arte 80, March, 7883.
6. http://www.bne.es/
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9
Steiner, George. 2001. Prince of Asturias Award for Communications and Humanities Accept-
ance Speech.
196
Appendix 1:
Czech Literature Translated Into the Languages of Spain
1. translations into castilian
1.1. Prose fiction
Berkov, Alexandra. 2004. Amor Tenebroso [Temn Lska] (Elena Buixaderas, Trans.). VitoriaGasteiz:
Bassarai.
apek, Josef. 1989. Ocho Cuentos Del Perrito Y La Gatita [Povdn O Pejskovi A Koice] (Clara Jans,
Trans.). Barcelona: Espasa Calpe.
apek, Karel. 1945. Guerra Con Las Salamandras [Vlka S Mloky] (Carmen Dez De Oate, And Mildred
Forrester, Trans. From English). Madrid: Revista De Occidente. (Reprinted)
Chapek Karhel [apek, Karel]. 1946?. La Fbrica Del Espritu [Tovrna Na Absoltno] (Alejandro Liao,
Trans. From French). Barcelona: Lara. (Reprinted)
apek, Karel. 1972. La Guerra De Las Salamandras [Vlka S Mloky] (Jos Diguez, Trans.). Madrid:
Doncel.
apek, Karel. 1974. Apcrifos [Kniha Apokryf] (Ana Orozco De Falbr, Trans.). Madrid: Felmar. (Re
printed)
apek, Karel. 1981. La Guerra De Las Salamandras [Vlka S Mloky] (Ana Falbrov, Trans.). Barcelona:
Bruguera. (Reprinted)
apek, Karel. 1992. La Guerra De Las Salamandras [Vlka S Mloky] (Ana Falbrov, And Ciro Elizondo,
Trans.). Madrid: Hiperin. (Reprinted)
apek, Karel. 1993. Nueve Cuentos Y Uno De Propina De Josef apek [Devatero Pohdek A Jet Jedna
Od Josefa apka Jako Pvaek] (Jitka Mlejnkov, And Alberto Ortiz, Trans.). Madrid: Siruela. (Re
printed)
apekChod, Karel Matj. 1992. La Condena De Prometeo (Ana Orozco De Falbr, Trans.). Madrid:
Compaa Europea De Comunicacin E Informacin.
Chudoilov, Petr. 1996. Demasiados ngeles: 19 Historias Del Todo Verdaderas [Zlat Kniha Andl]
(Clara Jans, And Jana Stancel, Trans.). Barcelona: Crculo De Lectores.
Durych, Jaroslav. 1998. Rquiem [Rekviem] (Clara Jans, Trans.). Guadarrama: Ediciones Del Oriente Y
Del Mediterrneo.
Erben, Carlos [Karel] J. 1920. La Rana Princesa. Seleccin De Cuentos Populares Checos Y Eslavos
[Vbor Z eskch A Slovanskch Pohdek] (R.J. Slab, Trans.). Barcelona: Cervantes.
Filip, Ota. 1970. El Caf De La Calle Del Cementerio [Cesta Ke Hbitovu] (Martn Ezcurdia, Trans. From
German). Barcelona: Plaza & Jans.
Filip, Ota. 1976. Un Loco Para Cada Ciudad [Blzen Ve Mst] (Jos Manuel Pomares, Trans. From
Haek, Jaroslav. 1981. Las Aventuras Del Valeroso Soldado Schwejk [Osudy Dobrho Vojka vejka] IIi
(Alfonsina Jans, Trans. From German). Barcelona: Destino. (Reprinted)
Haek, Jaroslav. 1983. El Comisario Rojo [Rud Komisa] (Ester Donato, Trans. From English). Barcelo
na: Destino.
Hodrov, Daniela. 1993. Cuerpo Y Sangre (Ciudad Doliente) [Podoboj (Trzniv Msto)] (Ji Kasl, And
Lorenzo Martn Martn, Trans.). Barcelona: Seix Barral.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1988. Trenes Rigurosamente Vigilados [Oste Sledovan Vlaky] (Fernando De Valenzue
la, Trans.). Barcelona: Pennsula. (Reprinted)
197
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1989a. Anuncio Una Casa Donde Ya No Quiero Vivir [Inzert Na Dm, Ve Kterm U
Nechci Bydlet] (Clara Jans, And Jana Stancel, Trans.). Barcelona: Pennsula. (Reprinted)
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1989b. Yo Que He Servido Al Rey De Inglaterra [Obsluhoval Jsem Anglickho Krle]
(Jitka Mlejnkov, And Alberto Ortiz, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino. (Reprinted)
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1990. Una Soledad Demasiado Ruidosa [Pli Hlun Samota] (Monika Zgustov,
Trans.). Barcelona: Destino. (Reprinted)
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1991. Personajes En Un Paisaje De Infancia [Postiiny] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.).
Barcelona: Destino. (Reprinted)
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1992. Quin Soy Yo [Kdo Jsem] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1993. Bodas En Casa [Svatby V Dom] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1994a. Bodas En Casa. Vita Nuova. Terrenos Yermos [Svatby V Dom. Vita Nuova.
Proluky] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Crculo De Lectores.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1994b. Las Desventuras Del Viejo Werther [Utrpen Starho Werthera] (Mara Garca
Barris, Trans.). Barcelona: Pennsula.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1995. La Pequea Ciudad Donde El Tiempo Se Detuvo [Msteko, Kde Se Zastavil as]
(Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1996. Los Palabristas [Pbitel] (Eva Kruntordov, And Nria Mirabet, Trans.). Bar
celona: Destino.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 2000. Leyendas Y Romances De Ciego [Morytty A Legendy] (Luisa Rancao, And
Nria Mirabet, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 2003. Lecciones De Baile Para Mayores [Tanen Hodiny Pro Star A Pokroil] (Jitka
Mlejnkov, And Alberto Ortiz, Trans.). Madrid: Metfora.
Karsek Ze Lvovic, Ji. 1971. La Conversin De Raimundo Lulio [Obrcen Raymunda Lulla] (R. Ul
brich, Trans.). Estudio General Luliano, January,4256.
Klma, Ivan. 1991. Amor Y Basura [Lska A Smet] (Clara Jans, And Jana Stancel, Trans.). Madrid:
Debate.
Klma, Ivan. 1993. El Juez Juzgado [Soudce Z Milosti] (Frantiek Bake, Trans.; Revised By Ren Palaci
os Mor). Madrid: Debate.
Kohout, Pavel. 1974. Cabeza Abajo [Katyn] (Gregorio Vlastelica, Trans. From French). Barcelona: Po
maire.
Kohout, Pavel. 1979. La Verduga [Katyn] (Yolanda Salv Yenes, Trans. From German). Barcelona: Ultra
mar.
Kohout, Pavel. 1982. El Beso De Clara [Npady Svat Klry] (Sebastin Alemany, Trans. From German).
Barcelona: Ultramar.
Kohout, Pavel. 1990. Dnde Est Enterrado El Perro [Kde Je Zakopn Pes] (Julek Fuentes, Trans. From
Kohout, Pavel. 2002. La Hora Estelar De Los Asesinos [Hvzdn Hodina Vrah] (Fernando De Valenzue
la, Trans.). Madrid: Alianza Editorial. (Reprinted)
Kohout, Pavel. 2003. La Larga Ola Tras La Quilla [Ta Dlouh Vlna Za Klem] (Fernando De Valenzuela,
Trans.). Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
Kratochvil, Ji. 1992. Canto En Medio De La Noche [Uprosted Noci Zpv] (Clara Jans, And Jana Stan
cel, Trans.). Madrid: AnayaMario Muchnik.
Kundera, Milan. 1970. La Broma [ert] (Luis Guzmn, Trans. From French). Barcelona: Plaza & Jans.
Kundera, Milan. 1979. La Vida Est En Otra Parte [ivot Je Jinde] (Fernando De Valenzuela, Trans.).
Barcelona: Seix Barral. (Reprinted)
Kundera, Milan. 1982. El Libro De La Risa Y Del Olvido [Kniha Smchu A Zapomnn] (Fernando De
Valenzuela, Trans.). Barcelona: Seix Barral. (Reprinted)
198
Kundera, Milan. 1984. La Broma [ert] (Fernando De Valenzuela, Trans.). Barcelona: Seix Barral. (Re
printed)
Kundera, Milan. 1985. La Insoportable Levedad Del Ser [Nesnesiteln Lehkost Byt] (Fernando De Valen
zuela, Trans.). Barcelona: Tusquets. (Reprinted)
Kundera, Milan. 1986. La Despedida [Valk Na Rozlouenou] (Fernando De Valenzuela, Trans.). Barce
lona: Tusquets. (Reprinted)
Kundera, Milan. 1987. El Libro De Los Amores Ridculos [Smn Lsky] (Fernando De Valenzuela, Trans.).
Barcelona: Tusquets. (Reprinted)
Kundera, Milan. 1990. La Inmortalidad [Nesmrtelnost] (Fernando De Valenzuela, Trans.). Barcelona:
Tusquets. (Reprinted)
Legtov, Kvta. 2005. La Transformacin [Jozova Hanule] (Daniel Siz, Trans.). Madrid: Siruela.
Lustig, Arnot. 1990. Sueos Impdicos [Neslun Sny] (Elsa Mateo, Trans. From English). Barcelona:
Seix Barral.
Lustig, Arnot. 2006. Ojos Verdes [Krsn Zelen Oi] (Kepa Uharte, Trans.). Barcelona: Crculo De
LectoresGalaxia Gutenberg.
Nmcov, Boena. 1924. La Abuela. Cuadros De Costumbres Campesinas De Bohemia [Babika. Obrazy
Venkovskho ivota] IIi (R.J. Slab, Trans.). Madrid: Editorial Ibrica.
Nmcov, Boena. 1921. El Ave De Fuego Y La Sirena. Seleccin De Cuentos Para Nios [Pohdky Ze
Sbrky Nrodn Bchorky A Povsti] (R.J. Slab, Trans.). Barcelona: Cervantes. (Reprinted)
Neruda, Jan. 1922. Cuentos De La Mal Strana [Povdky Malostransk] (W.F. Reisner, Trans.). Madrid:
Espasa Calpe. (Reprinted)
Neruda, Jan. 1992. Imgenes De La Vieja Praga [Prask Obrzky] (Virginia Prez, Trans. From German).
Barcelona: Juventud.
Neruda, Jan. 1992. Escenas Y Arabescos [Arabesky] (Virginia Prez, Trans. From German). Barcelona:
Juventud.
Neruda, Jan. 2006. Cuentos De Mal Strana [Povdky Malostransk] (Clara Jans, And Jana Stancel,
Trans.). Valencia: PreTextos.
Pekrkov, Iva. 2001. El Mundo Es Redondo [Kulat Svt] (Ana Labe, And Otakar Szava, Trans.). Ma
drid: Metfora.
Prochzka, Jan. 1977. La Carpa [Kapr] (Antonio Skrmeta, Trans. From German). Madrid: Alfaguara.
(Reprinted)
Prochzka, Jan. 1979. Viva La Repblica [A ije Republika] (Lola Romero, Trans. From English). Ma
drid: Alfaguara. (Reprinted)
Prochzka, Jan. 1983. El Viejo Y Las Palomas [Staec A Holubi] (Anton Dieterich, Trans. From German).
Madrid: Alfaguara. (Reprinted)
Prochzka, Jan. 1985. Lenka [Lenka] (Javier Lacarra, Trans. From German). Madrid: Alfaguara. (Reprint
ed)
Putk, Jaroslav. 1992. El Hombre De La Navaja Barbera [Mu S Bitvou] (Roser Bardagu, Trans. From
French). Barcelona: Pennsula.
Salivarov, Zdena. 1976. Verano En Praga [Honzlov. Protestsong] (Jordi Arbons, Trans. From Eng
lish). Barcelona: Aym.
kvoreck, Josef. 1973. El Clan De Los Leones [Lve] (Marinette Gasco, Trans. From French). Barcelo
na: Dopesa.
kvoreck, Josef. 1988. El Ingeniero De Almas [Pbh Inenra Lidskch Du] (Jos Aguirre, And Isabel
Nez, Trans. From English). Barcelona: Circe.
kvoreck, Josef. 1988. El Saxofn Bajo [Bassaxofon. Legenda Emke] (Gian Castelli, Trans. From Eng
lish). Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
kvoreck, Josef. 1990a. Los Cobardes [Zbablci] (Gian Castelli, Trans. From English). Madrid: Alianza
Editorial.
199
kvoreck, Josef. 1990b. El Pasado De Lenka Silver [Lve] (Gian Castelli, Trans. From English). Barce
lona: Circe.
kvoreck, Josef. 1991. Los Buenos Tiempos [Prima Sezna] (Gian Castelli, Trans. From English). Barce
lona: Circe.
Topol, Jchym. 2007. Misiones Nocturnas [Non Prce] (Kepa Uharte, Trans.). Madrid: Lengua De Trapo.
Urban, Milo. 2005. Las Siete Iglesias [Sedmikostel] (Kepa Uharte, Trans.). Barcelona: Ediciones B.
(Reprinted)
Urban, Milo. 2006. La Sombra De La Catedral [Stn Katedrly] (Kepa Uharte, Trans.). Barcelona: Edi
ciones B.
Viewegh, Michal. 2000. La Educacin De Las Chicas En Bohemia [Vchova Dvek V echch] (Fernando
De Valenzuela, Trans.). Madrid: Metfora.
Weil, Ji. 2005. Mosc: Frontera [MoskvaHranice] (Eduardo Fernndez Couceiro, Trans.). Guadarrama:
Ediciones Del Oriente Y Del Mediterrneo.
Zeyer, Julius. 1922. Tres Leyendas Del Crucifijo [Ti Legendy O Krucifixu] (R. J. Slab, Trans.). Barcelo
na: Cervantes.
Zeyer, Julius. 1927. Sor Pascualina. Rococ [Sestra Pascalina. Rokoko] (R. J. Slab, And J. R. Garca
Daz, Trans.). Barcelona: Cervantes.
1.2. Poetry
Baeza Betancort, Felipe, Trans. From English. 1969. Diez Poemas Checoslovacos. Las Palmas De Gran
Canaria:Museo Canario.
Holan, Vladimr. 1970. Una Noche Con Hamlet Y Otros Poemas [Noc S Hamletem A Jin Bsn] (Josef
Forbelsk, Trans.; Revised By Guillermo Carnero). Barcelona: Barral.
Holan, Vladimr. 1980. Poesas [Bsn] (Clara Jans, Trans.). Madrid: Fundacin Juan March.
Holan, Vladimr. 1982. Avanzando [Na Postupu] (Clara Jans, Trans.). Madrid: Editora Nacional.
Holan, Vladimr. 1983. Antologa [Vbor Z Bsn] (Clara Jans, Trans.). Barcelona: Plaza & Jans.
Holan, Vladimr. 1986. Dolor [Bolest] (Clara Jans, Trans.). Madrid: Hiperin.
Holan, Vladimr. 1996. Pero Existe La Msica [Bez Nzvu. Na Postupu] (Clara Jans, Trans.). Barcelona:
Icaria.
Holan, Vladimr. 2000. Abismo De Abismo [Propast Propasti] (Clara Jans, Trans.). VitoriaGasteiz: Bas
sarai.
Holan, Vladimr. 2005. Una Noche Con Hamlet. Toscana [Noc S Hamletem. Toskna] (Josef Forbelsk,
And Clara Jans, Trans.). Guadarrama: Ediciones Del Oriente Y Del Mediterrneo.
Holub, Miroslav. 1990. Poemas [Bsn] (Carlos Cid Abasolo, And rka Grauov, Trans.). Madrid: Ct
edra.
Hrab, Vclav. 2003. Blues [Blues] (Elena Buixaderas, Trans.). VitoriaGasteiz: Bassarai.
Hrdok, Pavel. 1994. Praga: Doce Poemas De Pavel Hrdok [Praha] (Juan Manuel Bonet, Trans.).
Jans, Clara, Ed. And Trans. 1993. Cinco Poetas Checos (Nezval, Seifert, Halas, Holan, Orten). Guadarra
ma: Ediciones Del Oriente Y Del Mediterrneo.
Kostohryz, Josef. 1991. Tmulos [Mohyly] (Pavel tpnek, And Manuel Martnez Forega, Trans.). Zaragoza:
Lola Editorial.
Kovak, Petr, Ed. 1993. Antologa De La Poesa Checa Contempornea (Jana Novotn, Marie Krejov,
And Miroslav Lenghardt, Trans.; Justo Jorge Padrn, Poetical Version). Equivalencias (Revista Inter
nacional De Poesa / International Journal Of Poetry) 23.
Mcha, Karel Hynek. 1996. Mayo [Mj] (Clara Jans, Trans.). Altea: Aitana.
Seifert, Jaroslav. 1984. Breve Antologa [Vbor Z Bsn] (Clara Jans, Trans.). Madrid: Hiperin. (Reprint
ed)
200
Seifert, Jaroslav. 1996. Praga En El Sueo [Praha Ve Snu A Jin Bsn] (Clara Jans, Trans.). Barcelona:
Icaria.
1.3. Drama
apek, Karel. 1937. La Peste Blanca [Bl Nemoc] (Federico Pascual, And Vctor Kaufmann, Trans.).
MadridValencia, Ediciones Espaolas.
apek, Josef And Karel. 1966. Rur Y El Juego De Los Insectos [R.U.R. Ze ivota Hmyzu] (Consuelo
Vzquez De Parga, Trans. From English). Madrid: Alianza Editorial. (Reprinted)
Havel, Vclav. 1990a. Memorndum Y El Error [Vyrozumn. Chyba] (Borja Ortiz De Gondra, And Juan
Antonio Hormign, Trans.). Madrid: Asociacin De Directores De Escena De Espaa.
Havel, Vclav. 1990b. La Tentacin [Pokouen] (Jos Mara Rincn, Trans.). Madrid: Ayuntamiento De
Madrid.
Havel, Vclav. 1997. Largo Desolato Y Otras Obras [Largo Desolato A Jin Hry] (Monika Zgustov,
Trans.). Barcelona: Crculo De LectoresGalaxia Gutenberg.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1991. La Soledad Ruidosa [Hlun Samota] (Jaroslava Cajov, Trans.; Revised By Juan
Antonio Hormign). Madrid: Asociacin De Directores De Escena De Espaa.
Kundera, Milan. 1986. Jacques Y Su Amo [Jakub A Jeho Pn] (Enrique Sordo, Trans. From French).
Barcelona: Tusquets. (Reprinted)
Kvapil, Jaroslav. 1924. Rusalca (La Ondina): Leyenda Dramtica En Tres Actos [Rusalka] (Libretto Of
The Opera By A. Dvok) (R.J. Slab, Trans., In Collaboration With J. PrezHervs). Barcelona:
Orbis.
Sabina, Carlos [Karel]. 1924. La Novia Vendida: pera Cmica En Tres Actos [Prodan Nevsta] (Libret
to Of The Opera By B. Smetana) (R.J. Slab, Trans.). Barcelona: Orbis.
1.4. Non fiction (a selection)
Chapek [apek], Karel. 1947. Tres Profesiones Al Desnudo (Prensa. Cine. Teatro) [Jak Se Co Dl] (Fern
ando Durn, Trans.). Barcelona: Juventud.
apek, Karel. 1989. Viaje A Espaa [Vlet Do panl] (Clara Jans, And Jana Stancel, Trans.). Madrid:
Hiperin.
Casanova Gmez, Marina, Ed. And Trans. 2003. Intelectuales De La Disidencia Y Literatura Samizdat En
Checoslovaquia Bajo El Comunismo: Antologa De Textos De Havel, Vaculk, imeka, Klma, Ko
hout, Kliment, Trefulka, Hutka. Madrid: Uned.
Chvatk, Kvtoslav. 1996. La Trampa Del Mundo: Milan Kundera, Novelista [Svt Romn Milana Kundery]
(Fernando De Valenzuela, Trans.). Barcelona: Tusquets.
Fuk, Julius. 1977. Reportaje Al Pie De La Horca [Report, Psan Na Oprtce] (Libue Prokopov,
Trans.). Torrejn De Ardoz: Akal.
Ginz, Petr. 2006. Diario De Praga (19411942) [Denk Mho Bratra] (Fernando De Valenzuela, Trans.).
Barcelona: Acantilado.
Havel, Vclav. 1990. El Poder De Los Sin Poder [Moc Bezmocnch] (Vicente Martn Pindado, Trans.
From Italian). Madrid: Encuentro.
Havel, Vclav. 1990. Cartas A Olga [Dopisy Olze] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Versal.
Havel, Vclav. 1991. La Responsabilidad Como Destino [Vbor Z Politickch Spis] (Jana Novotn, And
Violeta Urribe, Trans.). Madrid: El PasAguilar.
Havel, Vclav. 1994. Discursos Polticos [Politick Projevy] (Jana Novotn, Trans.). Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
Havel, Vclav. 1994. Meditaciones Estivales [Letn Pemtn] (Clara Jans, And Jana Stancel, Trans.).
Barcelona: Crculo De LectoresGalaxia Gutenberg.
Kosk, Karel. 1977. El Hombre Nuevo [Nov lovk] (Hugo Acevedo, Trans.). Barcelona: Martnez Roca.
201
Kriseov, Eda. 1993. Vclav Havel: El Reto De La Esperanza [Vclav Havel: ivotopis] (Elena Polkov,
Trans.). Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
Liehm, Antonn J. 1972. Tres Generaciones (Conversaciones Sobre El Panorama Cultural Checoslovaco)
[Generace] (Nati Martn Moro, Trans. From German). Madrid: Ayuso.
London, Artur. 1978. Se Levantaron Antes Del Alba (Memorias De Un Combatiente Checo De Las
Brigadas Internacionales En La Guerra De Espaa) [panlsko, panlsko] (A. Cordn, Trans.).
Barcelona: Pennsula.
Masaryk, Tom Garrigue. 1934. El Ideal De Humanidad [Idely Humanitn] (Trans.?). Madrid:Orto.
Mukaovsk, Jan. 1971. Arte Y Semiologa [Lart Comme Fait Smiologique. Strukturalismus V Estetice A
Ve Vd O Literatue] (Simn Marchn Fiz, Trans. From French; I. P. Hlonik, Trans. From Czech).
Madrid: Alberto Corazn.
Mukaovsk, Jan. 1977. Escritos De Esttica Y Semitica Del Arte [Studie Z Estetiky A Semiologie Umn]
(Ed. Jordi Llovet; Anna AnthonyVov, Trans.). Barcelona: Gustavo Gili.
Orten, Ji. 1996. Solo Al Atardecer [Sm U Stmvn] (Clara Jans, Trans.). Valencia: PreTextos.
Ouednk, Patrik. 2005. Europeana. Una Breve Historia Del Siglo Xx [Europeana: Strun Djiny Dvactho
Vku] (Kepa Uharte, Trans.). Salamanca: Tropismos.
Patoka, Jan. 1976. Los Intelectuales Ante La Nueva Sociedad [Inteligence V Nov Spolenosti] (Fernando
De Valenzuela, Trans.). Torrejn De Ardoz: Akal.
Patoka, Jan. 1988. Ensayos Herticos Sobre La Filosofa De La Historia; Seguido De Glosas [Kacsk
Eseje O Filozofii Djin. Glosy] (Alberto Clavera, Trans.). Barcelona: Pennsula.
Patoka, Jan. 1991. Platn Y Europa [Platn A Evropa] (Marco Aurelio Galmarini, Trans. From French).
Barcelona: Pennsula.
Patoka, Jan. 2004. El Movimiento De La Existencia Humana [Pohyb Lidsk Existence] (Teresa Padilla,
Jess Mara Ayuso, And Agustn Serrano De Haro, Trans. From German). Madrid: Encuentro.
Patoka, Jan. 2005. Introduccin A La Fenomenologa [vod Do Fenomenologick Filosofie] (Juan A.
Snchez, Trans.; Revised By Ivn Ortega Rodrguez). Barcelona: Herder.
Seifert, Jaroslav. 1985. Toda La Belleza Del Mundo. Historias Y Recuerdos [Vecky Krsy Svta] (Monika
Zgustov, And Elena Panteleeva, Trans.). Barcelona: Seix Barral. (Reprinted)
Trnka, Bohumil Et Al. 1971. El Crculo De Praga [Vbor Z Prac Praskho Lingvistickho Krouku]
(Joan A. Argente, Trans.). Barcelona: Anagrama. (Reprinted)
2. Translations Into Catalan
2.1. Prose fiction
apek, Karel. 1982. Contes Duna Butxaca [Povdky Z Jedn Kapsy] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Sant Boi
De Llobregat: Edicions Del Mall.
apek, Karel. 1991. Duna Butxaca I De Laltra: Contes [Povdky Z Jedn A Druh Kapsy] (Monika
Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Edicions 62.
apek, Karel. 1998. La Guerra De Les Salamandres [Vlka S Mloky] (Nria Mirabet, Trans.). Barcelona:
Proa.
Haek, Jaroslav. 1995. Les Aventures Del Bon Soldat vejk [Osudy Dobrho Vojka vejka] (Monika Zgus
tov, Trans.). Barcelona: Proa.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1989a. Jo He Servit El Rei Danglaterra [Obsluhoval Jsem Anglickho Krle] (Monika
Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino. (Reprinted)
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1989b. Una Solitud Massa Sorollosa [Pli Hlun Samota] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.).
Barcelona: Edicions 62. (Reprinted)
202
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1990. Anunci Duna Casa On Ja No Vull Viure [Inzert Na Dm, Ve Kterm U Nechci
Bydlet] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Edicions 62.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1991. Personatges En Un Paisatge Dinfncia [Postiiny] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.).
Barcelona: Destino.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1992. Qui Sc Jo [Kdo Jsem] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1993a. Noces A Casa [Svatby V Dom] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1993b. Els Sofriments Del Vell Werther [Utrpen Starho Werthera] (Maria Garcia Bar
ris, Trans.). Barcelona: Edicions 62.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1995. La Petita Ciutat On Es Va Aturar El Temps [Msteko, Kde Se Zastavil as]
(Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino. (Reprinted)
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1996. Trens Rigorosament Vigilats [Oste Sledovan Vlaky] (Maria Garcia Barris, Trans.).
Barcelona: Edicions 62. (Reprinted)
Hrabal, Bohumil. 1997. Els Enraonaires [Pbitel] (Nria Mirabet, And Eva Kruntordov, Trans.). Bar
celona: Destino. (Reprinted)
Hrabal, Bohumil. 2000. Llegendes I Romanos De Cec [Morytty A Legendy] (Nria Mirabet, And Luisa
Rancao, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino.
Klma, Ivan. 2002. Amor I Brossa [Lska A Smet] (Kepa Uharte, Trans.). Barcelona: Edicions 62.
Kundera, Milan. 1985. La Broma [ert] (Paloma Rancao, And Sergi Jover, Trans.). Barcelona: Edicions
De 1984. (Reprinted)
Kundera, Milan. 1986. La Insostenible Lleugeresa Del Ser [Nesnesiteln Lehkost Byt] (Monika Zgustov,
Kundera, Milan. 1987. Amors Ridculs [Smn Lsky] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino.
(Reprinted)
Kundera, Milan. 1988. El Llibre Del Riure I De Loblit [Kniha Smchu A Zapomnn] (Monika Zgustov,
Kundera, Milan. 1989. El Vals De Ladu [Valk Na Rozlouenou] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona:
Destino.
Kundera, Milan. 1990. La Immortalitat [Nesmrtelnost] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona: Destino.
(Reprinted)
Kundera, Milan. 1996. Ledat Lrica [ivot Je Jinde] (Xavier Lloveras, Trans. From French). Barcelona:
Destino.
Nmcov, Boena. 1924. Lvia [Babika] (R.J. Slab, Trans.). Barcelona: Editorial Catalana.
Nmcov, Boena. 1925. Nostre Senyor I Sant Pere [Petr A Otec Nebesk] (Jordi Catal, Trans.). Barcelo
na: Bagu.
Salivarov, Zdena. 1975. Estiu A Praga [Honzlov. Protestsong] (Jordi Arbons, Trans. From English).
Barcelona: Aym.
kvoreck, Josef. 1988. El Saxo Baix [Bassaxofon. Legenda Emke] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelo
na: Proa.
2.2. Poetry
Havel, Vclav. 2003. Anticodis [Antikdy] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barber Del Valls: Tabelaria.
Holan, Vladimr. 2006. Lal De Cada Nit (Antologia Potica) [Vbor Z Bsn] (Jaume Creus, Trans.).
Collbat: Edicions La Guineu.
Seifert, Jaroslav. 1984. El Crit Dels Fantasmes I Altres Poemes [Kik Straidel A Jin Bsn] (Monika
Zgustov, Trans.). Sant Boi De Llobregat: Edicions Del Mall.
Seifert, Jaroslav. 2005. Els Galls, Els Morts I Lamor De Les Dones: Antologia Potica [Vbor Z Bsn]
(Jaume Creus, Trans.). Collbat: Edicions La Guineu.
Seifert, Jaroslav. 2006. Ser Poeta [Bti Bsnkem] (Jaume Creus, Trans.). Collbat: Edicions La Guineu.
203
2.3. Drama
Havel, Vclav. 1990a. Audincia. Vernissatge [Audience. Vernis] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona:
Institut Del Teatre De La Diputaci De Barcelona.
Havel, Vclav. 1990b. Largo Desolato [Largo Desolato] (Pere Grau I Rovira, Trans.). Barcelona: Edicions 62.
Kundera, Milan. 1987. Jacques I El Seu Amo [Jakub A Jeho Pn] (Joan Tarrida, Trans. From French). Sant
Boi De Llobregat: Edicions Del Mall.
Sabina, Carles [Karel]. 1924. La Nvia Venuda [Prodan Nevsta] (Libretto Of The Opera By B. Smetana)
(R.J. Slab, And Joaquim Pena, Trans.). Barcelona.
2.4. Non fiction (a selection)
Havel, Vclav. 1990. Paraules Sobre La Paraula [Slovo O Slovu] (Monika Zgustov, Trans.). Barcelona:
Llibres De Lndex.
Hus, Jan. 2001. Comentari Al Credo I Altres Escrits [Dcerka. Vklad Vry. Vklad Ptee] (David Utrera,
Trans.). Barcelona: Proa.
Kosk, Karel. 1970. Dialctica Del Concret [Dialektika Konkrtnho] (Manuel Carbonell, Trans. From
Italian). Barcelona: Edicions 62.
Kosk, Karel. 1971. La Nostra Crisi Actual [Nae Nynj Krize] (Manuel Carbonell, Trans. From Italian).
Barcelona: Edicions 62.
3. Translations into Basque
3.1. Prose fiction
Haek, Jaroslav. 19931994. Xveik Soldadu Onaren Menturak [Osudy Dobrho Vojka vejka] IIi (Kar
los Cid Abasolo, Trans.). EubaAmorebieta: Ibaizabal Edelvives.
Hrabal, Bohumil. 2002. Zorrotz Begiratutako Trenak [Oste Sledovan Vlaky] (Fernando Rey, Trans. From
Spanish). IrnSan Sebastin: AlberdaniaElkar.
Kundera, Milan. 1993. Amodio Barregarriak [Smn Lsky] (Karlos Cid Abasolo, Trans.). San Sebastin:
Erein.
Neruda, Jan. 2001. Mala Stranako Ipuinak [Povdky Malostransk] (Fernando Rey, Trans. From English).
EubaAmorebieta: Ibaizabal Edelvives.
kvoreck, Josef. 1996. Mundu Mingotsa [Hokej Svt] (Karlos Cid Abasolo, Trans.). Irn: Alberdania.
3.3. Drama
apek, Karel. 1991. R.U.R. (Erroboten Lantegia) [R.U.R.] (Xabier Monasterio, Trans.). Bilbao: Mensajero.
Kundera, Milan. 1996. Jacques Eta Nagusia [Jakub A Jeho Pn] (Beatriz Zabalondo, And J.L. Aranguren
Txiliku, Trans. From French). Zarauz: Susa.
3.4. Non fiction
Fuk, Julius. 1988. Urkamenditiko Mezua [Report, Psan Na Oprtce] (Elena Ituarte Gerrikabeitia,
Trans. From Spanish). Bilbao: Txalaparta.
204
4. Translations into Galician
4.1. Prose fiction
Hrabal, Bohumil. 2006. Unha Soidade Demasiado Ruidosa [Pli Hlun Samota] (Fernando De Castro
Garca, Trans.). Cangas Do Morrazo: Rinoceronte.
Such, Ji. 2000. Cen Contos, Ou Sexa, Un Plan Incumprido [Sto Povdek, Aneb Nesplnn Pln] (Trans
lation Workshop Coordinated By Kateina Vlaskov). Santiago De Compostela: Universidade De
Santiago De Compostela.
Appendix 2:
Slovak literature translated into the languages of Spain
1. Translations into Castilian
1.1. Prose fiction
Jesensk, Janko. 2002. La vicerregenta [Pani Rafikov] (Salustio Alvarado, and Renta Bojnianov,
trans.). Madrid: Centro de Lingstica Aplicada Atenea.
Kukun, Martin. 2004. La novilla bermeja [Rysav jalovica] (Salustio Alvarado, and Renta Bojnianov,
trans.). Madrid: Centro de Lingstica Aplicada Atenea.
Mako, Ladislav. 1967. Cmo Gusta El Poder [Ako Chut Moc] (Ana M De La Fuente, Trans. From
Mako, Ladislav. 1970. La Noche De Dresde [Non Rozhovor] (Gemma Strittmatter, Trans. From Ger
man). Barcelona: Noguer.
1.2. Poetry
Baeza Betancort, Felipe, Trans. From English. 1969. Diez Poemas Checoslovacos. Las Palmas De Gran
Canaria:Museo Canario.
Rfus, Milan. 1997. Tiempo De Adioses [Vber Z Bsn] (Clara Jans, And Jos Alonso Lpez, Trans.).
Barcelona: Lumen.
Rfus, Milan. 2003. Campanas [Zvony] (Alejandro Hermida, Trans.). Barcelona: La Poesa, Seor Hidalgo.
Zambor, Jan, Ed. 1993. Antologa De La Poesa Eslovaca Contempornea (Vladimr Olerny, And Miro
slav Lenghardt, Trans.; Justo Jorge Padrn, Poetical Version). Equivalencias (Revista Internacional
De Poesa / International Journal Of Poetry) 24.
1.3. Drama
BarIvan, Jlius. 2001. Dos [Dvaja] (Santiago Mata, Trans.). Ade Teatro 85, AprilJune, 6072.
1.4. Non Fiction
Mako, Ladislav. 1971. Invierno En Praga [Oneskoren Reporte] (Gemma Strittmatter, Trans. From
German). Barcelona: Noguer.
205
Larissa Semenova-Head
(Moscow Linguistic University, Russia)
Recent changes in the orientation and quality
of translations of literary works from Russian
into Portuguese and from Portuguese into Russian
The school of translation in Russia and in the former Soviet Union has a long
history, with rich traditions. During the period beginning with the translation of
the Bible many centuries ago and extending up to the present time, the techniques
and perspectives of translation have changed greatly, passing through a period of
mere imitation of the original, in which the authors work was simply the point of
departure for creation of a different text. The most obvious examples include trans-
lations of poetry undertaken by Lomonossov and Zhufovskiy, Krylovs fables from
Aesop and la Fontaine, Pushkins famous version of Horaces Monument, and
Lermontovs versions of the poetry of Heine, in which the translators rendered
free versions, adjusting the original texts to their own notions and feelings and to
the social reality of the times. Such versions were not even labeled translations,
but merely given titles such as from Horace or from German, sometimes with-
out even the name of the author nor the title.
In general, during the XVIII and XIX centuries, the Russian public felt little
need for translations from French, English, German, Spanish, Latin or other lan-
guages, since most of the general population was illiterate and those of the nobility
commonly spoke, read and wrote French better than Russian, typically relying on
translations of versions in this language rather than on direct translations from
works originally written in foreign languages less familiar in Russia than was French.
During Soviet times, however, translation acquired much greater interest and
became more widely used, due to three principal factors: (1) as a result of the
highly publicized literacy campaigns, the Soviet republics in general became com-
pletely literate, resulting in more widespread interest in literary works, including
those of different countries, leading to increased translation from various languag-
206
es, (2) the notion and the politics of the multinational state, with greater proximity
between peoples of different ethnic groups, required translations between the re-
spective languages and Russian (in both directions), and (3) finally, in order to
spread the propaganda of Soviet ideology and of the pioneer socialist government,
it was necessary to translate representative texts from Russian to other languages.
The combination of these three factors led to the development of improved tech-
niques of translation and to the development of new theories in this area, resulting
in new perspectives for translation.
In the 1920s, through the initiative of M. Gorki, the publication of a series of
translations of classic works of world literature was undertaken, attracting several
famous writers and translators, including Boris Pasternak, M. Lozinski, M. Lubi-
mov and others.
Another factor which contributed to the development of literary translations
in the Soviet Union was the fact that, in order to survive during an economically
difficult period, many writers began to work as translators, since they were not
permitted to publish their own works; among others, Anna Akhmatova and Mari-
na Tsvetaeva. Later, official government publishing companies (such as Progress,
Mir, and others) were established, especially for promoting the translations of
works of fiction and scientific studies, with translations both from Russian to other
languages and from other languages to Russian.
The on-going practice of translation aroused the interest of linguists, who pro-
duced several works on translation theory. Among them, the articles and books of
M. Bakhtin are well known; his works have had great influence not only in Russia
and other countries of the Soviet Union, but also through translations to other
major languages (French, German, English, Spanish and Portuguese). In this pres-
entation, it is not possible to number all of the Russian works dealing with the theory
of literary translation, but at least one title should be mentioned: High Art, by K.
Tchukovskiy, in which the author writes of translation as a form of verbal art, based
on his own experience in the field of translation and on the study of the work of other
translators. This book, which in its first edition in 1930 and the second edition in
1939, had the title Art of translation, in the later re-editions beginning in 1941, was
published under the title of High art. The change of title is symptomatic, from the
rather neutral one of Art of translation to the more positive one of High art, reflecting
changes in the concept and status of this type of literary and linguistic activity.
Translations of thousands of works of world literature have been published in
Russia, including many works of Portuguese authors. But, Olga Ovtcharento states
207
in her book Portuguese literature. Historical and theoretical essays, that the relation-
ships between Portuguese and Russian literature can be characterized by the Por-
tuguese term desencontro, although Portuguese writers deeply respect three Rus-
sian writers Dostoievski, Tolstoi and Gorki they are familiar with the works of
these writers only by way of indirect translations, generally based on French ver-
sions, rather that on the original texts. Continuing, the distinguished author and
translator notes that even Turgenev, who had close ties to the cultures of the coun-
tries of the Romance languages, has been practically unknown in Portugal, and
importance of Pushkin has simply not been understood, while Russian poetry of
the 20
th
century is, by rule, represented in Portuguese only by adaptations in prose,
resulting in works which only formally occupy the place of translations in what
would otherwise be an unfortunate lacuna, giving the impression of contributing to
knowledge of Russian culture, but Russian poetry to the level of mere mediocrity
among the literatures of Europe.
I must agree, in part, with the statements of Professor Ovtcharenko: the situa-
tion that she describes has surely been the case in the past, due to the inferior
quality of earlier translations. At present, however beginning a decade ago the
Portuguese reading public has had the opportunity to read both in poetry and in
prose the works of Russian authors through the skilled translations of Nina e Filipe
Guerra, whose contributions to this field will be characterized below.
It is not common in the history of publication in Portugal (nor in Brazil) of the
works of Russian classic writers in translations based on the original texts, rather
more common are versions in other languages, especially French and English. The
most important feature of the new translations is that they are carried out by spe-
cialists with a very high level of professional preparation and experience. Before
considering some aspects of their joint work in the field of literary translation, I
wish to mention some aspects of their background.
Nina earned her degree at the State University of Moscow Lomonossov,
where she was a student of the famous Russian specialist in Portuguese philol-
ogy, Elena Wolf; following her university studies, she worked for twenty years
as corrector and translator for the publishing companies previously mentioned,
Progress and Mir, while preparing translations for other publishers as well.
Filipe Guerra, Portuguese writer and poet, also worked for a few years for the
publishing house Progress in Moscow, as a stylist, a common activity during the
Soviet period, in which native speakers were employed to revise the prelimi-
nary texts of translations from Russian. It would be difficult, if not impossible,
208
to find more qualified specialists in translation than Filipe and Nina Guerra,
both of whom have excellent academic preparation, a high degree of compe-
tence and extensive experience in the field, while one is a native speaker of
Russian, the other of Portuguese although it is clear that each of them know
both languages very well. In their collaborative work, technical linguistic knowl-
edge is combined with literary talent in such a way that Nina and Filipe Guerra
not only are able to avoid the sorts of errors that are common in indirect
translations (those not based on original texts) but also to produce translations
of high literary quality. For the past ten years they have prepared for the Portu-
guese reading public translations of the works of classic Russian writers in both
prose and poetry: Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoi, Dostoievski, Tchekkhov, Bunin, Ilia
Ilf, Petrov, Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova (edited by Assrio & Alvim,
Presena, Relgio dgua, Campo das Letras). For their work, they were award-
ed the Pen Club prize for 2002.
Their method of collaborative work is as follows. Nina, who is a native speaker
of Russian and a certified translator of Russian to Spanish and Portuguese, gener-
ally prepares the preliminary version of the translation; her goal is to preserve the
meaning, rhythm and general sense of the original text, and she prepares notes and
commentaries as well. Filipe, a native speaker of Portuguese with knowledge of
Russian literary language, prepares the literary version based on the preliminary
translation. Then the text goes back to Nina, who does the general revision and
comparison of the translation with the original text. In such a process, it is possible
to prepare literary translations that are as close as possible to the original works in
all senses.
Here are the principles which they follow:
1) Above all, respect for the original literary text and the ideas and talent of
its author. (A translator should NOT consider himself more intelligent
and more skilled than the author of the original text, although this notion
appears to be implicitly common among many translators.)
2) The finished translation should be as similar as possible to the original
literary work, with neither distortions nor embellishments.
3) The translation should be based solely on the original text, not on versions
in other languages.
4) During the process of translation, the translator needs to study the literary
production of the author and to acquire as much knowledge as possible
about both the author and his or her works.
209
5) The translator must have good knowledge of the culture, history, art, liter-
ature and folklore of the country, as well as of the respective language.
6) The translator must have both preparation and vocation (a calling); pos-
session of good knowledge of a foreign language does not, by itself, mean
that one is qualified as a translator.
By implementing such principles, Nina and Filipe Guerra are able to prepare
translations which reflect the spirit and content of the original literary text with
great precision. They have prepared new translations of several classic works of
Russian literature, already known to readers of Portuguese through indirect trans-
lations (from French versions). Their translated texts of Dostoievski, Tolstoi and
Gogol do not possess the kind of French charm which can result from Galli-
cisms. In addition to new, original translations of some works already known to
readers of Portuguese, Nina and Filipe Guerra have also translated for the first
time several important works of Russian literature, previously not available in Por-
tuguese. They have introduced the works of great Russian writers who were previ-
ously nearly unknown in this country, such as Ivan Bunin, Nobel prize laureate,
one of the great masters of style in both prose and poetry. Through translations of
the works of Pushkin they have made available knowledge of one of the most ded-
icated founders of classical Russian literature. It is not particularly strange that
Pushkin was not well known in Portugal, where translations of his work had not
previously been published. Although he is considered a national literary genius, it
is very difficult to translate the sense and feeling of his works into other languages.
Anton Tchekhov is best known as a playwright, and Nina and Filipe Guerra
have done fresh translations of some of his plays (Tio Vnia, Trs Irms, Gaivota),
as well as making Tchekhov available to the Portuguese reading public, as a master
of short prose, presenting his short stories in a collection which spans six vol-
umes.
Another important area, not previously available in Portuguese translations, is
that of the so-called age of silver, the early 20
th
century poetry. (The golden
age pertains to the 19
th
century.) In this domain, the translations of the poetry of
Ossip Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva and Anna Akhmatova were published in
bilingual editions, with the original Russian and the Portuguese translation on fac-
ing pages, thereby facilitating comparison of the original and the translation.
As mentioned earlier, Nina and Filipe Guerra are able, due to their combined
preparation and experience, to avoid errors of the sort commonly found in other
translations. For example, in the satirical romance on Vladimir Voinovitch, Life
210
and adventures of the soldier Tchnkin, the translator includes an explanation of the
place-name Kliukvino, which means the place where a wild fruit, kliukva, grows.
An earlier translator decomposed the name incorrectly so as to interpret it as a
place producing wine of that fruit. Elsewhere, a translator refers to Tajikistan as
a Russian province rather than as a republic. There are also explanations that are
totally wrong, as when a translator claims that the adjective novaya in the feminine
form is derived from the word mir, meaning peace; the two words are, of course,
totally unrelated. The nickname Tiopa, meaning clumsy, has been associated with
the adverb of time, teper meaning now, with a completely fantastic explanation.
A translator of the short stories of Tchekhov translates as negro cook a combina-
tion of Russian words which merely refer to the cook who prepares food for the
servants, rather than for the owners, giving the false impression that the cook is a
negro. In another instance, there is total confusion regarding the mere names of
common fish and birds.
In addition to Nina and Filipe Guerra, there are other translators with good
knowledge of both Russian and Portuguese, including some who live in Russia,
such as Alexandre Basin, who has translated classic Russian authors.
Also with good knowledge of Russian language and culture, due to experience
of living there and learning the language well, there is Elena Guimares in Braga,
who translates plays by Tchekhov, Gorki and Shipenko for the local theatrical com-
pany. Just a few words concerning translations from Portuguese to Russian; I had
hoped to find present at the conference for which I prepared this paper, Professor
Olga Ovtcharenko who has translated several Portuguese works to Russian, in-
cluding the Lusiads. Of course, Lus de Cames has been known in Russia for a long
time and has traditionally attracted the attention of the Russian-reading public. A.
Pushkin, V. Zhukovskiy and other Russian writers refer to the Lusiads, as well as the
sonnets of Cames. But translations of the sonnets began to appear in Russian only
during the second half of the 20
th
century, due to the work of V. Levik, V. Reznitch-
enko and others. In 1980, a collection of the lyrics of Cames was published by Khu-
dozhestoenaya literatura, and the work of Olga Ovtcharenko resulted in the first
Russian translation in verse of the Lusiads (in accordance with the rhyme-scheme of
the original text), published in last quarter of the past century.
While the Russian reader already had access to translations of classic Portu-
guese authors, such as Ea de Queirs, Almeida Garrett, Alexandre Herculano
and Fernando Pessoa, a notable surge of interest in Portuguese literature occurred
following the revolution of April 25, 1974.
211
In the Ukraine, translations of Cames and other major figures of Portuguese
literature are currently under preparation.
It should be noted that the influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe (who
typically have a relatively high level of education), which began only a few years
ago, is already having an impact on translations of Portuguese literary works into
Ukrainian (the majority of the recent immigrants being from the Ukraine). For
example, Anatoliy Dmytruk has prepared translations representing two phases of
the poetic works of Florbela Espanca (reflected in the collections O livro dele and
Livro do nosso amor); some of the translations have been published in the Russian
newspaper Slovo (n 255, June 22, 2006, p. 21).
In general, translations of Portuguese literary works to Russian are not so nu-
merous, being stimulated especially following the revolution of April 25, 1974. Al-
though the work of Cames was somewhat known in Russia, the translations were
limited to a few poems (by V. Zhukovskiy and Lomonossov). In the middle of the
past century, the sonnets of Cames were translated by well qualified Russian trans-
lators. The principle work, the Lusiads, was translated two decades ago by the phi-
lologist and translator Professor Olga Ovtcharenko, author of a book of essays on
Portuguese literature and a dissertation on Cames. Ovtcharenkos translation of
the Lusiads deserves special recognition, not just because it is the first translation
of this work to be done into Russian, but also because of its high quality. In addi-
tion, Andrey Rodosskiy in Saint Petersburg, who is himself a poet, has undertaken
several fine translations of Portuguese authors, including the long poem Cames
by Almeida Garrett, as well as many other works of poetry. Rodosskiy has also
translated poetry from Catalan, Galician and Spanish. The translations of Olga
Ovtcharenko and Andrey Rodosskiy are accompanied by philological and cultural
notes, which enable the reader to have a better understanding of these works of
Portuguese literature.
In conclusion, one can note that, in recent years, translations of literary works
both from Russian to Portuguese and from Portuguese to Russian and Ukrainian
have increased in quantity and improved in quality, owing largely to the endeavors
of those mentioned here. Due to the recent influx of generally well-educated immi-
grants from countries of the former Soviet Union, it seems safe to predict that an
interest in translated works of literature, of the types mentioned in this brief study,
will increase, leading to continotcued progress in these domains.
212
Selected Bibliography:
1. Akhmtova, Anna. S o sangue cheira a sangue. Selection, translation from Russian, introduc-
tion and notes, by Nina Guerra and Filipe Guerra. Lisbon: Assrio & Alvim, 2000.
2. Almeida Garret, Joo-Batista de. Cames. Poem, Translation from Portuguese to Russian by
Andrei Rodosskiy, Saint Petersburg: University, 1998.
3. Dostoivski, Fidor. O Idiota. Translation from Russian, by Nina Guerra and Filipe Guerra.
Lisbon: Editorial Presena, 2001.
4. Dostoivski, Fidor. Cadernos do Subterrneo. Translation from Russian, by Nina Guerra and
Filipe Guerra. Lisbon: Assrio & Alvim, 2000.
5. Dostoivski, Fidor. Noites Brancas. Translation from Russian, by Nina Guerra and Filipe Guer-
ra. Lisbon: Assrio & Alvim, 2001.
6. Dostoivski, Fidor. Um Sonho do Tio. Das Crnicas de Mordssov. Translation from
Russian, by Nina Guerra and Filipe Guerra. Lisbon: Assrio & Alvim, 2000.
7. Ggol, Nikolai. Almas mortas. Translation from Russian, by Nina Guerra and Filipe Guerra.
Lisbon: Assrio & Alvim, 2002.
8. Ggol, Nikolai. O capote. Introduction by Filipe Guerra. Translation from Russian, by
Nina Guerra and Filipe Guerra. Lisbon: Assrio & Alvim, 2002.
9. Ggol, Nikolai. Dirio de um louco. Translation from Russian, by Nina Guerra and Filipe
Guerra. Lisbon: Assrio & Alvim, 2000.
10. Ggol, Nikolai. O Nariz. Translation from Russian, by Nina Guerra and Filipe Guerra.
Lisbon: Assrio & Alvim, 2000.
11. Mandelstam, Ossip. Fogo Errante (colectnea). Translation from Russian, by Nina Guerra and
Filipe Guerra. Lisboa: Relgio dgua Editores, 2001.
a. Lisbon: Relgio dgua Editores, 2001.
12. Mandelstam, Ossip. Guarda minha fala para sempre. Selection, introduction, commentary
and notes by Nina Guerra. Translation from Russian, by Nina Guerra and Filipe Guerra. Lis-
bon: Assrio & Alvim, 1996.
13. Ovtcharenko, O. Portugalskaia literatura. Istoriko-teoreticheskie ocherki. Moscow: IMLI RAN,
2005.
14. Ovtcharenko, O. Lus de Cames i isnovnyie problemy portugalskoi literatury epokhi Vozrozhdeni-
ia. Moscow: Golos-Press, 2005.
15. Ovtcharenko, O. Lus de Cames. Sonetos. Os Lusadas. Moscow: Eksmo-Press, 1999.
16. Pchkin, Aleksandr. O Cavalheiro de Bronze e Outros Poemas. Selection, translation from Rus-
sian, with notes by Nina Guerra and Filipe Guerra. Lisbon: Assrio &Alvim, 1999.
17. Tchkhov, Anton. Contos. Translation from Russian, by Nina Guerra and Filipe Guerra. 6 v.
Lisbon: Relgio dgua Editores, 2001ss.
18. Tsvetseva, Marina. Depois da Rssia, 1922-1925. Translation from Russian, by Nina Guerra and
Filipe Guerra. Lisbon: Relgio dgua Editores, 2001.
213
Jacek Pleciski
(Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toru, Poland)
T TT TTerramoto erramoto erramoto erramoto erramoto (The Earthquake The Earthquake The Earthquake The Earthquake The Earthquake) Vitrio Kli:
The World Imagined, the Reality
and the Translators Problems
In my article I would like to share with you one of my achievements, which
brought me considerable satisfaction, as it was one of the most difficult translation
challenges in my life. Certainly, it is not incumbent on me to judge whether the
enterprise was successful or not. Therefore, I will just restrict myself to presenting
the encountered problems and difficulties, especially those of a linguistic and ter-
minological nature.
The book under consideration is the novel The Earthquake by Vitrio Kli
(this is the penname of Antnio Mesquita Brehm). The Portuguese edition was
published by Amadis in Lisbon in 1992, and my Polish translation was issued by the
publishing house Bene Nati in Pozna in 2004. So far, several dozen translations of
Portuguese literature appeared in Poland. This is a far larger number than that of
the Portuguese translations of Polish literary works. At the same time, all the trans-
lations into Polish and I have accurate data from the years 1945-1980
1
at my
disposal were translated from the original, whereas in Portugal Jose Saramago
translated Polish short stories indirectly, that is from Spanish. However, among
these, I encountered none that would cause as much trouble as Terramoto.
Among the translation issues, it is the linguistic aspect rather than the literary
one that interests me most. Therefore, since I am not a literary theorist, I would
not dare to tell what this novel by Vitrio Kli is about. Instead, I will cite the
opinions of professional literary critics, which will help you recognize and acknowl-
edge the masterpiece you are now hearing about.
1
For further reference check: Bibliography of the Literature Translated Into Polish and Published
between the Years 1945-1976 (I), 1977-1980 (III), Warsaw: Czytelnik, Vol. I 1997, vol. III 1981.
214
An unknown author, whose text Vitrio Kli himself made available to me,
summarized the novel in such a way
2
:
There are books which cannot (or should not) be condensed, as their structure
and organization do not obey the conventional laws of traditional fiction.
The Earthquake has to be viewed according to two different aspects: firstly,
that which deals with its essence, (in this case it is a formulation of metaphysical
theses that intends to lead to the reinvention of Literature). Secondly, the expres-
sion of a certain type of language, which transcends the simple perceptive narra-
tion of classical romances. The novelty of this style, however, resides in its fluency
and clarity, which holds the readers attention from page one.
The book presents a plot, the logic of which is shown through the action itself.
The objective theme is centered upon the Lisbon earthquake (with elements sug-
gested by the history of the 1755 earthquake). This fictional earthquake hasnt
happened yet, but may take place at any moment.
The first 90 pages describe it so forcefully that it reminds us of the recent
events in Turkey and Taiwan. The author, however, introduces as part of the report
on reality, elements of his own belief, in the form of magical people and situations,
creating a scenario that, although not demon-like, is definitely surrealistic.
The romance develops as a remembrance of a dream the author dreamt in his
youth, in which he foresaw the events having related them in a school essay. Years
later, a Polish clairvoyant had the perception that an earthquake would happen in
Lisbon. Mediumistic sances recover the key character at the beginning of the book,
and reveal new realities, that are the mythical explanation of the constitution of the
Universe in which we live. According to the author, earthquakes are the result of
the clash of forces within the earth that cause the movement of the continental
plaques. Such forces are the underground dragons that guard the beings that are,
by definition, the origin of Man.
The last part of the book is a fictional dissertation about the plot presented,
where Vitrio Kli intends to justify the religious, symbolic and semiotic reasons of
his theses. The Earthquake, as a book, has no ending, for the last page is left incom-
plete. Precisely at that point, something happens.
The romance has, of course, a message to its unprepared readers: it proclaims,
contrary to materialistic doctrines, that Mans destiny has no limit, his soul is im-
mortal, and all of us have the absolute opportunity to find again each crossing of
the times and spaces of our existences.
2
I follow the language and spelling of the original.
215
And here is the text from Editorial Report by A. E. Rawlinson from London,
written in 1996 for the Avon Books publishing house:
This is a rich, extravagant and beautifully-controlled submission which
must have been greeted with acclaim in the authors homeland. It belongs
firmly in the rich tradition of the Portuguese, Spanish and Latin American
literature which has steadily gained favour in the English speaking world
over the last twenty years. The success of this book in the UK and the
United States markets will depend almost entirely on the extent to which
its translator is able to capture the complex and singularly original spirit of
Vitorio Kalis original text and the extent to which the translator and the
editor are prepared to work in harmony.
Within the elaborate structure of his narrative Vitorio Kali plays stupendously
daring tricks with the concepts of space and time. It is a tribute to his authorial
powers of persuasion that we find ourselves readily accepting his masterful manip-
ulation of the time continuum. This plausibility is due in large measure to the fact
that the author himself leads us through the dream-like labyrinthine caverns and
corridors of his imagination. We too are participants in the drama as it unfolds,
because Kali is perpetually challenging us to cross new frontiers of the imagina-
tion. While comparisons to the work of other authors is invidious, I would have to
say that I have seldom encountered fiction of such an ambitious nature, save in the
pages of either Jorge Luis Borges or Isabel Allende.
This book will require a significant degree of attention for its English version
to appear at its best. Much of this work will involve what is likely to be a complicat-
ed and time-consuming three-way liaison between the author, the translator and
the English-speaking editor at Avon Books. Having said this I feel that this is a
worthy book and would recommend it for publication under the Avon imprint.
I have already mentioned the problems related to the translation of Terramoto
that I would like to elaborate on here, that is mainly the lexico-terminological ones.
I will omit the stylistic and syntactic issues, which could be the subject of a separate
paper. If such should be written, it should contain, among others, a discussion of the
chapters structures, that is the fact that they were written in different conventions, as
far as syntax and style are concerned. Thus, for example, chapter two entitled Infer-
no, which is 76 pages long (p.14-89), is just one long mega sentence.
Let us now proceed to the already announced lexis and terminology. There is
a well-known adage among translators that the really constructive and creative
work of a translator begins where the dictionary ends, and this saying perfectly
Translation study detailed studies
216
describes the task of the Terramoto translator. Therefore, I will omit the cases where
the lexical units used by the author, yet unknown to the translator, can be found in
one of the dictionaries I used, and the meaning of which is in accordance with the
context. The greatest dictionary I relied on while translating Terramoto was Di-
cionrio da lngua portuguesa, electronic version
3
, and the biggest bilingual diction-
ary was Grande Dicionrio Portugus-Francs
4
.
Meanwhile, Vitrio Kli draws on extensive lexical areas, which are beyond
the bounds of any dictionary, and the translator needs to approach them on a dif-
ferent ground. As a translator I have received invaluable help from the author
himself, who willingly answered my questions and helped dispel the doubts. He
also supplied me with a seven-page single-spaced glossary, where he specified the
meaning of the terms he used.
The authors glossary keeps to the chronological timeline of the novel, provid-
ing also the page numbers, where some peculiar lexical units appear. Citing such
items in this given order would make no sense; therefore a different method for
their presentation is required. To me, most suitable for this purpose seems to be a
line or an axis: heading from the known to the unknown, or in other words,
moving from the wholly imagined to the partly existing. On such an axis, close to
the point of the known the words concocted by the author on the basis of the
existing meaningful linguistic elements are situated, whereas in the vicinity of the
unknown such words are situated that are (or maybe just seem to be) coined by
the author ex nihilo. Which of these two semantic categories turned out to be less
troublesome for the translator? Eventually it transpired that the coined words, the
totally imagined ones, are substantially easier to translate, since having the au-
thors explanatory glossary at my disposal, I could resort myself to a creative activ-
ity of inventing idioms. Hence, while translating into Polish, I could imitate the
phonetic/graphic forms of the Portuguese words while referring to the phonetic/
graphic means characteristic of the Polish language, or using the authors defini-
tions, attempt to convey the meaning into the target language through description.
More difficult turned out to be the neologisms based on the already existing mean-
ingful linguistic units, i.e. derivatives, transformations, and neosemanticisms.
Certainly, I also encountered cases where it was difficult to unequivocally state
whether the neologism was coined by the author ex nihilo or not. Excluding the
3
Dicionrio da lngua portuguesa, CD, version 1.0, Porto Editora, Porto 1996.
4
Domingos de Azevedo, Grande Dicionrio Portugus-Francs, 9a edition, Bertrand Editora, Ven-
da Nova 1989.
217
ambiguous instances, I have found in the novel 86 words coined by the author.
Some words are blatant coinages, which is obvious judging by their graphic form:
they contain alphabetical letters not existing in the indigenous Portuguese language
(k, y): kli
5
a fictional figure living in the inside of the Earth (the definitions in
brackets or their elements come from the author, who provided them in Portu-
guese for the Polish translator by mail), kyoris pulse measure unit, kaniara an
antediluvian tortoise with seven-finger paws, okaios giant trees, which slowly
moved, turks boiling, fizzing lakes. The foreign effect is evoked by: words con-
taining letters that seldom occur in the Portuguese vocabulary, and rare or impos-
sible letter/sound combinations: badernais diagonally cut scales, which would in-
crease the movement speed of the mythical animals, blabcios never revealed
thoughts and intentions, clartnias moss swelling in the presence of living crea-
tures, doina priest prophet, ergitcias iron plants, estarjmios hazelnut size
birds, gndios sentences requiring constant interpretation, gntia wall of an
unshakeable faith, gonssias plants with hidden gonads, gotcios stretching fib-
ers, liuglous down on red wings, ogapis plant shells, ogpia middle and high-
est shell, raitongos harbingers/prefigurations of shapes, stnios shadows of un-
real beings, taguars invisible satellites, zunrceas plants producing cysts filled
with honey, zorpedes gold scarabs, pacing at the foot of volcanoes, zrbio a
mineral present in the breast of a pregnant woman, giving her maternal might,
and many more.
The author coined three nouns, although these already have their designations
and established references in the Portuguese language, in other words, he invented
synonyms of already existing nouns, which he mailed me instead of definitions.
These are: catral wedge (Portuguese cunha), rasa pearl womb (madreprola),
and sionites airways (respiradoiros). In close vicinity with the neologisms cited
above there are contorted words, transformations of already existing words, i.e.
words similar in the formal way (in the phonetic/graphic way), as well as in the
semantic way, to the commonly known words. These are only few, therefore I will
present all of them. Thus, there exists a noun, guelra gills, through which, by
deletion of the letter r, the author invented the word guela, pine trees respirato-
ry organ, by analogy to the fish organ. Organdi in Portuguese means a kind of a
very thin cotton muslin, and the author coined the word orgndia a kind of a
tulle, and to the word denoting a comet (cometa) he inserted n and got a word
5
A key word in the novel. From it comes the pseudonym of the author.
218
that means a comet with a longer than usual tail. A daisy is malmequer. This
noun can be analyzed as mal me quer, bringing bad luck, being unsuccessful (i.e.
I am reading my own future by tearing off the flower petals, luck bad luck, it will
come off it will not, so I have bad luck). The author invented an opposing noun
bem-me-quer brings me luck. The poor translator looks up now towards the heav-
ens, since in other languages daisy is not associated with reading from petals. In the
category of word transformations endorsed by a dictionary we may also include
the so called contaminations, the French mots-valises, that is a crossing of two lex-
ical roots or words, just like it happens in English: workaholic (work + alcoholic) or
the journalistic transformations of the word Watergate (Irangate, Monicagate), where
gate signifies a political or social scandal. Such a contamination is the noun
territura, invented according to the principle of analogy to tessitura (this polysemic
word has various equivalents in English, tessitura is a musical term, texture is a
medical term, structure or construction refers to drama) through using the root
terr- from terra earth, the meaning of the neologism territura is supposed to be a
network of earthly memories. To the lexical transformations also belong the words
especially verbs similar to the existing ones, but of changed affixes or spelling:
agaixado bowed, bent, a participle from the non-existing verb *agaixar-se, how-
ever, there exists a verb agachar-se which has an almost identical pronunciation;
descasalar divide the male and the female, a term from the field of animal hus-
bandry (there exists the verb desacasalar), espadejar cut, or: brandish a sword or
a sable (there is also a verb espadeirar)
6
.
Vitrio Kli can also artfully draft derivatives from the lexical roots and words,
sometimes maintaining the basic meaning, and sometimes making a semantic trans-
fer. This first possibility is illustrated by the words: almigros, which is supposed to
mean souls (Portuguese almas) in the primordial stage of evolution, ante souls,
adjective altaneiro raising very high (tall, high alto), the adjective nominal a
derivative from the term in the Kantian philosophy (Portuguese nmeno) the thing
in itself, this what we cannot know either by reason or experience. The semantic
transfer, however, we encounter in the case of the adjective morftico, the noun
terrncio and also some other terms. Morftico is both a typical derivative and a
6
Due to the authors predilections to rely on his own lexical derivations and orthography, the trans-
lator of Terramoto had problems with certain words in the novel: he does not know, namely, whether
these are coinages intended by the author, or just printing mistakes, which of course the book is
not devoid of. Is Helicpetros a neologizm, or was it rather supposed to be helicpteros helicop-
ters; is estretor a word invented by the author or rather was it intended to be estertor wheezing of
a dying person? Such issues required clarification.
219
neosemanticism: the dictionary registers such an item as a derivative from morfeia,
med.: an illness of the skin, with similar symptoms to that of leprosy and elephan-
tiasis, but the author, associates this word with the name of the god of slumber,
namely Morpheus (Portuguese Morfeu). In the novel it is a noun, and it denotes a
petrified and dormant plant. Terrncios is, similarly to the already known to us
territuras, a derivative from terra, earth, and its meaning in the novel is young
demons, in opposition to querubins (English cherub, plural: cherubs, adjective cher-
ubim (asexual) angels; the opposition is double here: asexual sexual, sky
earth (and its interior, traditionally associated with inferno). In the case of the verb
afunilar it is difficult to determine whether it retained its fundamental meaning or
not and if a transfer took place: it is a derivative from funil funnel, therefore we
would expect giving something the shape of a funnel, whereas the author infused
this verb with the meaning: narrowing down the point of view, just as if someone
was watching it through a funnel.
It is not easy to place on the axis existing invented the unquestionable
neosemanticisms of Vitrio Kli, that is the semantic neologisms, words unchanged
in the formal way that belong to the Portuguese vocabulary, which the author,
however, endowed with a different sense than that endorsed by dictionaries. Hence,
gana means according to the dictionaries a whim, fancy, and in Terramoto it
means fury, rage; also the nouns psalmdio (exists as a biology term) and the
polysemic disparar were used by the author as semantic neologisms
7
. At the end of
the lexical curiosities appearing in Terramoto, just near the point known on the
axis, we can place the words existing in the lexis, semantically unchanged, which
belong to the regionalisms in Portugal, just like estralho a kind of a fishing net or
to the words of Brazilian origin (Portuguese brasileirismos), such as the verb despen-
car, meaning collapsing from a considerable height or the noun taguar, a fresh-
water fish species known in Brazil (and brought by the author to Portugal).
Vitrio Kli does not explain to his readers the meaning of his neologisms
introduced in Terramoto neither in the text as such nor in the footnotes or com-
mentaries. As a translator of the book into Polish, I proceeded in a similar manner,
making just one exception for the noun comenta, the case of which I have already
discussed. Still, Terramoto revolves not only around the imagined, mythic ficti-
tious world of the inside of earth. There is also the opposite pole: the exact, accu-
7
I do not discuss them, since it would have been very complicated, specifically when it pertains to
the terminology of the noun psalmdio and the ambiguity of the verb disparar. In any case the
author uses these words not in the meaning that is endorsed by any dictionary.
220
rate Portuguese realities (and also Polish ones, which I will mention in a while).
The Portuguese realities are of the character: a) geographic, and more precisely
topographical: they pertain to the various places in Lisbon and its vicinity: the names
of the districts, squares, streets, churches, etc.; b) historical the figures and events
that every child in Portugal is familiar with are mentioned: King Sebastian, the
legendary Priest John (Preste Joo), the great geographical discoveries made by
Portuguese sailors; c) cultural and in terms of civilization, e.g. the tiles called azule-
jos, the dried and salted codfish bacalhau. Unfortunately, among the Polish liter-
ary classics there is a dearth of such obligatory school reading, whereby everyone
would become familiarised and the action of which would be set in Portugal and so
it could then popularize in Poland this countrys most typical realities. Neither Polish
tourists, who have lately rather frequently visited Portugal, nor the television pro-
grams about the country of Cames have become a carrier of such generally ac-
quired knowledge. Therefore, the translator of Terramoto was faced with a certain
paradox: contrary to the imaginary world envisioned for the sake of the novel, the
world whose elements the author sometimes endowed with real names, a definitely
real world, the particulars of which are common knowledge for each Portuguese
reader, has to be rendered to the Polish reader in a different, supplementary way.
Since in this particular novel any footnotes seemed to me absolutely out of the
question, I have included translators explanatory notes at the end of the book.
They are supposed to make the reader realize that next to the fantasy world there
exist a thoroughly real world, and explain to him that to it belong for example the
Rossio square with the King Peter IV statue, the Santa Justa Elevator, and the St.
Georges Castle, etc.
Let us now proceed to the last point of the paper. In Vitrio Klis novel there
also appears (unfortunately tragic and cruel) polonicum, which is a sensation in
Portuguese literature. One of the figures in the novel, Joana Malinewsky, is a Polish
Jew living in Paris. She is a clairvoyant with mediumistic abilities, who due to ex-
traordinary and complicated circumstances managed to survive the Nazi concen-
tration camp in Treblinka. On about a dozen pages (p. 270 281) the author relates
her tragic camp experiences on the Polish soil, portraying a realistic background,
where I have noticed no inadequacies, improbabilities, or historic inadvertencies. I
mention this aspect of the novel due to its significant character in Portuguese liter-
ature and not in relation to the translation difficulties, since there are none such in
this fragment of the novel possibly with one exception. It is the surname of the
female protagonist, which is spelled in the book as Malinewsky. This surname of
221
8
Describing the future earthquake in Lisbon (anticipation) in the realistic convention the author
contrives another already the fourth universe.
9
The factual problems (i.e. difficulties) do not appear in the second, Polish, world of the novel in
the Polish translation of Terramoto.
10
Interesting could be a thorough and comprehensive confrontation of these translations. I do not
exclude such an undertaking in the future.
any Polish citizen would not have been spelled this way. The suffix ski (and not
sky) is typical of male surnames (it comes from the adjectives derived from nouns
in the masculine gender). In Polish the female suffix of such surnames is ska. The
truth is, however, that Polish females who are acquiring a foreign country citizen-
ship have to accept their surnames with the male suffix ski (the surname of the
wife must be the same as her husbands). Nevertheless, what I would like to em-
phasize here is that there is no such surname in Poland as Malinewsky/-ska, but
Malinowski. Therefore, the surname of Mrs. Malinewsky contains three mistakes
for a Pole. Still, the circumstances conducive to maintaining this surname unchanged,
that is with its three inaccuracies in the Polish translation was that Mrs. Malinews-
ky comes to Lisbon from Paris, so most probably it was there that her surname
became transformed according to the French fashion.
In conclusion, I find that in the novel of Vitrio Kli Terramoto (The Earth-
quake) there are although this is a great simplification
8
three separate worlds:
the real world of Lisbon and its vicinity, the real life of Poland under the Nazi
occupation, and the fictional world of the inhabitants of the interior of the Earth.
The description of each of these worlds carries with itself the potential for specific
and distinct translation problems
9
, which the translator has to tackle. That it is
possible is confirmed by the fact that Terramoto has been translated into several
languages so far, most recently into Romanian
10
.
222
Jn Zambor
(Comenius University and Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Bratislava, Slovakia)
The Reception of Federico Garca Lorcas
Romancero Gitano Romancero Gitano Romancero Gitano Romancero Gitano Romancero Gitano in Slovakia
Federico Garca Lorca is one of the most frequently translated and published
Spanish authors in Slovakia. Three generations of poets translated his works. The
first selection was the work of a former Surrealist, poet tefan ry, in cooperation
with a scholar in Spanish studies, Vladimr Olerny (panielske romance, Vber z
diela, 1955, partially modified his work in a re-edition of . ry: Preklady, 1986).
Two other selections were translated by Jn imonovi, a member of the poet group
Concretists, also known as expressive sensualists (Raz do vyhne vola luna,
1969; Tak som a videl, 1975). The most recent edition of Lorca is my translation of
Romancero gitano (Cignske romance, 2005). Since ry and Olerny, as well as
imonovi only translated it partially, my translation is the first complete transla-
tion into Slovak.
Czech translations of Lorcas poetry were also read in Slovakia. Czechs have
three complete translations of Romancero gitano. They were created by Frantiek
Nechvtal (Ciknsk romance, 1946), Lumr ivrn (Ciknsk romance, 1956) and
Miloslav Ulin (part of the anthology Uzaven rj, 1983).
I critically analyzed the present Slovak and partially also the Czech transla-
tions of Lorcas Romancero gitano in a separate paper (Slovensk preklady pozie
Federica Garcu Lorcu. In: Preklad ako umenie, 2000, pp. 178-194). I also wrote
about my experience translating this collection in an article (Lorcove Cignske ro-
mance a ich preklad, 2005, p. 115-118) and in the foreword to my book. In this
contribution, I would like to reflect on some important aspects of Slovak (and, to a
great extent, Czech) receptions of the translations of Romancero Gitano. Besides, I
would like to mention the critical reception of the collection and its reflection in
original Slovak poetry.
223
In the first part of my paper, I would like to discuss the problem of the genre in
this collection of verse in a comparative manner. Ballad, in particular, is a Slovak
parallel to Spanish romance. Ballads had a rich tradition in folk and original poetry
until the 20th century. A narrative ballad, spreading by the word of mouth, formed
in Slovakia in the same way as a romance in medieval Spain did. Similarly, a Slovak
ballad was associated with sinister contents and a tragic or sad ending which is
typical for only part of Spanish romances.
A substantial part of Lorcas poems in Romancero gitano can be considered
ballads or balladic poems. Apart from the tragic or sad endings, romances often
imply mystery, daemonic powers, and fatalism. The story is usually brief and nar-
rated with gaps. Dialogues dont have introductory clauses. Dramatic as well as
lyric dimensions are used to a varying degree.
Another common point between Lorca and Slovak folk ballads is their surreal
brutality. The following poems of Lorca can be perceived as ballads: Romance de la
luna, luna, Reyerta, Romance sonmbulo, Prendimiento de Antoito el Camborio en
el camino de Sevilla, Muerte de Antoito el Camborio, Muerto de amor, Romance del
emplazado, Martirio de Santa Olalla, Burla de Don Pedro a caballo, Thamar y Am-
nn. At least two other ones have a balladic feel: Romance de la pena negra and
Romance de la Guardia Civil espaola. La monja gitana could also be interpreted
as a ballad, and possibly also the romance Preciosa y el aire. Out of the 18 poems in
the collection, only four poems lack balladic features: La casada infiel and the trip-
tych on archangels and Andalusian towns San Miguel, San Rafael a San Gabriel.
My translation sought to offer a more precise picture of Lorcas poetry for
Slovak readers. I dealt with the original and with the existing Slovak and Czech
translations, as well as with the recent scholarly interpretations. My advantage,
compared to previous translators, was that I had three Spanish editions of Ro-
mancero gitano with the comments of Allen Josephs, Juan Caballero, Miguel Garca-
Posada and Christian De Paepe at my disposal. My ambition was to present the
poems at the contemporary level of knowledge in the area of literary studies. In
addition to the translation itself, I included a foreword and notes this was per-
haps inspired by Spanish editions.
If we compare the particular Slovak and Czech translations of Romancero gi-
tano, we can observe a gradual improvement at the lexical level. J. imonovis
translation deviates from this trend its semantic accuracy is rather low and the
translation is very free, almost too free. On the other hand, the most recent Czech
translation by M. Ulin is most precise, at least from the perspective of lexical
224
semantics. However, this translation came out two decades ago, and the research-
ers of Lorcas poetry were busy in the meantime. This allowed new solutions to
emerge in some situations.
The title of the poem Romance del emplazado itself required more precision.
As the Spanish researchers of Lorca say, it is a historical or legendary allusion to
characters who were summoned to a tribunal by their victims. Lorca makes this
allusion more universal as a tragic anticipation of a man who is summoned to die.
Therefore, my title is Romanca o predvolanom, and in the notes I have explained
this historical/legendary reminiscence. This title was translated more freely in the
past: (ry and Olerny: Romanca o prekliatom, ivrn: Romance o tvanci, Ulin:
Romance o smrti obeslanm).
A translation is also a gradual search for the most appropriate lexical equiva-
lent, or the correction of errors. For example, ry and Olerny, as well as imonovi,
translated the word polisn in the beginning of the poem Romance de la luna,
luna as suka, ivrn as suknka, and Ulin as vleka (skirt or veil),
whereas my translation is krinolna (hoop skirt). I translated the word noviem-
bre from the poem Romance de la Guardia Civil espaola, unlike my predeces-
sors, in the sense of un jarabe infantil, i.e. sirupek (based on the note of Miguela
Garca-Posada (1990, p. 196). Another example is that, being encouraged by a com-
ment in the edition of Allen Joseph and Juan Caballero (1997, p. 299), I translated
the word cubos from the romance Thamar y Amnn as kocky (cubes, dice)
this allows to create a cubist geometric metaphor Sol en cubos slnko v kock-
ch. Previous Slovak and Czech translators opted for completely different solu-
tions.
This last example shows that an inadequate lexical transformation can also
result in transforming its figurativeness. In this case, one avant-garde metaphor
used to be lost in the translation.
Figurativeness can be considered the dominant structural part of Lorcas po-
etry. Lorcas merit in this area can be compared to the merit of a Spanish Baroque
poet Luis de Gngora. Figurativeness is Lorcas main contribution to the modern
poetic expression. On one hand, it uses Baroque and folk incentives, and on the
other hand, there are the impulses of avant-garde, and the general avant-garde
tone. The effort to offer a relatively precise image of this layer in my translation of
Romancero gitano implies presenting Lorcas avant-garde figurativeness appropri-
ately. This means retaining the high level of the texts figurative richness, as well as
preserving the specific structure of the authors metaphor, its type, i.e. its sensual
225
range with the typical synesthetics. In visual metaphors, there are chromatic and
geometric cubist forms. There are multiple/pluriform metaphors. From a semantic
and a morphosyntactic perspective, the metaphor is often an adjective, a genitive,
appositional, predicative, involving enallaga, etc. There is also a pure (implicit)
metaphor, and other types.
In the translations of Romance sonmbulo by ivrn and imonovi, the adjec-
tive verde in the first two verses (and later repeated as a refrain Verde que te
quiero verde. / Verde viento. Verdes ramas) is not translated as an adjective-at-
tributive chromatic metaphor. They either offer an interpreted sense or transform
it: Chci t mladou, krsn mladou, / Mlad vtr. Vtve mlad; Chcem a svieu,
nesksen. / Sviei vietor. Vetvy sviee. Paradoxically, imonovi, an advocate of
a poetic group that emphasizes metaphors and sensuality, omits the sensual, visual,
chromatic dimension of the metaphor as well. ivrn omitted the colour green
from the entire romance. ry and Olerny gave up the colour green in favour of a
metaphor and the impression of blooming. Their first verses say, V kvete milujem
a, v kvete. / V kvete vietor. Haluz v kvete. This modification also reduces the
richness of the poem. In Czech and Slovak, green can also mean young, inexpe-
rienced, and fresh. Therefore, there was no reason to give up this word and trans-
late the verses explicatively. In my translation, I am using the colour green just as
in the original throughout the poem. The first verses say: Zelen a, zelen ch-
cem. / Zele vetra, zele v sade. Eliminating green from the translation could
eliminate an important indicator of the poems magical secrecy, irrationality, as
well as a shifting of the focus from avant-garde towards Realism. Lorcas approach
to colours is not only the approach of a realist, but also that of an avant-garde
painter. The colour is also an autonomous instrument. Omitting green from the
first verses of the romance and from the refrain eliminates the elementary chro-
matic nature of the poem and interferes with an important structural principle.
The colour green in the poem has several meanings. For example, in the first par-
agraph, it is mentioned in the contradictory sense of death. If this opposition of
youth (life, vitality) and death connected to the same green colour was over-
looked by some translators, it was only because they did not take into account the
incoherent, juxtapositional sequencing of the individual thematic-figurative seg-
ments in their reading.
The tendency to suppress appositional (juxtapositional) metaphors and replace
them by other metaphors or similes can also be understood as weakening the avant-
garde character of Lorcas figurativeness. For example, ry and Olerny translat-
226
ed the appositional metaphor bronce y sueo, los gitanos from the poem Ro-
mance de la luna, luna as Cigni sa zo sna, z bronzu. imonovi translated it as
S z bronzu a z ospalosti. ivrn and imonovi eliminated Lorcas appositional
metaphor implying metallic work produced by a smith Cobre amarillo, su carne,
Yunques ahumados sus pechos in the poem Romance de la pena negra. Only
Ulin and I have discerned the specificity and importance of this type of meta-
phor. Ulins solutions: bronz a sen, ciknska jzda, jej tlo, lut mosaz, prsy,
ern kovadliny. My solutions: Bronz a sen, cigni id, Matn mosadz, to jej
telo, Nkovy od mudu, prsia. In the second and third case, Ulin preferred a
more transparent way from referent to metareferent. I tried to be more faithful to
the original from metareferent to referent.
imonovis translation reflects a certain aversion on the part of some young
Slovak poets of the 1960s to a genitive metaphor, connected with Slovak surreal-
ism. The translator tends to replace Lorcas genitive metaphors with metaphors of
a different morphosyntactic nature, or with similes For example, El jinete se acer-
caba / tocando el tambor del llano Sa na bubon na rovinu / tlie jazda, ke ou
cvla (Romance de la luna, luna), Cantan las flautas de umbra / y el liso gong de
nieve Flauty tieov vyspevuj, / gong tu ri sneh a zima (Preciosa y el aire),
Las piquetas de los gallos / cavan buscando la aurora Kohty chc krompik-
mi / kypri svit, odhaova (Romance de la pena negra). As shown in these exam-
ples, the figures lose their accuracy, plasticity, and significance. Instead, they dif-
fuse, modify and dim. My comparisons show (not only in the case of imonovi)
that Lorcas metaphors do not need to be modified, but should be transposed as
adequately as possible. A modification does not increase the effect of the poems
on the contrary, it leads to losses. On the other hand, this does not mean that
partially inaccurate or modified translations or variations did not play a positive
role in the receiving literary culture at the time of their edition.
As for the rhythm of the romances, Slovak and Czech translators keep the
number of syllables in Lorcas eight-syllable verse, but convert the syllabic verse
into trochees. ry exceptionally prolonged the verse to ten syllables in the ro-
mance Prendimiento de Antoito el Camborio en el camino de Sevilla, but he pre-
served the trochaic rhythm. ry and ivrn, and later also imonovi, kept a strictly
trochaic verse. The choice of the first two translators to use a rather exact trocha-
ic rhythm was related to the situation in Slovak and Czech poetry of the 1950s,
where syllabotonic (syllabic accentual) verse was dominating, and almost officially
enforced. Ulin loosened the trochaic scheme a bit. My translation adheres to the
227
syllabic frame of the verse and the trochaic intention, but it also looks for non-
standard rhythmic variations. It does so by taking into account the multifarious
rhythm of the original, as well as the verse situation in contemporary Slovak poet-
ry, where a free verse is dominant and a metric rhythm is regarded as inert. On the
other hand, a Slovak reader probably fixed a romance as strictly trochaic. I consid-
ered it necessary to risk this potential misunderstanding.
Continuous assonance is another building block of Spanish and also Lorcas
romances. Slovak and Czech original poems employ it rarely. This must be why it
was omitted in the first translations of Lorca. ry, as well as Nechvtal, gave up on
assonances. That simplified the translators work, but resulted in an artistically
incomplete translation. imonovi utilized the assonance, and emphasized the eu-
phonic dimension, but he sometimes interrupted the single assonance principle in
mono-assonant poems. For example, he used three different assonances in the rather
short mono-assonant poem Romance de la luna, luna. Actually, I was the first to
attempt a consistent translation of continuous assonances in Slovak translations
in my translations of St. John of the Cross, Baroque poetry, and Lorcas romances.
In Czech translations of Lorca, ivrn and Ulin also applied this method.
The name or surname of a character is sometimes in an assonant position in
Lorcas poems. In Romance de la pena negra it is the surname Montoya, which
became a source of assonance in imonovis, Ulins, and my translations (in a
modified form Montoyov). In Prendimiento de Antoito el Camborio en el cami-
no de Sevilla, the surname Camborio became a source of assonance for me (again,
in an adapted pronunciation). In Romance del emplazado I opted for the assonance
based on the heros name Amargo. Considering that, in Slovak everyone reads this
name with the accent on the first syllable, I modified it into an assonant position as
pred Amargom, which has a correct accentuation for a feminine assonance. In
Burla de don Pedro a caballo, just like in the original, e and o in Pedro be-
came the basis for assonance for ivrn, imonovi, Ulin, and also for me. In
Thamar y Amnn, ivrn and I chose the same assonance a and a, just like in
the original. I hear the name Tamar in it.
Sometimes, Lorcas choice of assonance is determined by the name of a river
or city. In Muerte de Antoito el Camborio, it is derived from the river Guadalqui-
vir. ivrn, Ulin, and I based the assonance on this name (though Ulin did not
put this word into an assonant position). The name of the gypsy town Jerez de la la
Frontera was the reason for choosing the e and a assonance, just like in origi-
nal, in Romance de la Guardia Civil espaola (for me and ivrn).
228
In Martirio de la Santa Olalla, my interpretation of the original assonances for
the first part is related to Roma (o a), the second part to the martyr Olalla (a
a), whereas the third part is related to Santo (a o). In Slovak, the words Roma,
Olalla, and Santo sound differently and thus offer different assonances: Rma (i
a), Eullia (i a), Svt (e i). I only used the third of these options. In the first
two sections, I retained the original assonances, because of the potential change of
tonality and meaning.
Of the Slovak and Czech translators, I have used the most names / surnames /
location names as sources of assonance. I think that this approach increases the
artistic significance of the translation. The choice of assonance should not be arbi-
trary in romances, which are not related to a name or location. In my translation, I
attempted to respect the semantic dimension of assonances. The choice of asso-
nance is important, but so is putting the right words into the assonant position.
Assonance sounds better if it consists of words of different grammatical categories.
The euphonic dimension is important, too, as well as its sonority, depending not
only on the vocals, but also on the confronting consonants. The best Slovak and
Czech translations of Lorca confirm that a valuable translation of continuous asso-
nance is possible.
The euphonic structure, often connected with assonance, is an indicator of the
artistic significance of Lorcas romance. I will mention one example. In the first
two verses of Romance sonmbulo, the vocal e repeats frequently (seven times in
the first verse, five times in the second one): Verde que te quiero verde. / Verde
viento. Verdes ramas. ry and ivrn almost ignore this dimension. imonovis use
of e is reduced, yet strong, because this vocal occurs mainly in stressed syllables: Ch
cem a svieu, nesksen. / Sviei vietor. Vetvy sviee. Ulins translation is less
vivid in this sense: Zelenav sndou chci t. / Strom i vtr zelenav. My translation
does not reach the e frequency of the original, but still aims to remain euphonically
significant: Zelen a, zelen chcem. / Zele vetra. Zele v sade.
The connotations of euphonic structure intensify lexical meanings. In Lorcas
poetry, just like that of Luis de Gngora, the selection of a word is important for its
sound. From this point of view, the name of the romance Reyerta can be interest-
ing. ry and Olerny called it Potka, imonovi Hdka, whereas I chose the title
Ruvaka. Its expressiveness corresponds to the original, and so does its sound (the
presence of the rough consonant r). This all strengthens the lexical significance.
Lorca belongs to the poets who not only denote meanings, but also suggest them.
As for the Slovak critical reception of Lorcas romancero, it evolved from one-
229
sided perception, emphasizing its popularity and obscuring its Avant-garde fea-
tures, to the present complex understanding. In the foreword to my translation, I
speak about perceiving Lorca as the poetic spokesman of the cultural creolization,
and of the Andalusian splendour of the mlange. I feel the need to highlight the
poets tolerance toward various cultures and religions and resistance to violence.
The present reviewers of my translation (Viliam Marok, Jn Buzssy, Peter Mac-
sovszky, Petr Bil, Gabriela Raksov), from both the younger and older genera-
tions of poets, confirmed the unique and actual nature of Lorcas poetry. Marok
wrote: The genius of Lorca was the first to apprehend that the solution to the
relationship to Gypsies/Roma cannot be solely the amazement over their exotic
distinctness, but also a matter of equalizing the values, and even adopting the for-
eign for their own. The urgent message of absorbing the dissimilitude is particular-
ly necessary today, when the dialogue between cultures (including the threats of
globalization) and a limited perception of minorities becomes symptomatic (2006,
p. 4).
Lorca, as an important author with a modern poetic expression, influenced the
poetry of Slovak poets, especially the lyrics of Jn Stacho, Jn imonovi, Dezider
Banga, Ivan Lauk, and others. (For Lauks affiliation with Lorca, see Zambor,
2005, s. 226-255). Banga was mostly inspired by the theme of Gypsies, whereas the
others mainly by the figurativeness of Lorcas poetry. Stacho and imonovi no-
ticed Lorcas sensualism. For imonovi, Lorca was an important impulse for ap-
plying assonance to original Slovak poems. Stacho shows the highest degree of
affinity to Lorca: the neo-baroque and neo-avant-garde aspects of his poetry, tense
emotional situations, violent passion, sharp crises, dramatic survival, religious di-
mensions, rich and striking metaphors, sensuality (almost hypersensuality), chro-
matic and geometric metaphor, appositional metaphor, pure metaphor, partial sim-
ilarity of poetic repertoire (luna instead of moon, blacksmith/metallic elements
implicated in metaphors), euphonic organization of a poem that can imply mean-
ings, and other features show the proximity of these two poets Besides, the year
when Lorca was shot, 1936, is also the year when this Slovak poet his follower
was born.
Bibliography:
1. Garca Lorca, F. In: . ry: Preklady. Bratislava: Slovensk spisovate 1986, s. 83 112.
2. Garca Lorca, F.: Cignske romance. Preloil, predslov a poznmky napsal a obrazov materil vy
bral J. Zambor. Bratislava: Slovensk spisovate 2005.
230
3. Garca Lorca, F.: Ciknsk romance. Peloil F. Nechvtal. Praha: Svoboda 1946.
4. Garca Lorca, F.: Ciknsk romance. Peloil L. ivrn. Praha: SNKLHU 1956.
5. Garca Lorca, F.: Poema del Cante Jondo. Romancero gitano. Edicin, introduccin y notas de Allen
Josephs y Juan Caballero. Decimoctava edicin. Madrid: Ediciones Ctedra, S. A. 1997.
6. Garca Lorca, F.: Primer romancero gitano. Llanto por Ignacio Snchez Mejas. Edicin, introduccin
y notas de Miguel GarcaPosada. Madrid: Editorial Castalia, S. A. 1990.
7. Garca Lorca, F.: Raz do vyhne vola luna. Vber, preklad a doslov: J. imonovi. Bratislava: Sloven
sk spisovate 1969.
8. Garca Lorca, F.: Romancero gitano. Edicin y estudio Christian De Paepe. Introduccin y comentar
ios Esperanza Ortega. Vigsima cuarta edicin. Madrid: Editorial Espasa Calpe, S. A. 2003.
9. Garca Lorca, F.: panielske romance. Vber z diela. Preloili . ry a V. Olerny. Usporiadal a
poznmky napsal V. Olerny. Bratislava: Slovensk spisovate 1955.
10. Garca Lorca, F.: Tak som a videl. Bsne a in, k Lorcovi sa viauci materil vybral, preloil, kalendr
Lorcovho ivota a diela vypracoval a doslov napsal J. imonovi. Bratislava: Slovensk spisovate
1975.
11. Garca Lorca, F.: Uzaven rj. Vybral a peloil M. Ulin. Praha: Odeon 1983.
12. Marok, V.: Rokmi overen hodnoty. In: Knin revue, XVI, 4. janur 2006, . 1, s. 4.
13. Zambor, J.: Ivan Lauk. In: Interpretcia a poetika. O pozii slovenskch bsnikov 20. storoia.
Bratislava: Asocicia organizci spisovateov Slovenska 2005, s. 225255.
14. Zambor, J.: Lorcove Cignske romance a ich preklad. In: Revue svetovej literatry, XXXXI, 2005, .
2, s. 115118.
15. Zambor, J.: Slovensk preklady Federica Garcu Lorcu. In: Preklad ako umenie. Bratislava: Univerzi
ta Komenskho 2000, s. 178194.
231
Zlatka Timenova
(Lusfona University, Lisbon, Portugal)
Antnio Ramos Rosa in Bulgarian:
(un)successful encounter?
The translation of A.R. Rosas poetry into Bulgarian represents a cultural act
of indisputable value. It is, even more so, an act of courage taking into account the
problems that are inevitably posed with the translation of the poems language and
spiritual richness. For this reason, the work of G. Mitskov, the Bulgarian transla-
tor, deserves all our respect. The collection entitled Lrica contains a series of po-
ems representing various periods from the poets creative life as well as a prose text
that is little known, O Deus nu(lo).
The objective here is to analyse by focusing on a number of modern princi-
ples that delineate literary translation some of the problems posed by the transla-
tion of A.R. Rosas poetry.
The principle of system: according to a structuralist approach, which is based on the
established theories of Saussure, Hjelmslev, Benveniste and the Prague Linguistic Circle,
a language is a group of systems that operates within a group of other systems. Therefore,
the word operates in the sentence, the sentence in the utterance (nonc) and the utter-
ance in the text. In this sense, the literary work is also a system that operates in the system
of literary genres. In the end, literature as a system lives within the bigger system of
human culture. The translator faces the text as a totality where all of the parts are related
to one other and to the whole, without forgetting the transversal energy of meaning.
Therefore, a translation cannot privilege one function of the text without destabilizing
the entire text. This principle is even more relevant in poetry translations. For example,
how do we preserve the poetic value when we separate the musicality of the word from
the meaning in the verse? When translating from Portuguese to Bulgarian, two languag-
es from different subgroups, preserving the unit of meaning and sound becomes, quite
often, an impossible temptation. Here are some examples:
232
Vejo, sou como que um firmamento de firmeza branca.
1
Bnxam, ue as cm enn nn neocknon or xna rnpocr.
(Vijdam, tche az sym edin vid nebosklon ot biala tvyrdost.)
2
The translator opted for preserving the meaning and sacrificed the alliteration
firmamento de firmeza [firmament of firmness]
3
.
Another example:
Esta cincia de inocncia e gua
4
Tona nosnanne e or nennnnocr n noa
(Tova poznanie e ot nevinnost i voda)
5
In the Bulgarian version, none of the alliteration constructed by the two words
cincia and inocncia [science and innocence] remained. Regarding the mean-
ing, the idea of the relationship between cincia and inocncia, which is rein-
forced by the alliteration, is lost.
Tona nennnno nono nosnanne / ako okocna /
Tova nevinno vodno poznanie / ako dokosna/
The above mentioned variation preserved the alliteration to some extent.
Another possible variation where the alliteration appears between voda and doko-
sna:
Tona nosnanne c uncrorara na noa / ako okocna
/Tova poznanie s tchistotata na voda / ako dokosna/
The rhythm is lost in the same verse further on:
tudo me ds, tudo te dou, tudo nos damos
Tn mn anam ncnuko, as rn anam ncnuko, nsanmno ncnukoro cn aname
/Ti mi davash vsitchko, az ti davam vsitchko, vzaimno vsitchkoto si davame/
1
Antnio Ramos Rosa, O Deus nu(lo), Centro cultural de Alto Minho: cronos/poesia, 1988, p.14.
2
Gueorgui Mitskov, trans., Lirika, Antoniu Ramush Rosa, Sofia: Karina M, 1999, p.99.
3
All of the translations into English are my own.
4
Antnio Ramos Rosa, Animal olhar, in Antologia potica, Lisboa: Dom Quixote, 2001, p.89.
5
Ibid., p.14.
233
A possible variation:
Bcnuko mn anam, ncnuko rn anam, ncnuko cn aname
/Vsitchko mi davash, vsitchko ti davam, vsitchko si davame/
The principle of structure: according to literary stylistics, the translator must
discover and preserve the dominating structure of each text, safeguard the empha-
sis on certain aspects or linguistic levels and not on others, and recreate the figures
of speech. One of the most relevant characteristics in A.R. Rosas sentence is the
implicit syntactic relationship that gives origin to the rupture of the sequence and
implies an effect of silence. The reader has the liberty to fulfil this void with possi-
ble forms and senses that are suggested without stating words.
The fragmentary structure of the utterance and the text is another stylistic
characteristic of A.R. Rosas poems. The clearly fragmentary nature of the text in
O Deus nu(lo) brings about an effect of eloquent silence installed between the
fragments. In fact, the content of the fragments is prolonged by the murmrios
brancos [white whispers] of the page. As stated by the poet himself, algo quer
falar, algo est vivo no silncio, algo se levanta e se perde entre fragmentos dispersos
[something wants to speak, something is alive in the silence, something rises and
gets lost between the dispersed fragments.]
6
Paratactic relationships are more common in Bulgarian than they are in Portu-
guese. Therefore, from the outset, the translator would not find any difficulty in
the transposition of these types of structures. In general, in his Bulgarian transla-
tion, A.R. Rosas translator maintains the implicit syntactic relationships and the
fragmentary structure. Lets consider the example:
As imagens dispersaram-se. No h nada no lugar delas. A respirao
agora de uma subtil suavidade. Nada se alterou, nada aconteceu.
7
Opasnre ce pasnpcnaxa. Hnmo ne sae rxxnoro mxcro. nmanero
sananpe e ena npekpacna cnaocr. Hnmo ne ce e npomennno, nnmo ne ce e
cnyunno.
/Obrazite se razprysnaha. Nishto ne zae tiahnoto miasto. Dichaneto
zanapred e edna prekrasna sladost. Nishto ne se e promenilo, nishto ne se
e slutchilo./
8
6
O Deus nu(lo), Ibid., p. 23.
7
Ibid., p.10
8
Lirika, Ibid., p. 97.
234
In relation to the fragmentary structure, the typographical image of the page is
of grand importance. It is in the white space that the meaning of the fragment
reaches its plenitude. Unfortunately, the typographical disposition of the text in
Bulgarian did not take into consideration the symbolic meaning of the gaps be-
tween the dispersed fragments.
Another relevant feature of A.R. Rosas poetic language is the frequent use of
figure of speech, designated as an oxymoron that establishes a contradictory rela-
tionship between the semantic values of two coordinated words in an utterance or
in a verse. The contradiction brings about an interruption of logical perception and
suggests the possibility of a new space for interpreting the meaning of the words. In
the translation, that figure of speech cannot be omitted, nor substituted or ex-
plained. In the majority of cases, the Bulgarian translator found an equivalent for
the figure of speech and preserved the value of the verse or the utterance.
Agora o lento e imvel movimento confirma a cega e cinzenta vitria
do incndio.
9
Cera eno anno n nenonnxno nnxenne yrnpxana cnnara n cnxna
noea na noxapa. /Sega edno bavno i nepodvijno dvijenie utvyrjdava siva-
ta i sliapa pobeda na pojara./
10
The following example proposes a less fitting translation:
Sou um texto que quer levantar-se e permanecer no fundo.
11
As cm enn rekcr, koro ncka enonpemenno a ce nsnpann n a ocrane
n na-nokoro. /Az sym edin tekst, koito iska ednovremenno da se izpravi
i da ostane v nai-dylbokoto./
12
Here is a possible variation:
As cm rekcr, koro ncka n a ce nsnncn n a ocrane na noro
Az sym tekst, koito iska i da se izvissi i da ostane na dynoto.
The principle of ostranenie, (making strange): this principle belongs to the
Russian Formalists and means to condense the language of a literary piece in
order to make it tangible and reinforce the perception of its value. In a general
9
O Deus nu(lo), Ibid., p.21.
10
Lirika, Ibid., p.100.
11
235
way, poetic language is found in a state of ostranenie in relation to normal lan-
guage. The question that this principle raises is whether the translator should or
should not show consideration for the strangeness of the poetic language of the
original text and to what extent this should be done.
Talvez algum tenha perdido uma cor muito simples, ou o sangue de
um sonho.
13
Moxe n nxko e sarynn enn rnpe npocr nnxr nnn kpnra na enn
cn.
/Moje bi niakoi e zagubil edin tvyrde prost tsviat ili kryvta na edin syn.
14
The translator literally translated the ending of the sentence and respected
the enigma of meaning. It is up to the Bulgarian readers to resolve this enigma
according to their intelligence and imagination. Another possibility: the enigmatic
meaning may persist in its tension and result in the fascination of an indecisive
reading.
Here is another example where the strangeness of the language is dimin-
ished:
Sem avidez, num encantamento areo, desenhar a palavra apaixonada-
mente exacta.
15
Fes anunocr, c nsymno ouaponanne a napncynam ymara c rouna
crpacr.
/Bez altchnost, s vyzdushno otcharovanie da narisuvach dumata s totchna
strast./
16
A possible variation:
Fes nanpexenne n c nsymno ouaponanne a napncynam ymara, o
crpacrnocr rouna. /Bez naprejenie, s vyzdushno otcharovanie, da narissu-
vash dumata, do strastnost totchna./
12
Lirika, Ibid., p.101.
13
14
Lirika, Ibid., 101
15
O Deus nu(lo), Ibid., p. 35.
16
Lirika, Ibid., p. 103.
236
The principle of preponderance of culture: the original text functions in a giv-
en cultural context whereas the translation also acquires its own specific cultural
context. According to Paul Ricoeur, there is a specific relationship between the text
and the context. Namely: // the meaning of a text is renowned for being capable
of decontextualising itself // in order to recontextualise in a new cultural situa-
tion, while preserving a presumed semantic identity. // Translation, in the large
sense of the term, is the model of that precarious operation.
17
The philosophical nature and cosmic spirit of A.R. Rosas poetry, his aerial
sensibility and his solar sensuality represent a real challenge for the Bulgarian trans-
lator. Where to find verbal models and poetic images to transmit the associations
awakened by the sea, by the vento vegetal, pelos lbios da gua, pelas plpebras do
ar, pela transparncia obscura do mundo, pelas palavras silenciosas? [by the green
wind, by the waters lips, by the airs eyelids, by the obscure transparency of the
world, by the silent words?] The translator may look for vaguely similar rhythms
and associations in the poetry of the great Bulgarian poets from the beginning of
the last century until the 50s. In fact, in certain poems by Hristo Iassenov, Nikolai
Liliev, Debelianov, Teodor Traianov, Gueo Milev, some verses manifest a poetic
tension and a language that is comparable with that of A.R. Rosas poetry. Some
contemporary poets, namely Nedialko Jordanov and Konstantin Pavlov, can also
inspire the translator of Ramos Rosas poetry. Meanwhile, the comparison enhances
all the more the differences between Ramos Rosas poetry and that of the Bulgar-
ian poets. Thus, the poetry translations of the Portuguese poet appear as a chal-
lenge, not only to the translator, but also to the Bulgarian reader.
The poetic nature of the O Deus nu(lo) text and the philosophical content of
the work represent another provocation for the Bulgarian translator. Keeping in
mind that the Christian religious tradition in Bulgaria has been suffocated several
times by either ideological or historical reasons, theological thought is limited and
religious sentiment is pragmatic and superficial or mystic and intuitive. This situa-
tion renders the translation of O Deus nu(lo) and its cultural reception particu-
larly difficult. Parallel models are nearly non-existent. Ramos Rosass o pobre Deus
mudo [the poor silent God], poetic writing as oferenda para o encontro de Deus
17
The original text reads as follows: /.../ le sens dun text est rput capable de se dcontextualiser
/.../ pour se recontextualiser dans une situation culturelle nouvelle, tout en prservant une identit
smantique prsume. /.../ La traduction, au sens large du terme, est le modle de cette opration
prcaire. Paul Ricoeur, Rhtorique, potique, hermneutique, in Lectures 2: La contre des
philosophes,Paris: Seuil, 1992, p. 489.
237
[an offering to the encounter of God], the ntima aliana [intimate alliance] be-
tween the words of the poet and God, the tone and sincerity of the poem do not
have equivalents in Bulgarian.
The untranslatable as a principle: the existence of the untranslatable is not a
secret to the translator. For as incomplete as the comparison between Ramos Ro-
sas poems and its respective equivalents in Bulgarian may be, the near impossibil-
ity of translating the rhythm and the music of the verses is made evident. The only
solution in this case is to look for refuge in meaning. But reducing a poem to its
meaning is destroying its aesthetic perception and annihilating the possibility of
living the poetic sentiment.
Besides that, the true challenge for the translator is the frmito de slabas
[thrill of syllables] and the murmrios brancos [white whispers] of Ramos Rosas
writing. In fact, the word as a conjunction of sound and meaning produces its own
silences and whispers. Can it be that the Bulgarian words give origin to the same
silence as the Portuguese words? On the one hand, each language lives its drama
from the unspeakable. On the other hand, the Portuguese and Bulgarian readers
do not share the same perception on the effects of silence.
Some cultural elements, such as religious thought and the philosophical inspi-
ration of R. Rosas poetry also tests the translators professionalism. Different lan-
guages express concepts such as real, unreal, utopia, and God in different man-
ners. The dilemma for the translator lies in finding a certain balance between the
literal transposition of the strangeness of the idea and the explanation of the idea
in order to make it more accessible to the Bulgarian reader.
According to Benveniste the impossibility of translating resides in the impossi-
bility of transposing the semiotism of a language into that of another.
18
But there
will always be translations. The solution to this paradox lies in the acceptance of
the imperfect translation as the only possible one, which allows for a retranslation
in a never-ending proximity to the other. In this sense, translation is a repetitive act
that is always renewable of a desire: the desire for a successful encounter perma-
nently postponed. Our condition aprs Babel resides mainly in difference. It is
the differences between cultures Slavic, Iberian, Germanic, or Romanic that
give origin to curiosity in relation to the other in its irreducible, enriching and
worrisome originality.
18
The original reads, transposer le smiotisme dune langue dans celui dune autre. Emile Ben-
veniste, La forme et le sens dans le langage, in Problmes de linguistique gnrale 2, Paris: Galli-
mard, 1974, p. 228.
238
Works Cited
1. Benveniste Emile, La forme et le sens dans le langage, in Problmes de linguistique gnrale 2
(Paris : Gallimard, 1974).
2. Ricoeur Paul, Rhtorique, potique, hermneutique, in Lectures 2: La contre des philosophes
(Paris : Seuil, 1992).
3. Rosa Antnio Ramos, Animal olhar, in Antologia potica, (Lisboa: Dom Quixote, 2001).
4. Rosa Antnio Ramos, O Deus nu(lo) (Centro cultural de Alto Minho: cronos/poesia, 1988).
5. Gueorgui Mitskov, trans., Rosa, Antoniu Ramush, Lirika (Sofia: Karina M, 1999).
239
Jacek Wjcicki, Ph.D.
(Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland)
Work in Progress Polish Enlightenment
Translations of Voltaires Poem
on the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755
Among many cataclysms that hit the Earth, one was of the utmost importance as
far as the European culture of Enlightenment is concerned. It was a well-known
earthquake, which took place on the Saturday morning of the 1
st
of November, All
Saints Day. The capital of Portugal was almost completely destroyed by the earth-
quake. Many other regions of the Peninsula and of Northern Africa were stricken by
the cataclysm. Tsunami waves, resulting from the shaking of the bottom of the Atlan-
tic Ocean, razed to the ground many buildings in Lisbon, including half the parish
churches which were packed with praying people. The Tsunami sunk a harbour and
many merchant ships. Nearly forty thousand people died on the spot; later on, twenty
thousand more died by the end of the year, from wounds, of starvation, and cold. The
ruins were plundered by a blaze, then by marauders, finally by wild animals.
The catastrophe provoked discussion on the uncontrollable powers of nature,
the possible reconstruction of destroyed cities, and the restoration of craft and
commerce. People also deliberated on metaphysical reasons for the destruction of
the pious city, the capital of the state known as extremely Catholic. Catholic preach-
ers tried to prove the theory that it was a well-deserved trial for sinful inhabitants
not being pious enough and concentrating too much on the pleasures of secular
life. Protestant theologians, in turn, sought the causes of the disaster in the fact
that Lisbon was predestined for it, and what was more, this originated when the
Inquisition the symbol of fanaticism and intolerance had its seat. Such contra-
dictory thoughts were formulated in sermons, debates, pamphlets and occasional
poems, spreading with reports of witnesses all over the world.
It should be said, however, that the mentioned disaster owed the name of a
philosophical earthquake to one man and to a poem he wrote. The man was Vol-
240
taire. The poem he created was the maturest reaction to reports of the event, both
on an intellectual and a poetical level. Still, it was a very spontaneous expression of
thought, as the first version of the lengthy poem circulated among readers in man-
uscript copies by the end of the same year.
Voltaire, at the age of sixty, settled himself into his own residence Les Dlic-
es near Geneva, and it seemed to him that after years of setbacks and wandering
he had found the economic balance and tranquillity necessary for mental work. In
former years, Voltaire found this atmosphere in the presence of Marquise Emily
du Chtelet, the intelligent and educated woman, with whom he used to lead a very
interesting life (since 1734). The life he led in
Cirey castle for over 10 years was full of extensive reading, scientific experi-
ments, writing, and pleasures. After the sudden death of the Marquise in the year
1749, Voltaire accepted an invitation from the philosopher on the throne, the
King of Prussia Frederic II the Great. Voltaire had exchanged letters with this
monarch for more than a decade before. In the years 1750-1753 Voltaire stayed at
the monarchs court in Potsdam. Unfortunately, due to increasing quarrels with
the ambitious and lively monarch, as well as with the Berlin scientific society, the
writer decided to resign from the post of chamberlain and chief poet. Having over-
come many obstacles, Voltaire returned to France, yet he was not allowed to live in
Paris. This is the reason for which the writer considered the residence he bought in
Switzerland with the help of his friends, at the beginning of the year 1755, to be his
long-awaited haven.
News concerning the Lisbon disaster was a great shock for Voltaire, because it
completely threatened his views. Accordingly to other deists, namely English think-
ers: Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Henry Saint-John,
viscount of Bolingbroke (1678-1751), and a German philosopher Gottfried Wil-
helm Leibniz (1646-1716), Voltaire understood the world as an unbreakable chain
of entities, the smallest to the greatest one connected with each other through
relations of dependence and necessity. In this perspective the cosmos, the work of
the Supernatural Rational Being, is the best of all imaginable worlds. All the im-
perfections including both physical evil resulting from laws of nature and moral
evil caused by man are nothing but shadows on a perfect image, necessary to
underline the wellness of the total. It should be noted, however, that Voltaire did
not approve of the the theory of the chain of entities as a whole. He held an opinion
that the lack of an element of no importance in the mutual relations between enti-
ties should not cause a breach of these relations or the sequence of events to come
241
(see Dictionnaire philosophique Chane des tres crs; Chane des vnements).
He was absolutely convinced that the laws of nature work within a system of the
pre-established harmony of the universe, especially since this fact was in perfect
conformity with the Isaac Newtons (1642-1727) theory with which Voltaire was
fascinated. The writer popularised it in his works (lments de la philosophie de
Newton, 1738).
The intellectuals of Europe knew the concept of the System of pre-established
Harmony and The Grand Whole, not only via detailed philosophical disserta-
tions such as Leibnizs Theodicy (Essais de thodice sur la bont de Dieu, la libert
de lhomme et de lorigine du mal, 1710), but also via a didactic poem by Alexander
Pope (1688-1744). The poem, entitled An Essay on Man took the form of four
letters (epistles) to a friend the earlier mentioned Henry Saint-John, viscount of
Bolingbroke. The poem was published in 1733, and it was soon translated into
French in a form of both a poem (by Jean Franois du Bellay Du Resnel, 1692-
1761) and a prose (by tienne de Silhouette, 1709-1767). The main message was
formulated in the following way: Whatever is, is right in a triple sense, meaning:
in the right place, perfect, and convenient for someone. Voltaire, during his
stay in England in the years 1726-1728, met Pope in person. Voltaire also modelled
himself after Pope when writing his own philosophical poems: Discours en vers sur
lhomme comprising of seven discourses (1740), and Sur la loi naturelle composed
of four parts, from the year 1752. The tragic events on November 1755 were the
reason for which Voltaire rejected optimism. This is the appellation of the Leib-
niz theory on this best of all possible worlds; the theory has been referred to as
such since 1737. Voltaire formulated his doubts, unspoken until then, in opposition
to Pope, as indicated in a subtitle of a poem: Examen de cet axiome: Tout est bien
(An Analysis of the Axiom: Everything is Good).
The author described the destruction the earthquake had caused, which had
hit random people, including innocent children. He addressed philosophers, con-
vinced of and calmly popularising the mentioned axiom, a series of dramatic and
ironic questions:
Was this situation one that the eternal laws of God demanded? Were the ruin
of a big city and the suffering of innocent human beings necessary for anyones
prosperity?
Was it a requirement of the Providence that the Earth shook exactly there, and
not on an uninhabited desert? Lisbon caved in, while Paris is still dancing has it
meant that Paris, this proverbial hotbed of moral deterioration, was in fact less
242
sinful? The poet put himself in opposition to the concept of a chain of entities. He
rather saw it as a food chain in which creatures successively devoured one another.
The poet also posed a question regarding the sense of redemption. The Re-
deemer dwelled on Earth for a short period of time but He did not change the
cruel rights by which it was governed. In the following part of the poem, the author
presented different possibilities of untangling this knot.
The first possibility was a Christian, namely a Jansenist one, based on a dogma
of original sin and well-deserved punishment. The second possibility was of deistic
origin, with a creator of a perfect mechanism of the world, the creator indifferent
to human fate. Next was the model of the world as seen by Manichaeism, with a
vision of an eternal fight between the balanced powers of good and evil. Voltaire
also cited four philosophical attempts to answer the question of the origin of evil;
he rejected all of them. He did not find any solution to the problem, neither in the
optimism theory of Leibniz nor in the idealism of Plato, the materialistic scientific
atomism of Epicurus, or the scepticism represented here by Pierre Bayle (1647-
1706). The latter was the author of Historical and Critical Dictionary (Dictionnaire
historique et critique, 1696).
Nature remained silent, and philosophers failed to provide Voltaire with a sat-
isfactory answer. The world was a place of constant struggle, a scene of an inexpli-
cable cruelty. A man seemed to be a small atom, not having the right to boast about
his position. It was an opinion contradictory to the one of Blaise Pascal (1623-
1662), who praised the worth of humans self-conscience: Man is but a reed, the
most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. According to Voltaire, set-
ting ones hope in the Divine Providence had no reason. The author finished his
poem with such a conclusion, leaving any doubts unsettled.
Having put the first version of the poem into circulation, Voltaire continued to
improve it. In his letters to his friends he referred to it as a sermon (to dArgental,
January 8
th
, 1756) or his Jeremiah lamentations (to Theriot, April 12
th
, 1756). In
fact the poem is kept in a serious climate, and the irony used as a literary device is
deprived of its jocular or jeering character. The second version of the poem was
extended, amounting to the number of 234 verses. The sceptic Bayle was compared
to the biblical Samson, killed by the rubble of the building he had demolished. There
was also added an ending fragment. This fragment had a form of an anecdote: a
dying caliph offered to God everything God is deprived of, as the embodiment of
Perfection: vices, grievances, misdemeanours, and ignorance, pertaining solely to
human beings. Voltaire also added, he should have included the human hope.
243
Apart from the extension of the text, Voltaire added a foreword and broad
polemic annotations, in which he referred to the earlier mentioned philosophical
concepts of Pope, Leibniz, Bayle and other philosophers. Voltaire compiled the
poem in one volume with the poem entitled Sur la loi naturelle. The latter poem
was dedicated to Frederic the Great in 1752, who was at that moment friendly
disposed towards the Author. The poem was not published until the end of March
of 1756, then printed at Cramers in Geneva. It was quite a perfidious compilation:
the vision of the world presented in one poem was denied by the subsequent poem
Sur le dsastre de Lisbonne (On the Disaster of Lisbon). The latter poem was intend-
ed to prove that the world is by no means a good place, most probably driven by
chance, and not by Providence. Moreover, evil is not only the absence of good, but
also a tangible reality. Still, Voltaire did not decide to reject the notion of God
completely, he simply left the question of Gods relation to the world unsettled.
As any thing created by Voltaire, both Sur la loi naturelle and Sur le dsastre de
Lisbonne (On the disaster of Lisbon) poems were read and broadly discussed. Soon
there appeared poetic polemics to the unsigned author, easily identified as Vol-
taire. Such polemics intended to prove Voltaire wrong.
Still, Voltaires work was of outstanding quality in comparison to another one
hundred literary responses to the event from the said November 1755. The situa-
tion was similar as far as polemics were concerned the most famous was the one
known only to the addressee at the beginning. The author of this polemic was Jean
Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). On the 18
th
of August 1756 he sent a letter to Vol-
taire, a letter kind in form, but unfavourable to the addressees vision of the world.
As he later wrote in his Confessions, Rousseau was particularly perplexed by the
fact that the lament on the world was the work of a person generally living in pros-
perity and happy about life.
Rousseau, being an equally important yet totally different personage of the
epoch, tried to convince his opponent that Divine Providence as well as the immor-
tality of a soul was beyond doubt. Voltaire, in turn, was unable to accept such en-
thusiastic and irrational views, so he did not answer the letter the same day. Later,
in September 1759 Voltaire published it in a brochure. It should be noted that the
answer to the letter finally appeared; in the opinion of readers, the response had a
form of a novel entitled Candide ou loptimisme (Candide or the Optimism) from
1759. The absurdity of the cruel world presented in the novel denied the vision of
the world as seen by Leibniz portrayed in the novel as Pangloss a tormented
teacher of Candide.
244
The earthquake in Lisbon was one of episodes in Candide (the 5
th
chapter). By
doing so, the author somewhat came back to a starting point, being the subject of
his poem from the year 1755. The relation between the two works was brightly
pointed out by Theodore Besterman, a connoisseur and editor of Voltaires corre-
spondence: The Pome sur le dsastre de Lisbonne opened the proceedings against
optimism; Candide closed them with a sentence of death.
The poem On the disaster of Lisbon by Voltaire was vividly welcomed in Po-
land. It should be noted that its author has been highly appreciated as a dramatist
and historian since the late thirties of the 18
th
century. His works appeared on the
school scenes, particularly often after the reform of the education program real-
ised by a member of a Piarist Order, Stanislas Konarski (1700-1773), in schools
conducted by that Order. Konarski, with a member of the Order Augustyn Orowski,
translated Voltaires Zaire and Alzire (Polish versions: Zaira and Alzyra, staged in
Piarist colleges in 1747 and 1750, respectively). Konarski approved in the school
regulations the reading of historical works by Voltaire, from the years 1753-1754:
History of Charles XII, King of Sweden and The Age of Louis XIV. It did not indicate
that Konarski approved of Voltaires overall literary output, just the opposite. Ko-
narski was one of those heavily criticising libertinism, deism and anticlericalism of
Voltaire and his imitators.
It was this educated member of the Piarist Order who came forward with a
Latin poem In impium poetam, quicumque sit auctor carminis de terrae motu Ulys-
sipponensi Against an Impious Poet, Whoever May It Be, Writing About the Earth-
quake in Lisbon:
Impie, quid quereris? Vesane, sceleste, quid audes?
Tantane rabie innoxios petis deos
innocuae quare a virtutis Iuppiter ictu
orditur et cur crimen haud prius ferit?
1
5 Heus tu! Si crimen divum prius ira feriret,
quot obruisset iam tuum telis caput!
Tu vivis caeloque moves Titania bella,
Typhaea proles et manus gravis Iovi!
Fallor, an arridet nomen tibi forte Gigantis?
10 Hoc ne tumescas, rectius de te canam:
vivis et insultas toties, impune, tot annis
divinitati, vilis et foetens cimex!
Ingenio, fateor quod non praestantius ulli,
ut destruas quidquid sacri est, tantum vales!
1
Auctor carminis de terrae motu arguit Deum et facete quaerit cur Ulyssipponem piam et religi-
osam urbem, et non potius alias impias everterit [Footnote by Konarski].
245
15 Nam tibi qui metro praestet levioreque plectro
scribatve melius, cogitet peius quis est?
Ohe, sis sapiens! Ast haec sapientia quanti est
cui cum pecoribus est idem summum bonum?
2
Lotus fonte sacro si iam id tibi dicere fas est
20 non noscis aliam Cypriam praeter deam.
Tu sacra, tu divos, tu nostra altaria temnis,
pectus tibi ipsis Cnidiae
3
votis calet,
aris digna tuis sola est et ture voluptas,
religio Musis risus et iocus tuis.
25 O hominum faecem tanto cui spernitur ausu
lex Christiana legis et lator Deus
ridetur, cui mens rectrix improvida mundi,
infausta virtus semperque beatum scelus,
cui Deus errat et hunc dudum male dirigit orbem
30 solisque nostrum casibus linquit genus,
iustitiae nomen cui nil nisi vana chimaerae
imago quam qui ridet est felix latro,
ipsos saeva pati nisi fata piosque probosque
favere superos impiis terra, mari!
35 Haec dum dira vomis noctuque diuque triumphas,
non te Tonantis obrutum flammis adhuc?
Scisne alium cecinisse Epicuri de grege porcum
4
poenam scelestos insequi claudo pede?
Durum me dicas saevumque? Videlicet in te
40 nobis nihil, tibi in deos tantum licet?
This poem was published in Warsaw in 1767 as a part of Konarskis collection
of poems entitled Opera lyrica. It was probable that the poem was written earlier,
and it could have been read to pupils. The perplexed author referred to an impious
poet as a Giant, daring to fight against heavens (v. 7-8), then he called him a stink-
ing bed-bug (v. 11-12) just temporarily unpunished for a blasphemy. On the other
hand, Konarski highly appreciated Voltaires poetic workmanship, regarding it as
nearing perfection. One may assume that Voltaire, accustomed to protests and
blames, would have appreciated his opponents class. Konarski was perfectly aware
of to whom he referred. Still, he had to pretend otherwise, in order to stay in line
with an ancient literary convention called invective. According to this tradition a
writer was obliged to use strong expressions, yet he hid himself beyond convention-
2
Voluptas corporis [Footnote by Konarski].
3
Cypria, Cnidia, Venus in Cypro et Cnido culta [Footnote by Konarski].
4
Horatius ita se ipsum nominat [Footnote by Konarski].
246
al masks. Owing to this approach, the exchange of views did not turn into a direct
quibble, but it was kept in a form of a cultivated Latin poetry.
The mentioned literary attempts of course did not exhaust the subject of Vol-
taires cognition in Poland. At the turns of the 18
th
and 19
th
century there emerged
five translations of the poem on Lisbon, by three different authors, which suggest-
ed that at least one of translators involved rendered the poem into Polish more
than once.
Prior to discussing that case, let us go on to the second and the third transla-
tions as seen from a chronological perspective. Both translations were created in
the same scientific environment, within 15 years. Both translators were recruited
from the eldest Polish university, Cracow Academy, founded in 1364. It was re-
formed in 1780 by Hugo Kotaj (1750-1812). Jacek Idzi Przybylski (1756-1819)
was a librarian and professor at the mentioned Cracow Academy. Jacek Idzi Przy-
bylski, a classic philologist, polyglot, and the author of dissertations on classical
literature, was also a prolific translator of both ancient and modern classic litera-
ture (Homer, Hesiod, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Gessner, Klopstock). Przybylski was a
pioneer of direct English-Polish translations he rendered to Polish in 1790 Para-
dise Lost (1667, 1674) and in 1791 Paradise Regained (1671) by John Milton (1608-
1674), as well as Popes poem Essay on Criticism (1711) in 1790. Przybylski was also
the first translator of Lusiade (Os Lusadas, 1572) by Luis de Cames into Polish
(1790). Przybylski was often criticised due to heaviness of his style and an excessive
usage of archaic words, or self-coined neologisms, based in Slavonic roots. Such
linguistic features allow me to ascribe to Przybylski the authorship of an anony-
mous versified translation printed in 1780. The translation entitled Rymopismo
nad losem zawistnym Lizbony (The Rhymed Piece on the Ill-Fated Destiny of Lis-
bon) was allegedly printed in Basle. But probably it was published in Warsaw.
The text contained other compound words. Moreover, one may find in the transla-
tions other stylistic forms typical of Przybylski, such as polonised foreign names,
transaccentuations, and inexact rhymes. Nevertheless, the translator constructed
correct phrases and he organised thoughts with ease. Hence, the translation is flu-
ent and faithful.
There are other arguments accounting for the authorship of Przybylski. He
also translated Historische und kritische Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Schrif-
ten des Herrn von Voltaire und anderer Neuphilosophen unserer Zeiten (volume 1-2,
printed in Augsburg 1777-1779) by Johann Christoph von Zabuesnig (born in 1747).
This translation, signed: J. P. one of the Cracow Academic scholars was published
247
in 1781 in Cracow. In the first volume (Historyczno-krytyczne wiadomoci o yciu i
pismach pana Woltera i inszych nowych filozofw) there was a vast biography of
Voltaire, with a review of his literary output. It should be said that the review was
very critical and carded with stipulations. Still, it helped a reader to be well versed
in the subject. The mentioned volume contains 22-verse long fragments of the poem
on Lisbon, similar to the one printed in 1780, but unrhymed. It is worth noting that
during that period of time, Przybylski was fascinated by Voltaires activity. At the
same time, in 1780, Przybylski published his translations of Candide (Kandyd Wszdy-
bylski, czyli Najlepszo). The translations were anonymous, but one could trace its
author owing to both style analysis (and taking into consideration the hint in the
title: Wszdybylski referring to the authors surname Przybylski) and diary testi-
monies of the time in question. These testimonies described what a problematic
issue it was dedicating the work to Ignacy Potocki (1750-1809), outstanding mem-
ber of the National Education Commitee (Komisja Edukacji Narodowej). Besides,
there are only five items of this printed work, by means of which (as well as Ry-
mopismo nad losem zawistnym Lizbony The Rhymed Piece on the Ill-Fated Des-
tiny of Lisbon) its author intended to start his literary career in Warsaw, the cap-
ital of the country. It is known that Przybylski also translated many other novels
and poems of Voltaire, including the earlier mentioned poem Sur la loi naturelle,
entitled in Polish Ustawa natury, printed in the year 1795, allegedly, in Ferney
(Voltaires residence), but in fact, in Cracow.
Another rhymed translation of the poem, subsequent to the one by Przybylski,
was published in Cracow in 1795 (then the last, third partition of Poland amongst
Prussia, Russia and Austria took place, ceasing the sovereignty of Poland till 1918).
That translation was done by rev. Jan Kanty Kalikst Chodani, (1769-1823) a the-
ologian educated in exact sciences and interested in the activity of Voltaire, and a
good friend of Przybylski. The said translation was included in the complete trans-
lation of a seven poetical dissertation entitled Discours en vers sur lhomme. As
compared to Przybylskis version, Chodanis version, entitled Wiersz nad nieszc-
zciem Lizbony (The Poem on the Disaster of Lisbon) is somewhat less vigorous.
Particular thoughts are comprised in single verses. In general, Chodanis transla-
tion is clear, correct and renders correctlyly the main train of thought of the origi-
nal. Chodani, encouraged by Przybylski, also worked on Voltaires Henriade (1723).
He published his translation of that poem in 1803. It should be said that this poem
was very popular then. Two another translations of the same poem, by Euzebiusz
Sowacki (1772-1814, father of the great poet of Polish Romanticism, Juliusz
248
Sowacki, 1809-1849), and by Ignacy Dembowski (1771 after 1823), appeared in
Warsaw nearly at that time (1803 and 1805, respectively).
Still, the most interesting testimony of contacts of Polish translators with Vol-
taires poem was a consistent work of Stanislas Staszic (1755-1826), born at the
beginning of November 1755 at the same time as the ground shook in Lisbon.
It should be said that Staszic was a person who contributed to the development
of the Polish Enlightenment, both in the time of the declining independence of the
Polish State, and later, when the commonwealth of the Kingdom of Poland and
Grand Duchy of Lithuania was no longer an independent country. During the ses-
sion of the Diet (Sejm) in the years 1788-1792 (due to which it was later known as
the Four Years Diet or the Great Diet), Staszic actively participated in debates as
a writer. He wrote among others Przestrogi dla Polski Warnings for Poland (1790).
Later, having obtained an in-depth education in natural sciences in France, Staszic
conducted a successful geological research that resulted in the first detailed de-
scription of the Carpathian Mountains (published in 1815). Forced to act in the
conditions of restrained sovereignty, Staszic worked on the organisation of the ed-
ucational system as well as that of the industry. He was involved in this both in the
days of the Duchy of Warsaw (subject to Napoleonic France in the years 1807-
1813) and the following political structure called the Kingdom of Poland (1815-
1831, resting under the Russian Empire rule). Staszic was a co-founder and long-
lasting president of the Royal Warsaw Society for the Promotion of Learning (To-
warzystwo Krlewskie Warszawskie Przyjaci Nauk; the word for word translation
being Society of Friends of Sciences) created in 1800. It was Staszic who provided
the means for the construction of the Societys seat, the existing Staszic Palace
located in Warsaw. Staszic translated, among others, works of ancient poetry (Hom-
ers Iliad, published in 1815), he was also the author of ruminations upon the stages
of development of mankind, evolution of political systems and a phenomenon con-
cerning people becoming dependent upon other people. These reflections upon
history took the form of a vast philosophical poem entitled Humankind (Rd ludz-
ki, 1818-1820).
But in the year 1779, when Staszics translation of the poem on Lisbon has just
appeared, he was a young Catholic priest. He was about to start his studies in nat-
ural sciences in France and in Germany. Establishing contacts with great natural-
ists, such as Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788), must have influenced
views of Staszic who translated broadly discussed Buffons Les poques de la nature
(The Epochs of the Nature) to Polish. It was printed first in 1786 (next editions:
249
1803 and 1816). Due to his outlook close to deism, Staszic did not fulfil his clerical
duties, but he remained priest till the end of his life. He decided not abandon his
priesthood to avoid public scandal. Moreover he possibly did not want to hurt his
pious mother, who had earlier decided about his life. The mother was the address-
ee of the first literary work of a very young Staszic: he did a poetry prose translation
in of the poem La religion (The Religion) by Louis Racine (1692-1763), the son of
the famous dramatist Jean Racine (1639-1699). The work of Racine, published in
1742, was according to the spirit of Jansenism. The said poem presented Christian-
ity as the only legitimate religion, as seen in the light of an innate human morality
and the order of nature, beyond which God was hidden. The Staszic translation
was printed in Warsaw in 1779. The translator included the earlier mentioned first
Polish translation of Voltaires poem on Lisbon as a supplement, also in prose. It is
highly probable that this encouraged Jacek Idzi Przybylski to compete in the trans-
lation work. To print both works in one volume was an original decision of Staszic;
there were no such joint versions in any of French editions. It may be that the
translator was aware of the fact that a son of Racine JR. died in Cadiz, Spain,
during the 1755 earthquake?
Staszic did not see the equivocal piece of art as the testimony of Voltaires
doubt in Gods order regarding the world. Staszic rather treated it as proof of the
fallibility of the human mind, not completely rejecting God as the creator of every-
thing. Only with such a stipulation could the poem by Voltaire serve as an argu-
ment, increasing the significance of the Racines poem. Staszic devoted a new fore-
word and several annotations to this idea.
The translator constructed sentences rather clearly; he did not feel confused
even when dealing with longer phrases. He avoided inversion, so often used in
Polish prose of that period, being under strong influence of the Latin syntax. Stas-
zic used neutral vocabulary; he did not aim at reaching exaggerated expression. He
focused rather on maintaining the clarity of thought. It should be noted that Stas-
zic decided to undergo interference to the text he quietly abandoned the last
paragraph, speaking about hope as an invention of distressed mankind. The trans-
lator most probably did it in order to strengthen the significance of his own inter-
pretation of the poem.
Among more than ten copies from 1779 known today, the most valuable is the
unbound one, as it belonged to Staszic himself. It was driven away to Russia along
with the rest of the Royal Warsaw Society for the Promotion of Learning book
collection after the fall of the November Uprising in 1832. The precious item was
250
regained with a part of the said collection in 1921. At present it is kept in the War-
saw University Library, in Warsaw (shelf-mark: 29.7.7.23 Cim). The item is so pre-
cious because the translator put many improvements on it, both in the text of The
Religion and the poem O zapadnieniu Lizbony (On the Incavement of Lisbon). The
second translation by Staszic existed only virtually until the moment it was pub-
lished due to my efforts in 2003. Staszic prepared also a 4
th
version of the poem, as
he had the intention of publishing a collection of his works in the times of the
Kingdom of Poland (called the Congress Kingdom as established at the Vienna
Congress in 1815). Then he was a high positioned state official. Hence, the annota-
tions could have been added not earlier than in the year 1815. Corrections aimed at
improvement of the overall sound of the poem, by the elimination of many vowel
clusters, as well as strengthening the cohesion of the translation. The latter was to
be achieved by using a proper word arrangement. The translator chose stronger
expressions, he tried to underline the suggestiveness of the poem. One may find in
this version many odd words and new language constructions, so typical of Staszics
latest works. One may also distinguish striving for simplified orthography. Such a
version of spelling was popularised by the translator during linguistic debates in
the Society for the Promotion of Learning. The translator decided to add the trans-
lation of the ending, the anecdote about the dying caliph. It should be said that he
threw out the former foreword and annotations, which was a good decision, as they
served only as a summary of Voltaires views.
Yet, the Collected Works of Staszic contained not an improved prose transla-
tion, but a new translation, the third by the same author and the fifth one in Polish
literature. Staszic decided to use a cadenced poem, with six stresses in each verse
and a changing number of syllables. It resulted from his research upon the charac-
ter of the Polish language. Staszic sought a solemn measure of a heroic poem,
imitating ancient Greek and Latin poems. In translations of both the Iliad and the
poem by Voltaire, Staszic, searching a Polish hexameter, created his own concept
of prosody. He explained it in detail in the introduction to the Iliad; he also put a
short note prior to the poem on Lisbon. It should be said that this concept had an
artificial character. Staszic intended to divide a flow of a Polish verse in metric foot
typical for the ancient metric feet. Nevertheless, he worked on linguistic material
in which for several centuries the accent has been dynamic instead of the one based
on the duration of vowels. Therefore, natural prosodic phenomena such as transac-
centuations, enclitics and proclitics were described exactly yet erroneously named.
Moreover, Staszic used in that translation rhymes hardly distinguishable for a Polish
251
reader, namely demi-assonances (rhymes in which only last vowels are compatible
with each other). As a result, the poem is not flowing, it is chanted. Should one
follow the utopia-like remarks of Staszic, one would have to often change the nat-
ural dynamic accent of the Polish language. One also would have to stress verse
endings with a strangely high tone (of voice).
As in other volumes of his Works, Staszic proposed the usage of simplified
spelling. By doing so, he thought he would reach a primary purity of the Slavonic
language, spoiled through the ages by the excessive usage of diacritics, introduced
by printers of German origins. Staszic wanted to restore the former sound of the
Polish language, of which he had a vague idea. He wanted to realise it by the elim-
ination of nasal, closed and soughing vowels. It should be said that his motives
were groundless and contrary to a natural development of a living language.
As far as vocabulary is concerned, the new translation by Staszic is even more
saturated with archaic words and words formed on the basis of Church Slavonic.
Still, the translation is vivid and full of expression, far from fluency, but reflecting
the emotional character of the speech which Voltaires poem resembles.
Staszic published a verse translation of the Poem on Lisbon twice. In 1815 he
put it in a form of an addition to the edition of the Iliad printed separately. In that
edition, Voltaires poem became more a tentative versification than a shocking
debate on the Providence. The situation was similar when, once again, Staszic joined
La religion by Racine JR and Voltaires Poem on Lisbon in the fifth volume of his
Works; he also added there a novel entitled Numa Pompilius, the Second King of
Rome by Jean Pierre Claris de Florian (1755-1794). The volume was printed in
Warsaw in 1816. At that moment of his life, Staszic himself was interested in a
poetic form and in details of poetic description. He presented his vision of the
world, contradictory to the one of Voltaire, in the main message of his poem Hu-
mankind (Rd ludzki, chant I):
Moja mowa jest prost, jak prawda, co gosz.
Bg chce, abymy byli wszyscy szczliwymi,
e nieszczliwym czowiek, to ludzie zdziaali.
[My speach is as simple as the truth I propagate.
God wants for all of us a happy fate,
Humans unhappiness is due to another humans actions]
252
To conclude, Voltaires poem has functioned in the Polish literature of the
Enlightenment for over fifty years. The poem was severely criticised by Konarski.
Next, this poem was the argument supporting Staszics concept of the hidden God.
Then the said poem was the reason for the enthusiastic translation competition for
Przybylski. Furthermore, a craftsman-translator Chodani treated it as a great sub-
stance to work upon. Finally, for Staszic, Voltaires poem constituted a canvas of
interesting changes in both prosaic and poetic versions. In the latter it also under-
went a deep linguistic restructuring. It is definitely worth mentioning that no other
literary tradition noted such a creative response to this poem.
Extracts
I. Voltaire: Pome sur le dsastre de Lisbonne, ou examen de cet axiome : Tout
est bien (1756; v. 1-23, 229-234)
malheureux mortels ! terre dplorable !
de tous les flaux assemblage effroyable !
Dinutiles douleurs ternel entretien !
Philosophes tromps qui criez : Tout est bien ;
accourez, contemplez ces ruines affreuses,
ces dbris, ces lambeaux, ces cendres malheureuses,
ces femmes, ces enfants lun sur lautre entasss,
sous ces marbres rompus ces membres disperss ;
cent mille infortuns que la terre dvore,
qui, sanglants, dchirs, et palpitants encore,
enterrs sous leurs toits, terminent sans secours
dans lhorreur des tourments leurs lamentables jours !
Aux cris demi-forms de leurs voix expirantes,
au spectacle effrayant de leurs cendres fumantes,
direz-vous : Cest leffet des ternelles lois
qui dun Dieu libre et bon ncessitent le choix ?
Direz-vous, en voyant cet amas de victimes :
Dieu sest veng, leur mort est le prix de leurs crimes ?
Quel crime, quelle faute ont commis ces enfants
sur le sein maternel crass et sanglants ?
Lisbonne, qui nest plus, eut-elle plus de vices
que Londres, que Paris, plongs dans les dlices ?
Lisbonne est abme, et lon danse Paris. []
Un calife autrefois, son heure dernire,
au Dieu quil adorait dit pour toute prire :
253
Je tapporte, seul roi, seul tre illimit,
tout ce que tu nas pas dans ton immensit,
les dfauts, les regrets, les maux et lignorance .
Mais il pouvait encore ajouter le s p r a n c e.
II. Stanisaw Staszic: Poema o zapadnieniu Lizbony, czyli nad faszywym tym
axioma Wszystko jest dobrze uwaga pokazujca nikczemno czowieka i sabo
rozumu ludzkiego (1779)
O nieszczliwi ludzie! Opakana ziemio! O straszny wszystkich utrapie
zbiorze! O nieskoczony bezuytecznych boleci widoku! Oszukani w swym
zdaniu filozofowie, wy, ktrzy krzyczycie, e wszystko jest dobrze, spieszcie,
zamylcie si nad t okropn zapadlin, przypatrzcie si tym nieszczli-
wym ostatkom, smutnym ndznych popioom, mogile w jedn kup ubit-
ych matek i dzieci, a pod gruzami rozpadnionego marmoru gdzieniegdzie
zarzuconym czonkom!
Sto tysicy ndzarzy tu ziemia poera, ktrzy poszarpani, krwi zbroc-
zeni, a jeszcze ziewajcy, pod wasnymi zawaleni domami bez wszelkiego
ratunku w okrutnych i patrzcego wskr racych mkach smutne kocz
dni swoje.
Powiecie podobno, syszc na p domawiajcych miertelne gosy,
patrzc na okropny dym, powstajcy z ich popiow: Jest to skutek przedw-
iecznych wyrokw, ktre do wypenienia tego przymusiy dobrego i wolnego
Boga. Rzeczecie, widzc tyle krwawych ofiar, e Bg si zemci, mier
ludzi tych jest kar ich zoci. Ale jak zo, jaki wystpek popeniy te
niewinitka, ktre na onie matek okrutnie ranione i poduszone byy?
Czyli Lizbona, ktrej ju nie masz, wicej miaa nieprawoci anieli
Londyn i Pary, zanurzeni w rozkoszach i zbytkach? Lizbona przeci si
zapada, a w Paryu tacuj. []
III. Jacek Idzi Przybylski: Rymopismo Woltera nad losem zawistnym Lizbony,
albo roztrznienie tego axioma: Wszystko jest dobrze (1780; v. 1-30, 239-244)
Filozofowie nader w swych zdaniach dziwaczni,
co na stan ziemi i jej mieszkacw niebaczni,
na siedlisko wszech nieszcz, pog i plag srogich,
na odgos jku, widok okropny ez drogich,
ktre bieda wyciska, miecie czoem jakiem
woa: Wszystko jest dobrze, wszystko dobra znakiem,
popieszcie przypatrzy si owym rozwalinom,
owym martwym popioom, Lizbony ruinom,
pod gruzami marmurw czonkom zgruchotanym
254
dzieci, kobiet, ulicom ciaami zasanym,
sto tysicy nieszczsnym od ziemi poartym,
pod ciarem swych domw okrutnie przywartym,
rozszarpanym, w krwi wasnej jeszcze dygoccym,
bez ratunku dni smutne tak ciko koczcym!
Na wp przecite jki ich gincych gosw,
na widok kurzcych si z ich popiow stosw,
rzekniecie: Te wieczyste mie chc skutki prawa,
na ktre Bg wszechwadny koniecznie przystawa?
Albo, okropne widzc tych ofiar ostatki,
rzekniecie: Bg si zemci, zbrodnie ich s wiadki
mierci, ktr ponieli; tej kary s godni?
Filozofowie w zdaniach swoich niezawodni,
opowiedzcie nam zbrodnie owych biednych dziatek,
ktre mury na onie zawaliy matek!
Czy Pary, ktry uciech ustawnie zaywa,
mniej w zbrodniach ni Lizbona zapada opywa?
Lizbona zagina; Parya wesoy
obywatel spokojnie na krwawe popioy
braci swoich poglda, zwaajc przyczyn,
co Lizbon w znikom obraca perzyn. []
Pewien kalif w ostatnim ycia swego kresie
t do Boga, ktrego czci, modlitw niesie:
O istoto jedyna nieograniczona!
Przynosz ci to wszystko, co twa niezmierzona
wszechmocno mie nie moe: ale, bdy, wady.
Nadziej mg by doda do tej ndz gromady.
IV. Jan Kanty Kalikst Chodani: Wiersz nad nieszczciem Lizbony, czyli rozbir
pocztku: Wszystko na wiecie jest dobrze (1795; v. 1-24, 229-234)
O yjcych na wiecie opakany stanie!
O ziemio! O okropne plag wszystkich zebranie!
O alami bez skutku napenione ycie!
Mdrcy bdni, co wszystko by dobrym mienicie,
zbierzcie si i zobaczcie te ndzne ruiny,
te krwi zlane popioy, te smutne zwaliny,
te dzieci, te niewiasty lece stosami,
te czonki rozproszone pomidzy gruzami!
Sto tysicy ndzarzw poartych od ziemi,
ktrzy, ruszajc jeszcze czonki strzaskanemi
255
i woajc o wsparcie gosem jkw smutnych,
kocz dni opakane wrzd blw okrutnych!
Syszc te ndznych wrzaski przerwane na poy,
patrzc na te krwi ludzk dymice popioy,
powiecie, i tak niosy odwieczne ustawy,
na ktre musia przysta Bg, chocia askawy?
Rzeczecie, wpatrujc si tym ndznym ofiarom:
Bg si zemci, i ich mier jest ich zbrodni kar?
Lecz jaka bya zbrodnia nieszczliwych dziatek
rozdartych, krwi oblanych na onie swych matek?
Bya Lizbona bardziej zbrodniami zhabion
ni Londyn albo Pary, ktre w zbytkach ton?
Lizbona si zapada, Pary taczy, piwa! []
Pewny kalif w ostatniej dni swoich godzinie
zasa do swego Boga t prob jedynie:
Przynosz ci, o Krlu, Twrco duszy mojej,
to wszystko, czego nie masz w niezmiernoci twojej,
wystpki, niewiadomo, bole, w ktrej mdlej.
Mg atoli do tego przyoy nadziej.
V. Stanisaw Staszic: Poema Woltera o zapadnieniu Lizbony, wytumaczone
i drukowane w roku 1779 (2nd version of prose translation, ca 1815)
O nieszczliwi ludzie! O ziemio opakana! O straszliwy wszystkich
utrapie zbiorze! Okropna pamici nieskoczonych, a ju tylko
nieuytecznych wyrzeka! Wy, obkani mdrcowie, co wykrzykujecie, e
wszystko jest dobrze, tu pospieszajcie, zamylcie si nad t wszystkich zgroz
zapadlin, przypatrzcie si tym ostatkom, jeszcze drcej rozpataninie,
smutnym ndznych popioom, w jedn kup ubitych matek i dzieci mogile,
a pod gruzami rozsadzonych ska w sztuki poszarpanych ludzi drgajcym
czonkom! Ot sto tysicy ndznych tu ziemia poara; poszarpani, krwi
zbroczeni, jeszcze ziewajcy, pod wasnymi zawaleni domy bez ratunku
w okrutnych mkach opakane dni kocz.
Syszc miertelne ich gosy, patrzc na dym, powstajcy z ich popiow,
rzekniecie: Jest to skutek przedwiecznych ustaw, ktre dobrego i wszystko
podug swej woli dziaajcego zmuszaj Boga. Rzekniecie, widzc tyle kr-
wawych ofiar: Bg si zemci, mier ludzi tych jest kar ich zoci. Ale
jak zo, jaki wystpek popeniy te niewinne dzieci na onie matek na
sztuki podarte, krwi spluszczone!
Czyli Lizbona, ktrej ju nie ma, wicej miaa nieprawoci nieli
Londyn, Pary, zanurzeni w rozkoszach? Lizbona przeci w ziemi
przepada, a w Paryu tacuj. []
256
Pewny kalif w ostatni zgonu chwil do bstwa, ktre czci, tak uczyni
prob: Wielki krlw krlu! Istnoci nieskoczona! Przynosz ci to wszyst-
ko, czego ty w twojej nie masz nieskoczonoci: wady, ale, nieszczcia,
niewiadomoci. Mg by jeszcze przyda: i nadziej.
VI. Stanisaw Staszic: Poema Woltera o zapadnieniu Lizbony (1815 ; v. 1-24,
219-224)
O nieszczliwi ludzie! o ty, ziemio opakana!
O wszystkich najsroszych utrapie zwalino straszliwa!
Ju tylko wyrzeka naprnych wieczne wspomnienie!
Wy, mdrcy, ktrych zdaniem Na wiecie wszystko jest dobrze,
spieszcie, przypatrzcie si tu, w tej wszystkich zgroz zapadlinie,
smutnym popioom zburzyszcz, drgajcej cia pataninie,
matek, dzieci jednych na drugich w kup ubitych,
spod rumu ska roztrzaskych czonom cia ludzi zszarpanych!
Sto tysicy ywo nieszczliwych tu ziemia poera:
w sztuki darci, krwi pluszczc, pod zawaliskiem mieszkania,
w ogniochannych gbiach bez wszelkiej nadziei, pomocy,
dni opakane kocz w okrutnych mkach, w rozpaczy.
Na konajcych jki, miertelne spod ziemi gosy,
na powstajce smutne spod zawaliska ich dymy
rzekniecie: to skutki przyrodzenia ustaw odwiecznych,
co wolnego Boga do czynw zmuszaj bezwolnych.
Rzekniecie nad tylu ofiar okropn mogi:
Bg si zemci. Ta straszna mier jest przestpstwa ich kar.
Jaki wystpek, win popeniy te dzieci niewinne,
na onie matek w sztuki zdarte, krwi matek, sw krwi spluszczone?
Czyli Lizbona, ktrej nie ma, ktra w ziemi przepada,
wicej wystpstw nili Pary, nili Londyn miaa?
Przecie mieszkacy pierwszej wgreni w pdo podziemne jcz,
gdy si w rozkoszach nurzc, w Paryu, w Londynie tacz []
Pewny kalif w swego ycia ostatni zgonu chwil
do bstwa, ktre czci, tak uczyni modlitw:
Wielki krlw krlu! ty istnoci nieskoczona!
Przynosz ci wszystko, czego nieskoczono twa nie ma:
wady, cierpienia, bdy, niewiadomoci, niedol
mg do nich przyda jeszcze i nieodstpn nadziej.
257
Selected Bibliography:
1. Aleksandrowska, Elbieta et al. (ed.), Bibliografia literatury polskiej Nowy Korbut, t. 4-6: Owie-
cenie, Warszawa; t. 4 (1967), pp. 342-344: Chodani Jan Kanty (1769-1823); t. 6/1 (1970), pp. 94-
101: Przybylski Jacek (Hiacynt) Idzi (1756-1819); pp. 217-235: Staszic Stanisaw Wawrzyniec (1755-
1826); addenda: t. 6/2 (1972), pp. 47, 130, 133
2. Baczko, Bronisaw, Job, mon ami. Promesses du bonheur et fatalit du mal, Paris 1997
3. Besterman, Theodore, Voltaire et le dsastre de Lisbonne ou la mort de loptimisme, Studies on
Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 1956, pp. 7-24. English version: Voltaire and the Lisbon
Earthquake; or, the Death of Optimism, in: idem, Voltaire Essays and Another, London 1962, pp. 24-
41; reprinted in: Theodore Besterman, Bibliographer and Editor: a Selection of Representative Texts,
ed. by Francesco Cordasco, foreword by William A. Munford, Metuchen and London, 1992,
pp. 287-304 (The Great Bibliographers No. 9)
4. Besterman, Theodore, Voltaire, London 1969, chapt. 27: The Death of Optimism, 1755 (pp. 351-
359)
5. Kostkiewiczowa, Teresa; Goliski, Zbigniew (ed.), Pisarze polskiego Owiecenia, t. 2, Warszawa
1994, pp. 207-229: Snopek, Jerzy, Jacek Idzi Przybylski (1756-1819); pp. 614-644: Szacka, Bar-
bara, Stanisaw Staszic (1755-1826)
6. Racine, Louis, Religija. Poema tumaczone przez ksidza Stasica Z dodaniem przypiskw, do
ktrych przyczone poema pana Voltaira o zapadnieniu Lizbony, Warszawa, Druk. Nadworna
JKMci, 1779
7. Staszic, Stanisaw, Dziea, t. 7-9: Rd ludzki. Poema dydaktyczne, Warszawa 1818-1820
8. Staszic, Stanisaw, Pisma filozoficzne i spoeczne, ed. by Bogdan Suchodolski, t. 1-2, Warszawa
1954
9. Voltaire, Pome sur le dsastre de Lisbonne Poema o zapadnieniu Lizbony, ed. by Jacek Wjcicki,
Muzeum Stanisawa Staszica, Pia 2003 available through: www.muzeumstaszica.i-pila.pl
10. Wade, Ira O., Voltaire and Candide. A Study in the Fusion of History, Art, and Philosophy With
the text of the La Vallire manuscript of Candide, Princeton 1959
259
V. INSPIRATIONS
AND
DIFFUSIONS
- IDEAS,
TOPICS
AND
FORMS
261
Jos Eduardo Franco
(University of Lisbon, Portugal)
Christine Vogel
(University of Mainz, Germany)
The Monita secreta. Monita secreta. Monita secreta. Monita secreta. Monita secreta.
The Influence of a Polish Anti-Jesuitical
Best-Seller Best-Seller Best-Seller Best-Seller Best-Seller in Portugal and in Europe
The pyromaniac past of Europe can be a strong motiva-
tion for an enormous volume of self-analysis (), but burned
fingers can still be a trump.
1
Sigmund Bauman
Preliminary notes
In spite of being a work of libel produced and edited for the first time in Po-
land in 1614 to slander the image of the success of the Society of Jesus, this work
which remained known by the shortened title of Monita Secreta (The Secret Instruc-
tions) of the Jesuits were quickly taken over by the international anti-Jesuit move-
ment. These Secret Instructions were used abundantly over more than three centu-
ries to spread an Anti-Jesuit propaganda, which was used as a very precise and
powerful weapon against the Jesuits
2
. Likewise, the famous Monita Secreta are
also part of the lively history of Portuguese anti-Jesuitism. Initially disclosed in
manuscript, according to several transcripts which were found in the archives of
our libraries, they were then in printed giving way to the consecutive editions pub-
lished in the period between the beginnings of Liberalism and the First Republic
3
.
1
Zygmunt Bauman, Europa: uma aventura inacabada, Rio de Janeiro, Jorge Jahar Editor, 2006, p. 43.
2
For a more recent study of the history of this document see Sabina Pavone, Le antuzie dei gesuiti:
Le false Instruzione segrete della Compagnia di Ges e la polemica antijesuitica nei secoli 17 e 18,
Presentation by Adriano Prosperi, Salerno, [2000].
3
Cf. Francisco Rodrigues, Os Jesutas e a Monita Secreta, Rome, Tip. Pontificia in the Pio X Insti-
tute, 1912.
262
The study of this editorial effort of diffusion of a collusive manual falsely attribut-
ed to the Jesuits contributes to the understanding of the intense controversies that
rose around Jesuitism and other congregations, stigmatizing Portuguese and Eu-
ropean cultures since modern times
4
.
The Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, the most important magazine of the Ger-
man Aufklrung, used to publish critical studies of contemporary works relating to
all areas of knowledge to inform its enlightened readers. In 1783, this magazine
dedicates a small article to a new book entitled Monita secreta partum Societatis
Iesu nunc trimum typis expressa (Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus, printed
now for the first time) and to its German translation that had been published in
1782. The book is extremely rare, according to the journalist, because Jesuits bought
every single copy available; that would allow them to obtain a better knowledge of
the spirit and cunning devices of this dangerous order
5
. Although the author of
the introduction confesses, contrary to what is stated in the title page, that the book
has already been edited two or three times in Latin in past and present centu-
ries
6
, he insists on the value of the new publication and states:
Let us suppose that this work was an invention of the enemies of the
Society, according to declarations of ex-Jesuits to the readers of the Augs-
burg Journal when it was first published. Even if that is the case, the author
made an exemplary description and everything in it can be illustrated
through historical examples.
7
In fact, when the introduction was written, the work was already in its third or
fourth edition. The Monita Secreta had already been reedited and translated sever-
al times throughout Europe. Some estimates refer to more than forty editions up
to 1786
8
. However, it is impossible to provide an exact number. Many editions
were incorporated in other works, being used as supposedly historical documenta-
tion, as illustrations or complementary materials of interest in the anti-Jesuitical
compilations. No matter what our enlightened critic says, the Monita Secreta was a
very common text in the late 18th century.
4
Cf. Jos Eduardo Franco, Le Mythe Jsuite au Portugal (XVIe-XXe sicles), Paris-Saragossa-Lis-
bon-So Paulo, CRH-EHESS/CEHME-UZ/CLEPUL/ARK, 2006. (In press).
5
Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, Vol. 56, 1783, p. 241.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid., pp. 241-242.
8
Alexandre Brou, S. J., Les Jsuites de la lgende, Paris, Retaux, 1906, p. 206.
263
This revised text about the Monita Secreta, which demonstrates the intention
of crushing the infamous, could very well supercede the critical intent of the
Aufklrer. Still, the author of the article provides, above all an idea of the legend
that sometimes encircled the Monita Secreta in the past as well as in the present.
The first element of the legend consists in stating that the text is rare. The second
regards the fact that the Jesuits tried to make the document disappear. Finally, the
third states that the document is truthful. According to learned critics, its a for-
gery. Largely, it is this legend, renewed in every new edition, which guarantees the
amazing longevity of the Monita Secreta. Michel Leroy declares that it was really a
surprising forgery and that it was necessary to wait for the The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion, which appeared late in the 19
th
century or at the beginnings of the
20th, for the Monita to be surpassed and extinguished from imaginary of conspira-
cy.
9
Therefore, the legend and text of the Monita Secreta deserve analytical exam-
ination from the time of its origin in Poland at the beginning of the 17
th
century
until the cyberspace of the Third Millennium.
The Polish origin of this work of libel
The first edition of the Monita Secreta is dated 1614. In August of that year, a
booklet printed in Latin and entitled Monita private Societatis Jesu, referring to a
fake printing site, Notobirga, and an equally fake date, 1612, circulated in Krakow,
capital city of the kingdom of Poland. Before being printed, the text had circulated,
it seems, in manuscript. On the booklets cover one could read that it was about
the Secret Instructions of the Jesuits, a translation from the Spanish, and that it
had been discovered in Padua. Afterwards it was translated into Latin, sent to Vi-
enna and then to Krakow, where it was finally sold to the public.
10
It must be taken into consideration that these instructions came to light in the
final stage of the reformist policy of the Society of Jesus, carried through during
the generalship of Father Claudio Acquaviva (1981-1615), Superior General who
had replaced Father Everardo Mercuriano. Assuming the direction of his Society
9
Michel Leroy, O mito jesuta de Branger Michelet, Translation coord. by Jos Eduardo Franco,
Paris, Roma Editora, 1992, p. 246 ff.
10
Alexandre Brou S. J., Monita Secreta in Dictionnaire apologtique de la foi catholique. Table
analytique, supplment, 1931, col. 28-34, here col. 28 ; and cf. Francisco Rodrigues, S. J., op. cit., p.
97 ff.
Inspirations and diffusions - ideas, topics and forms
264
at the age of 27, the young General Acquaviva tried to regulate and moderate the
immense growth of the Jesuit religious institute, conveying a consolidation dynam-
ic instead of opting for growth. He produced a series of rules in the sense of pro-
moting a supported development of the activities confided to the members of the
Society. He also tried to promote, concurrently, a renewal and intensification dy-
namic of the spiritual life of the Jesuits, which had suffered a slight downgrading,
through the regulation of praying, meditation and study periods. Therefore, he
proposed the return to the classical sources of monasticism, namely the texts by
Saint Basil and Saint Bernard about sacred life. These reformist orientations were
for some an attempt to direct the Society toward a marked monasticism. However,
this reformation attempt of the Jesuits was far from peaceful; it caused a tremen-
dous wave of controversy. Several Jesuits, like Dionsio Vsquez, of new-Christian
origin, Dionsio Santa Cruz, Francisco Abreu, Gonalo Gonzlves, among others,
strongly criticized Acquavivas policy, writing controversial texts and gathering
support for the opposition in sectors alien to the Society.
This climate of internal commotion, with external effects, damaged the image
of the Society in a terrible way and disturbed its action, making it more sensitive to
the attacks of anti-Jesuit enemies who, in this period, increased their production of
anti-Jesuitical ideology. The turbulence became greater and greater and caused
such an impact that Philip II of Spain and I of Portugal had to step in, asking the
Pope to reprimand the Society.
The Jesuits that criticized the policy of the General gathered influences to ask
Pope Clement VIII (1592 1605) to summon a General Congregation to examine
the actions of the Superior General. Gathered in 1592, the 5
th
General Congrega-
tion decided to acquit Acquaviva of any wrongful or incompatible attitude con-
cerning the Constitutions, asserting his leadership of the Society of Jesus and giving
him more authority to silence discontentment. It is also during the generalship of
Acquaviva that a progressive change of the internationalist organizational logic of
the Jesuits takes place and also the distribution of its members
11
. This means the
beginning of a progressive identification of the Provinces and its members with the
nations where they were installed and a decrease in the predominant logic of inter-
nationality that diversified the origin of the specific priests. Thus, the sociological
fabric of several provincial communities abandon a multi-racial character.
11
Cf. Paulo de Assuno, Negcios jesuticos: A administrao dos bens divinos, PhD thesis, So
Paulo, copied text, 2001, p. 22 ff.
265
This patriotic trend and its subsequent cleavage hindered the action of the
Jesuits with national interests and affections that condition the options, the pasto-
ral orientations and the way of being and acting inside and outside the Society. The
stress laid on this new logic contributed to the generation of pressure and interest
groups motivated by nationalistic affectation. All this was a clear consequence of
the wide victory of the Spanish anti-Semitic movement in the 5
th
General Congre-
gation, which for a short period managed to prevent the admittance in the Society
of candidates of new-Christian origin, which means, of descendents of Jews or Moors.
So being, the appearance of the Monita Secreta cant be detached from this con-
juncture of dissidence, confrontation, reform and repression of abuses and devia-
tions that took place during Acquavivas Generalship; its author is precisely a ban-
ished member of the Society of Jesus. This libel is, therefore, a reaction to the
climate of discontentment, factions, reforms and transformations that had taken
place at the core of the Society of Jesus.
Globally, the Instructions, reserved for a small number of chosen ones among
the superiors of the Society, has the sole purpose of increasing secular power and
wealth of the Society of Jesus through not very catholic means. Seen as a scandal,
the Monita caused an immediate denial by the Jesuits of the authenticity of the
Instructions
12
. In February 1615, in a letter addressed to King Sigismund III, Fa-
ther Argenti, Visitador of the Province of Poland, denounces this monstrous coun-
terfeit. On the 9th of July of the next year, the new General of the Jesuits, Mcio
Vitelleschi, commands Father Gretser, Jesuit philosopher and historian who resid-
ed in Ingolstadt, to refute the slander by writing
13
. Only in 1618 the Jesuit pub-
lished his Three Apologetic Books against the Famous Libel entitled Monita private
Societatis Jesu
14
. In December 1616, the Monita had been condemned by the In-
quisition in Rome and included in the Index.
12
P. Bembus, Monita salutaria data anonymo auctori scripti, nuper editi, cui falso titulus inditus Monita
Privata S. J., s. 1, 1615, quoted by Alexandre Brou, S. J., Monita Secreta, op. cit., col. 30. See also
Paul Bernard, s. j., Les instructions Secrtes ds Jsuites: tude critique, paris, Lib. Bloud et Cie.,
1903 ; and P. Tacchi-Venturi, s. j., I Monita Secreta dei Gesuiti, 2nd Edition, Rome, Civilit
Cattolica, 1906.
13
Letter of General Vitelleschi to Father Gretser on July, 9, 1616, quoted by Bernhard Duhr, S. J.,
Jesuiten-Fabeln. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte, Freiburg, Herdersche Verlagbuchhandlung, 1904,
p. 90 Cf. Paulo de Assuno, op. Cit., p. 172.
14
[Jakob Gretser, s. j.], Jacobi Gretseri Societatis Iesu Theologi Contra Famosum Libellum, Cuius
Inscriptio Est : Monita Privata Societatis Iesu, Etc. Libri Tres Apologetici. Primus, ipsa Monita exam-
inat. Secundus testemonia illustrium virorum contra Societatem discutit. Tertius Docet, quid Illustris-
simi Praesules & Proceres de Monitis eorumque Auctore sentiant, s. 1, s. n. 1618.
266
The bishop of Krakow, Tylicki, had promoted since 1615 an investigation the
outcome of which was to be the conviction of the Monita in August 20, 1616
15
.
During the process, the curate of Gozdziec, a man called Jernimo Zahorowski,
was summoned to appear before the Inquisition; they suspected he was the au-
thor of the booklet; this former Jesuit had been expelled from the Society in
1613.
Although he was never officially condemned, it seems clear today that Za-
horowski had, in fact, written the Morita Secreta. This act is thought to have been
caused by a desire of vengeance due to his exclusion from de Society of Saint
Ignatius
16
. Some clues point in this direction. Beforehand, the actual text of the
Monita describes the ex-Jesuits excluded contentiously from the Society as very
honorable people and victims of a cruel persecution by their former superiors.
(This explains why Zahorowski was expelled.) Professor of grammar, he had, it
seems, dictated sentences to his pupils that were particularly similar to the ones
that would later be read in the Monita. His superior Wielewicki, the Rector of the
College of Lemberg, considered the attitude unworthy of a member of the Soci-
ety of Jesus and demanded his resignation.
Not much is known about the probable author of one of the most effective
anti-Jesuitical booklets in the history of the combat against the influence of that
religious Society. Nevertheless, the apologetical tradition says that he repented
in the last moments of his life, regretting the evil he had caused
17
.
The Journeys of the Monita Secreta Monita Secreta Monita Secreta Monita Secreta Monita Secreta from the 17
th
century
to the beginnings of the 18
th
century
In spite of the Episcopal conviction and the prohibition from Rome, the Moni-
ta Secreta spread immediately throughout Europe. Besides the numerous reedi-
tions in Latin during the 17
th
century, translations into vernacular idioms and into
French from 1618
18
, the work was then published in German, Spanish, English and
15
Bernhard Duhr, s. j., Jesuiten-Fabeln, op. cit., p. 87.
16
Cf. J. E. de Uriarte, Catlogo sazonado de obras annimas e seudnimos, Vol. I, Madrid, 1904.
17
Alexandre Brou, s. j., Les Jsuites de la lgende, op. cit., p. 286
18
Le secret ds secrets de Jsuites, cst--dire neuf discours touchant la vie, les menes et les complots
des Jsuites, translat de latin en franais, printed in Notre Dame de la Virate by Pierre Blanc,
sworn printer of the mentioned place, 1618.
267
Italian
19
. Several editors comment on the text, try to orient the reading of the
public and insist on the value of the edition because it unveils the secret intents of
the Jesuits
20
. Some legends started to circulate the supposedly secret instructions;
they describe the way the booklet was published in spite of the Jesuits precautions.
The famous German anti-Jesuit pamphleteer, Caspar Scioppius (or Schoppe),
creates the canonic narration that can still be found in the 19
th
century. In his Anat-
omy of the Society of Jesus
21
he states that the Capuchins of Paderborn, a small
German city, had sent him the Monita, found in the library the Jesuits. The doc-
ument was supposedly offered by Duke Christian von Brunswick that had sacked
the Societys college during de Paderborn siege. Several critics point out the in-
coherence of this fact
22
. The city of Paderborn was sacked only in 1622 while the
Monita had been known for several years. However, this fact is of minor impor-
tance. Other accounts are even stranger describing the itinerary of the text, all
the more since the fabulous mystery of the Monita, manuscript made public in
spite of the Jesuit opposition, nourishes the readers curiosity. The Paderborn
origin will remain in the Jesuits imaginate. Still, as referred Geoffrey Cubitt, the
19th century Frenchmen who read the story which had taken place a few years
ago, really thought that the Paderborn siege was a recent but insignificant epi-
sode of the Napoleonic wars
23
. Other versions are however better adapted to
their respective eras.
19
See for these translations and in general for a large number of editions, numbers 2938 to 3067 in
Charles Sommervogel, S. J. (ed.): Bibliothque de la Compagnie de Jesus, t. XI: Histoire by Pierre
Bliard, S. J., Paris, Editions August Picard, 1932.
20
As an example, see the preface a a 1635 edition, under the title: ARCANA SOCIETATIS JESU
Publico bono vulgate Cum Appendicibus utilissimis, s.1, s. n., 1635, where it can be read, pp. 1-2;
SOCETATEM IESU ab omnibus cognosci publice interest, ut ex illius institutis, consiliis, guber-
natione, actis & sine affect expendunt, quod posit, quo loco haberi debeat. [] Pauci in Arcana
Societatis penitis inquirunt, & sine affect expendunt, quod sit ejus institutum, quis Sociorum
scopus, quae vita, qui mores, quae consilia, quase per totam Europam molitiones.
21
[Scioppius, Caspar], Caspari Scioppii Anatomia Societatis Jesu, seu Probatio Spiritus Jesuitarum.
Item arcana imperii Jesuitici, cum instructione secretssima pr Superioribus ejusdem & Deliciarum
Jesuiticarum Specimina. Tandem divina oracula de Societatis exitu. Ad excitandam Regum & Prin-
cipum Catholicorum attentionem utilizzima, s. 1, s. n., 1633.
22
See, for example, Monita secreta Societatis Jesu. Instruction secrtes de la Socit de Jsus. Prius vos
ostendens fabricatores mendacii. Job, XIII, 4. Showing initially that you are lies craftsmen, Paris
by Mlle Cari de la Charie, editor, 1828, pp. 9-13; and Leonhardt Aloys Nellessen, Die Monita
secreta Societatis Jesu oder: die geheimen Verhaltungsbefehle der Jesuiten, ein Lgen-Machwerk,
Aachen, J. A. Mayer, 1825, pp. 3-4.
23
Geoffrey Cubitt, The Jesuit Myth. Conspiracy Theory and Politics in Nineteenth-Century France,
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993, p. 205.
268
In the final part of the 17th century, the Monita text starts to be restructured. A
seventeenth chapter is added and also titles and subtitles. Afterwards, the final
paragraph of the text is placed at the beginning of the book, in the manner of a
preface. Successive editions improve the Monita linguistically and extend its read-
ability. It is this improved form that enters the 18th century.
The Monita Secreta circulated under different titles: Monita privada, Monita
secretissima, Monitoria secreta, Arcana Societatis and Mysteria patrum Jesuitarum;
in portuguese the titles are Instrues Secretas dos Jesutas ou da Companhia de
Jesus, Instituies secretas dos Jesuitas, Admoestaes Secretas da Companhia de
Jesus ou even Cdigo dos Jesutas. Nevertheless and in spite of its astounding edito-
rial success, the greatest anti-Jesuitical controversialists remain sceptical. There-
fore, Pascal does not mention the text in his Lettres provinciales. His illustrious
colleague from Port-Royal, the theologian Antoine Arnaud, anti-Jesuitical publi-
cist with an even more profitable production, states in a letter written on Novem-
ber 11, 1688 that he considers the Monita secreta defamatory libel and the Jesuits
are surely not responsible for its production
24
. In 1713, the less scrupulous Car-
melite Henri de Saint-Ignace does not hesitate to merge the Monita in his Tuba
Magna, addressed to Pope Clement XI to convince him to reform the Society
25
.
But the Belgian Jesuit, Alphonse Huylenbroucq corrects him publicly with his Vin-
dicationes alterae
26
, in such a way that the careless author had to resign and sup-
press the Monita from posterior editions of his work.
Despite the Jesuit surveillance and the reticence of some sceptical adversaries,
other polemists continue to proclaim the authenticity of the Secret Instructions. In
England, victim of the psychosis of a Popish plot, the Monita secreta seem in fact,
credible. Convinced of the menacing power of the Jesuits, John Walthoe considers
useful the protection of the strong man of the Crowns government, Robert Wal-
pole, First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer
27
to edit a
bilingual version in London in 1723:
24
Letter of Antoine Arnaud in Oeuvres by Antoine Arnaud, t. III, Paris 1775, p. 143, quoted by
Bernhard Duhr, S. J., Jesuiten-Fabeln, op. cit., p.107
25
[Henri de Saint Ignace], Tuba magna mirum spargens sonum, ad Clementem undecimum [...] de
necessitate reformandi Societatem Jesu, Argentinae [i.e. Utrecht], s. n. 1713
26
[Alphonse Huylenbroucq, S. J.], Alphonsi Huylenbroucq Societatis Jesu Vindicaciones alterae. Ad-
versus famosos libellos quam plurimos & novam eorum collectionem, sub titulo Tuba magna novum
clagens sonum & c., Gandavi, apud Michaelem Graet, 1713.
27
Secreta Monita Societatis Jesu. The secret instructions of the Jesuits, London, printed for John Walthoe,
jun. overagainst the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, 1723, p. iii: To the Right Honorable Robert
Walpole, Esq; First Commissioner of His Majestys Treasury and Chancellor of the Echequer.
269
It is not an author, he says in the acknowledgements, the one who sails
in a sea of flattery so that he can recommend himself to a patron, but an
editor that humbly recognizes protection Your Excellency offers against
authors, who can consider the sacrifice of many thousands of individuals
of low social relevance such as me, but that represent a invaluable remis-
sion to reopen to the public the Secret Instructions of you Society (...).
This justifies in my opinion, offering Your Excellency one of the worst
books ever written which will become harmless for being so well known.
28
John Walthoe writes in the following pages a new version of the legend of the
Monita, speaking with the purpose of denouncing the Jesuit danger which is visibly
marked by their Secret Instructions. However, the topics of the rarity of the text and
of the effort of the Jesuits to make it disappear and deny its authenticity remain:
The following master-piece of religious policy was published in Latin,
French and Dutch for many years. One of the editions was bought later in
Antwerp by John Schipper, bookseller of Amsterdam (...), and reedited.
When the Jesuits were informed of the acquisition of that book, they de-
manded its restitution, but, by that time, he had already sent it to Holland.
Meanwhile, a member of the Society who lived in Amsterdam who knew
through a catholic bookseller named Van Eyck that Schipper was editing a
book concerning the Jesuits, replied that he would not be worried if the
book consisted only of the rules of the Society; even so, he would like to be
informed if that was in fact the book in question. As he was told that the
book was about the Secret Instructions of the Society, the good Father
shrugged his shoulders, frowned and stated that there was no choice but to
deny that the work had its origins in the Society. Still, the reverend Fathers
considered advisable to proceed with the purchase of the whole new edi-
tion, which they carried out conclusively, with the exception of some cop-
ies which had been acquired by two famous Roman Catholics. The book
was later reedited from one of those copies.
29
The Walthoe version, of the bookseller referred to above from Amsterdam
and of the Jesuits caught by surprise when determined to acquire all the copies of
the book, reappears some years later in a French compilation of anti-Jesuitic texts.
To the anonymous editor, the Monita Secreta offer a satisfactory response to the
question of why Saint Ignatius foundation had such success in such a short time:
28
Ibid. pp. iv-v.
29
Ibid., pp. vii-viii.
270
The growth of the Jesuits is admired by everybody. We cannot under-
stand how these religious people could, in less than two centuries, become
so powerful, being feared by other orders, but above all by Princes and
Kings in all parts of the universe. It is a mystery which must be explored
and it is exactly what is being done when we publicize the following ele-
ments that contain the whole secret of this Mystery.
30
The Monita Secreta Monita Secreta Monita Secreta Monita Secreta Monita Secreta and the Triumph
of the Conspiracy Spirit
In 1759, the Marquis of Pombal expelled the Jesuits from the kingdom of Por-
tugal and its colonies. Two years later, this powerful Prime-Minister of King Jos I
ordered Father Gabriel Malagrida, former missionary in Brazil and spiritual direc-
tor of the late Queen Mother to be burned at the stake, he was accused of heresy
and of being one of the main mentors of the conspiracy against the life of the king
which occurred in 1758. Although the Monita was not edited in Portugal until after
the banishment of the Jesuits from Portugal, they were known and used, directly
and indirectly in the pre-Pombalin
31
and Pombalin
32
anti-Jesuitic campaigns.
One of the most emblematic cases of this use is revealed in one of the most
terrible anti-Jesuitic catechisms conceived and divulged by Minister Carvalho e
Melo. This libel was sent to all the bishops of the Portuguese kingdom and over-
seas territories and royally commanded that all Jesuits should be forbidden from
practising their pastoral activities in dioceses and that the people should be warned
of the danger they represented to the country. We are referring to Erros mpios e
sediciosos que os Religiosos da Companhia de Jesus ensinaram os Rus, que foram
justiados, e pretenderam Espalhar nos Povos destes Reinos published by Miguel
Rodrigues in Lisbon in 1759, immediately after the sentencing of the Tvoras. In
this sentence, the Fathers of the Society were involved as heads of the royal assas-
sination attempt of September 3 of the previous year.
30
Les mystres les plus secrets des Jsuites contenus en diverses Pices originales, A Cologne, Chez les
Hritiers de Pierre Mateau, lEnseigne de la Vrit, 1727, Avertissement, p. 1.
31
The use of the Monita as a authoritarian document can be observed in anti-Jesuitic memorials
addressed to the Portuguese Court to criticize the action of jesuits in Brazil, in view of their
conflict with the colonizers and due to the dilemma around the enslavement of American Indians.
As example we can refer the sharp memoirs of Paulo da Silva Nunes written in the 20s and 30s of
the 18th century. Cf. BPE, code CXV/2-3.
32
In Torre do Tombo documentation dated 1760 this can also be found and it relates the Monita Secreta
with the attempt on the life o King Jos I, ANTT, Ministrio dos Negcios Estrangeiros, box 951.
271
Based on the Monita Secreta and on the most famous authors and libels of Portu-
guese and European tradition, Pombal tries to build and instill the image that the
Society of Jesus possessed a secret dimension directed to hidden instructions, whose
only visible institutional form was a mere disguise. Only a small group of Jesuits ex-
posed to a selective initiation knew their intimate and terrible secrets. Through this
dark secret organization which belonged to the Society, the Jesuits committed the most
terrible crimes and engineered their monstrous project of universal domination
33
.
As a matter a fact, the Monita circulated around the country in manuscript
form (in Latin or even translated into vernacular) as we can verify from a series of
transcripts that still exist in the Portuguese archives which belonged to intellectuals
of that era, namely members of the nobility, of the clergy, private libraries of con-
ventual institutions and others
34
.
In the same year of Malagridas execution in Lisbon, the Parliament of Paris
demanded an investigation of the Constitutions and into the Jesuits Institute. A first
decree was prepared that referred to the so called Jesuits of that time as enemies
of public order and intolerable in any civilized State. In 1764, The Order of Saint
Ignatius was prohibited in France by royal decree. Shortly after, during Easter of
1767, Charles III of Spain commanded secretly, and in a very short time, the banish-
ment of all Jesuits from his realm. Soon thereafter, his closest relatives, the King of
Naples and the Duke of Parma followed his ruling. Finally in 1773, Pope Clement
XIV surrendered to the pressure of the allied European courts, the French, Spanish
and Portuguese courts. The Sovereign Pontiff signs the papal edict Dominus ac Re-
demptor which suppresses, finally, the Society of Jesus. During this decade of perse-
cution, a bitten struggle between the adversaries and protectors of the Society in-
flames Europe. During the public debates, the Monita played a crucial role.
In 1760, they reappear in a particularly spiteful Italian pamphlet, entitled I lupi
smascherati (Unmasked wolves)
35
. In this work the adjustment to particular histor-
33
Cf. Erros mpios e sediciosos que os Religiosos da Companhia de Jesus ensinaram aos Rus, que
foram justiados, e pretenderam espalhar nos Povos deste Reinos, Lisbon, in Officina de Miguel
Rodrigues, Printer of His Eminence de Cardenal [1759].
34
As example, we can refer the localization of the following manuscripts: BPE, codes XXX/2-7 and
CX/1-7; BNL, Seco de reservados, codes 7025, 9822, 6463, 6041, 7991, 2041, 3719; ACL, Manu-
scritos vermelhos, Ms. 854; BA, code 49-II-8; BGUC, V. T. 19-8-1; BPMP, codes 757, 869; BNRJ,
Diviso de reservados, code I, 12, 1, 12.
35
I lupi smascherati nella confutaziione; e traduzione del libro intitolato: Monita secreta societatis Jesu. IN
virtu de quali giunsero i gesuiti, all orrido; ed esegrabile assassinio di sua sacra reale Maestra fedelissima
Don Giuseppe I, Re di Portogallo &c. &c. &c. Con un Appendice di Documenti rari, ed inediti, Ortigna-
no, NellOfficina di Tancredi e Francescantonio Padre e Figo Zaccheri de Strozzagriffi, 1780.
272
ical circumstances is perfectly achieved. In a cunning way, the anonymous author
of the preface that contains a hundred and thirty seven pages (contrary to the Monita
that in this edition only have seventy six), articulates the doctrine of the Monita
with the regicide attempt against Jos I of Portugal. Such as the works title re-
veals, the assassins would have acted according to these instructions. Furthermore,
the editor adds to the Monita text other documents related to the Portuguese Jes-
uits, several papal edicts and some recent anti-Jesuitic pamphlets form the file of
accusation. According to evidence, this book achieve an enormous success that
went beyond the horizon of the Italian peninsula. In 1761, the book was translated
into German and then reedited in the same language in 1762 and 1773
36
. In Ham-
burg, the Hamburgische unpartheyische Correspondent, the most influential Ger-
man journal of that period, underlined the confusion caused by the work. In the
weekly literary supplement of the journal, it was said that the book was a surpris-
ing triumph in Italy, above all in Rome, and everybody tries to buy it.
37
After
identifying Geneva as the most appropriate location for publishing, he adds: This
is one of the most violent books ever published against the Jesuits. It contains
expressions that probably no one would pronounce except in Switzerland.
38
The
journalist also narrates the history of the Monita, according to the historical and
critical
39
preface of the Unmasked Wolves:
The Monita Secreta were always insistently sought and (...) Henri de St.
Ignace published them for the first time in 1713 in Tuba magna. The Jesu-
its, and above all Huylenbroucq, provided them with a Polish author, Jern-
imo Zahorowitz [sic]; but the present author tries to show that the Monita
are specifically Jesuit, a conclusion taken from their behavior.
40
36
Die entlarvten Wlfe. Aus dem Portugiesischen in das Italinische und aus diesem in das Deutsche
bersetzt [translated by Johann Friedrich Le Bret], s.1., [Um], s. n. 1761; 2nd ed., s.1, s. n., 1762;
3rd ed. s. l., s. n., 1773. Another german translation appeared in 1762 with the following title:
Sammlung vermischtes schriften die jetrige Angelegenheiten der Jesuiten betreffend samt vielen mesh-
wunsdigen Nachrichten zur Erlntesnngder Geschischte diens Ordens und historische-critischen Am-
nmerlungers [...], s. l., s. n., 1762
37
Die entlarvten Wlfe. Aus dem Portugiesischen in das Italinische und aus diesem in das Deutsche
bersetzt [translated by Johann Friedrich Le Bret], s.1., [Um], s. n. 1761; 2nd ed., s.1, s. n., 1762;
3rd ed. s. l., s. n., 1773. Another german translation appeared in 1762 with the following title:
Sammlung vermischtes schriften die jetrige Angelegenheiten der Jesuiten betreffend samt vielen mesh-
wunsdigen Nachrichten zur Erlntesnngder Geschischte diens Ordens und historische-critischen Am-
nmerlungers [...], s. l., s. n., 1762
38
Ibid., p. 2
39
Ibid., p. 1
40
Ibid., p. 1
273
However, some German scholars, even Protestants, were not decisively con-
vinced of the historical value of the Monita. Professor Anton Ernst Klausing, edi-
tor of a collection of documents about Portuguese matters and filojesuitism,
declares that the Unmasked Wolves are not very useful and even unworthy of being
translated into German, because he ignores the authenticity of the Monita.
Furthermore, the simple fact of copies being found in the possession of
Jesuits is not reason enough to conclude that they are the actual authors
41
.
The scepticism of the first does not hinder the anti-Jesuitic fanaticism of the
other. The Monita had many other editions during the debates about the suppres-
sion. Therefore, a collection of Les Mystres les plus secrets des Jsuits was then
reedited in 1761, but, this time, at the expense of the Society before being trans-
lated to German in 1774
42
. A French-Latin edition of the Monita appeared in the
same year
43
and in 1762 the Secret Instructions were revealed finally ad majorem
Dei gloriam
44
. Also with Superiorum permissu ac privilegio appears in 1767
the deluxe Latin edition of the documents that is thought to have been promoted
during the international anti-Jesuitic campaigns subsidized by Pombal
45
. If the
possibility of the edition having been made in Portugal or at the expense of the
Portuguese public treasury is real, then it must be registered as the first Portuguese
edition of the Monita Secreta.
41
[Anton Ernst Klausing], Sammlung der Neuesten Schrifften, welche die Jesuiten in Portugal betref-
fen. Translated from the italian. Third volume, Frankfurt and Leipzig, s. n., 1761, Vorrede, p. 8
42
Les mystres les plus secrets des Jsuits contenus en diverses pices originales, Amsterdam, At the
expense of the Society, 1761; Der Jesuit in seiner Blsse Oder: Die entdeckten Geheimnissedes Jesu-
iter-Ordens, Translated from de french, Paris, s. n., 1774
43
Instructions secrtes de la Compagnie de Jsus tires de ses Constituitions, s. l., s. n., [1761]
44
Instructions secrtes et dispositions particulires des cinq provinces des Jsuites de France, des recteurs
et des personnes graves de la Socit, adresses aux catholiques franais. Ad majorem Dei gloriam, A
Dolsie, s. n., 1762
45
Monita Secreta Societatis Jesu, s. l.,1767. Besides the fact that the printing marks may indicate
similarities with the printing pieces of other Pombalin editions internationally propagated, there
are some copies archived in our national libraries. Furthermore, the copy of this edition present in
the National Library of Lisbon is aggregated, in a miscellanea, to other Portuguese documents
translated from the italian for anti-jesuitic international propaganda, which is exemplified in a
document by Giusseph de Seabra da Silva, Prove e confessioni autentiche estrate dal processo chi
dimonstrano la reita de Gesuiti nellattentto regicidio di S. M. Fedelissim D. Giuseppe I Re di Porto-
gallo [...]. BNL, Seco de reservados, DS. VXIII 352. See also another copy present at BPE,
code B./4783. To support this possibility, we deeply thank the specialized advice that Prof. Dr.
Artur Anselmo gave us about this edition.
274
Other Latin and Italian editions followed
46
. In 1760, the professor and mem-
ber of the scientific society of Berlin, Johann Christoph Harenberg, includes the
Monita in German in his Histria pragmtica dos Jesutas and considers it to be a
historical document
47
. Five years later, the Jesuit historian Friedrich von Reiffen-
berg publishes Histria crtica dos Jesutas, in which he responds to his fellow mem-
ber in Berlin in a most sarcastic way:
Harenberg was so afraid that this precious work [the Monita] would dis-
appear that he published it again to incorporate it in his pile of lies. I do not
even stop to observe rotten merchandise because everyone knows that the
[Monita] were long ago publicly condemned by the Pope and other bishops
and are among the slandering libels falsely attributed to the Society.
48
Since the Monita Secreta occupied a very high place in the anti-Jesuitic polem-
ic of the 1860s, their influence is not very clear, but in an indirect way, in the judi-
cial and diplomatic procedures that led to the expulsion of the Jesuits. In France, in
fact, Parliaments made an effort to present new evidence of the evil of the Society
of Jesus, getting hold of the Jesuit authors. They refused, however, to base their
accusations on the Secret Instructions. They are never mentioned in the numerous
official publications, reports, decrees and defenses
49
. Object of an excessive con-
troversy, the text does not satisfy the conditions of positive evidence. But the as-
sumption is obvious that there were, in fact, Secrets in the Constitutions and in the
Institute of the Jesuits. In Histoire de la naissance et des progrs de la Compagnie de
Jsus, a source of inspiration preferred by the magistrates in charge of the examina-
tion of the constitutions of the society
50
, the Jansenists Christophe Coudrette and
46
V.g. Instruzioni secrete della Compagnia di Gsu con importanti aggiunte, Rome. Topografia della
Propaganda, con permissione, s. d., s. n., [1760]
47
Johann Christoph Harenberg, Pragmatische Geschichte des Ordens der Jesuiten seit Ihrem Ursprung
bis auf die gegenwrtige Zeit durch Johann Christoph Harenberg, Probst des St. Lorenzstiftes vorSche-
ningen, ord. Professor des Herzoglichen Carolin zu Braunschweig, Mitglied der Knigl. Societt der
Wissenschaft zu Berlin u.s.f., 2 volumes, Halle/Helmstedt, carl Hermann Hemmerd, 1760.
48
[Friedrich von Reiffenberg, S.J.], CritischeJesuiter-Geschichte worinnen alles aus chten Quellen
kurz hergeleitet: die sogenannte Pragmatische Historie des Herrn Professors Harenberg stark beleuchtet:
und zugleich alles grndlich beantwortet wird, was diesem preiswrdigen Orden von seinen Ursprung
an bis auf gegenwrtige Zeit ist zur Last gelegt worden. Von einem Liebhaber der Wahrheit, Frankfurt/
Main, In Denen Varrentrappischen Buchhandlungen, 1765, p. 29
49
Alexandre Brou, S. J., Monita Secreta, op. cit., cols. 31-32. But here we must consider an exception
referred recently by Jean Lacouture. A court in Paris used these secret instructions as part of the
accusation in the case that lead to the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from France. Cf. Jean
Lacouture, Os Jesutas. 2. O regresso, Lisbon, Referncia/Editorial Estampa, 1993, p. 97
50
See Dale Van Kley, The Jansenists and the Expulsion of the Jesuits from France 1757-1765, New
Haven / London, Yale University Press, 1975, pp. 108-136
275
Louis-Adrien expresses strenuously this idea: The Society of Jesus is a mystery
that they carefully hide [...]: the mystery that only announces that it contains things
that ask not to be made known.
51
Further on, after stating the existence of secret
constitutions and [...] and other mysterious writings
52
they conclude:
However, the security every civilized State and especially of public law
in France demands that the magistrates know what constitutes the estab-
lished organizations. [...]The Jesuits, due to the nature of their institutes
and the secrecy in which it was held, are consequently not acceptable in
any civilized States and much less in France.
53
Effectively the question is no longer on the Monita Secreta, but on the Consti-
tutions of the Society. These have never had an occult existence. Where does this
idea of an impenetrable mystery, this obsession for the secret of Jesuits come from?
Can it be a result of the legend of the Monita, of the idea that resulted from the
secret instructions seen as a document closely hidden from the eyes of the whole
world?
The real power of this legend also reveals itself in the moment of the Papal
prohibition. Jesuit houses and libraries were ransacked by authorities in search of
the immense wealth of the Society and of the Secret Instructions. The Bishop of
Wrzburg-Bamberg, Adam von Seinsheim, became amazed at that time when he
realizes that the the Secret Instructions are not on the list of the books confiscated
in the College of Bamberg. He complains to his General Vicar and in November
1773 commands that Father Busaeus, former rector of the college, should be inter-
rogated about the Monita Secreta. Questioned about the discovery of the Monita in
other colleges, he answers that it was probably the Tuba magna or other equaly
fake books. Considering that fact, the bishop decides to end the quest although
maintaining his position. He declares that the Jesuits always deny everything!
54
51
[Christophe Coudrette / Louis-Adrien Le paige], Histoire gnrale de la naissance & des progrs de
la Compagnie de Jsus, Et Analyse de ses Constitutions & Privilges o il est prouv, 1. Que les J
suites ne sont pas reus de droit, spcialement en France & que quand ils le seroient, ils ne sont pas
tolerbles. 2 Que pas la nature mme de leur institut, ils ne sont pas recevables dans an Etat polic.
Volume III, s. l., s. n., 1761, p. 311.
52
Ibid., p. 314
53
Ibid., p. 318-319
54
The episode is narrated by J. B. Mundwiler, S. J., Eine Jagd auf die Monita Secreta der Jesu-
iten in Historisch-politische Bltter, Vol. 141, 1908, pp. 1057-1065.
276
The conspiratorial logic revealed in the Monita Secreta feeds the suspicion rel-
ative to the ancient Jesuits, although the Society had already been extinct. The
coup against them in 1773 under the pontificate of Pope Clemens XIV could not
surprise them. They had been preparing for a long time a state that made impossi-
ble the global extinction of their Society, writes an ancient member of the Order
of the Enlightened, Peter Philipp Wolf in 1789
55
. Now, more than ever, it is funda-
mental to unmask the wolves and show to the public the conspiratorial genius of
these priests that since then have lived in secrecy. This explains the new editions of
1782 commented by the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek. It also explains the obses-
sion of the anonymous Protestant author of a large treaty published in 1786 under
the title Exposio provisria do jesuitismo dos nossos dias, dos rosa-cruzes, dos faze-
dores de proslitos e das associaes religiosas
56
. According to this masterpiece of the
conspiratorial spirit, the Pope tries to destroy Protestantism and place Reason un-
der the domain of Roman hierarchy
57
. Bearing this in mind, he uses the Society of
Jesus, an order that while sworn enemy of the Lights, of a true veneration of God, of
the Protestantism and of all rights of Reason, collaborated in the execution of this
evil plan since its birth until now, even in secrecy [...]
58
. Trying to reinforce his argu-
ments regarding the readers, the anonymous author presents the Monita Secreta in
the final part of his treaty, preceded by a scientific study of the history of the text.
This text has precious bibliographical indications and will be used again in the fol-
lowing centuries. The legends of the Jesuits of Paderborn and of the editor of Am-
sterdam repeat themselves. Basically, these legendary versions do not exclude one
another, and the second may very well come after the first. Concerning the problem
of the identification of the author of the Secret Instructions, it is referred to as the
Jesuitic thesis of the Pole Zahorowski. However, the Protestants choose to identify
the one who seems to be its true author: the famous Superior General of the Jesuits,
Claudio Acquaviva. This option will be revived at intervals during the 19th century.
During the French Revolution, the conspirationist spirit reaches its highest
point and penetrates all political fields. From this moment on, it relates more to
the division of the old aristocracy, on one hand, and the philosophers and Freema-
55
Peter Philipp Wolf, Allgemeine Geschichte der Jesuiten von dem Ursprunge ihres Ordens bis auf
gegenwrtige Zeiten, Zurich, Orell Gessner, Fssli u. Comp., Vol. I, 1789, Vorrede p. IV.
56
Vorlufige Darstellung des heutigen Jesuitismus, der Rosenkreuzerey, Proselytenmacherey und Reli-
gionsvereinigung, Germany, s. n., 1786.
57
Ibid., p. III
58
Ibid., p. III-IV
277
sons on the other
59
. However, in the 19th century when the Restoration allows the
reinstatement of the Jesuits in France, the editions of the Monita Secreta appear
again in large numbers.
The Secret Instructions at the Service
of anti-Jesuitic liberal propaganda
In the 19th-century the Monita Secreta come alive again. The text spreads
through all of Europe, and also through the New World. The printing is spectacu-
lar. But the technical innovations of printing, that make mass production possible,
are not the only facts responsible for this editorial success. In the time of the exac-
erbation of Liberal and Republican anticlericalism, the production of a new out-
break of anti-Jesuitic writings is confirmed
60
. Although the century is not poor in
original productions in France, which is the case of the Judeu Errante by Eugne
Sue
61
, or A Cincia e o Jesuitismo by Miguel Bombarda in Portugal, the classics
of anti-Jesuitism are still fashionable and circulate side-by-side with new works
written to fight the Jesuits
62
.
In 1816 there comes to light the first German edition of the Monita Secreta,
followed in 1820 by another in French
63
. In the year of the Portuguese liberal rev-
olution, a first edition translated into Portuguese of the Secret Instructions
64
comes
to light. The National Press re-edits them in Lisbon in 1834
65
. Meanwhile these
59
Strangely, the most famous manifest about a would-be conspiracy of Freemasons was written by
an ex-Jesuit, Abbot Augustin Barruel, mmoires pour servir lhistoire du jabobinisme, London,
Boussonnie, 1797.
60
About anticlericalism in Portugal, see the excellent work of hermeneutics approach by Luis Mach-
ado de Abreu, O discurso do anticlericalismo portugus (1850-1926), Leaflet of Revista da Univer-
sidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, 1999.
61
Cf. Michel Leroy, op. cit., p. 283-284
62
Cf. Jos Eduardo Franco & Bruno cardoso Reis, Vieira na literatura anti-jesutica, Lisbon, Roma
Editora/Fundao Maria manuela e Vasco de Albuqueruqe dOrey, 1997, p. 62 ff.
63
Geheime Vorschriften der Vter der Gesellschaft Jesu. Aus einer lateinischen Handschrift. Zweite
berichtige und vermehrte Ausgabe mit einem Anhange, Germany, 1816; Instructions secrtes des Jsuites,
in Le Citateur polirique, moral et litrraire, vol. 1, 1820, pp. 144-257.
64
Instruces secretas que devem guardar todos os religiosos da Companhia. Auctor o Reverendissimo P.
Claudio Aquaviva, da mesma Companhia, Fielmente traduzida da lingua hespanola na portugueza
por J. S. de A., Lisbon, Na officina Simo Thadeo Ferreira, 1820.
65
Monita Secreta ou Instrues Secretas dos Padres da Companhia de Jesus. Copied in vulgar from the
French translation together with the text in Latin, followed by justificatory notes, Lisbon, in Imp-
rensa Nacional, 1834.
278
had already been published in Brazil in 1827
66
. In 1823, the Secret Instructions were
also available in Spanish in Mexico
67
. The next year, Ponthieu, bookseller in the Palais
Royal in Paris, prints a new french version with seven editions in two years
68
. The
Prcis de lhistoire gnrale de la Compagnie de Jsus, suivi des Monita secreta by Arnold
Scheffer appears for the first time in 1824 and will have seven editions untill 1826. This
last edition reached the amazing number of twenty thousand copies
69
. In 1844, a French-
Flemish edition appears in Brussels
70
. After 1845, new editions are vastly searched in
Lisbon
71
, in Oporto
72
, in New Goa
73
, in France
74
, in Blois, in Madrid
75
and in Lon-
don
76
. German editions follow in 1863 and in 1891
77
. However, the French edition of
bookseller Dentu is undoubtedly the most successful. After 1861, twenty thousand
copies are sold in eighteen months. The Dentu version is printed eighteen times until
1879
78
. After the third edition in 1863, the title mentions that the Instructions are pre-
66
Monitoria ou instrues secretas dos Padres da Companhia de Jesus: composta pelo padre Claudio
Aquavivei da mesma Companhia, Rio de Janeiro, Typ. De P. Plancher Seignot, 1827. The Monita
Secreta would appear again in Brazil, accompanied of explanatory notes, included in Corographia
lustorica, chronoggraphica, genealogica (...) do Imprio do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, 1851, pp. 248-336,
wtitten bu Dr. A. J. de Mello Moraes e afterwards in Os jesutas Historia secreta (...), Rio de
Janeiro, 1866.
67
Constitucin secreta de los Jesuitas, Mexico, Ontiversos, 1823, cf. Charles Sommervogel, s.j., Bibli-
ographie, op. cit., n 3014
68
Instructions secrtes des jsuites ou Monita secreta Societatis Jesu, Paris, Ponthieu, 1824.
69
These figures were supplied by Geoffrey Cubitt, The Jesuit Myth, op. cit., p. 205, n. 33.
70
Instructions secrtes de la Socit de Jesus, publies daprs un manuscrit di XVIIIe sicle avec le text
flamand enregard, Brussels, Wouters & Cie., 1844, cf. Charles Sommervogel, s.j., Bibliographie, op.
cit., n 3028 and 3029
71
Instrues secretas dos Jesutas, traduzidas de um manuscrito flamengo do sculo XVII por ***,
Lisbon, In Imp. De C. Ant. Da Silva Carvalho, 1845.
72
Compendium, Cdigo dosJesutas. Complemento indispensvel s obras de Michelet e Quinet, Trans-
lated from the french, Oporto, Typ. Commercial, 1846.
73
Admoestaes secretas da Companhia de Jesus in Gabinete Litterario das Fontainhas, New Goa,
1846, pp. 187-154.
74
Cf. Alexandre Brou, s.j., Les Jsuites de la lgende, op. cit., p. 27 ff.
75
As in Portugal and all over Europe, The libel was profusely published in Spain as a privileged
piece of anti-Jesuitic combat. V. g. El jesuita sagaz consejos secretos que da un jesuita a los her-
manos de la Compaia a fin de que esta llegue a dominar el orbe entero, Vitoria, s.n., 1845.
76
See numbers 3030, 3031, 3033, 3034, 3035 in Charles Sommervogel: Bibliographie, op. cit. See also
Inocncio Francisco da Silva, Dicionrio Bibliographico portuguez, Estudo (...) applicados a Portu-
gal e ao Brasil, continuados e ampliados por Brito Aranha, Vol.XVII, Lisbon, 1894.
77
Die geheime Instruktion der Jesuiten. Dem Deutschen Volke vorgeleft von Dr. Vigilantus, Leipzig,
1863; Hermann Johann Grber: Die geheimen Vorschriften (Monita secreta) und 31 Instruktionen
der Novizen von und fr Jesuiten, nebst Vorwort und Nachwort, Barmen, Verlag von Hugo Klein,
1890.
78
Monita Secreta Societatis Jesu. Instructions secrtes des Jesuites. Nouvelle dition, Paris, Dentu, 1861.
For numbers see Geoffrey Cubitt, The Jesuit Myth, op. cit., p. 205
279
ceded by an introduction by Charles Sauvestre, professor and publicist that changes his
text in every new edition. Sauvestre makes an effort to establish the authenticity of the
Monita. To that effect and in spite of having against him the how old argument that
referred to the part that the Instructions were fictitious, he considers that they are the
reflection of the modus procedendi of the Jesuits. He presents them as being authentic
at least in what concerns its contents and if not the form
79
.
The pontifical banishment of the Jesuits in 1773 had given place to a new ver-
sion of the legend of the discovery of the Monita. In the 19th and 20th centuries,
this legend is associated with that of the house of Paderborn and to the one of the
editor of Amsterdam. Julius Hochstetter makes a reference to it in is edition of
1901. There it is presented as a rigorous QuellenKritik, almost scientific, with the
objective of describing the way of in print towards the original manuscripts. Father
Brothier, the last librarian of the Jesuits in Paris before the Revolution, would have
maintained an original manuscript of the Monita. It is a rather curious fact that his
manuscript was identical to another copy this government in the hideouts of the
College of Limburg at the time of the banishment and maintained until today un-
der quota 730 in the Belgian archives of the Palace of Justice in Brussels
80
.
But in the Portuguese edition of 1881 by Carrilho Videira (that stated that
the most loyal way to hunt down enemies is to vulgarize their doctrines), a similar
version was thus presented by the editor of the preface:
The Monita Secreta or Secret Instructions of the Jesuits, was published for
the first time in a Paderborn, Vesteflia in 1661 (sic!). The manuscripts found
in Paris in a Jesuit monastry, written by the scholar Brother, Jesuit librarian in
Paris, are perfectly according to the one from in the Justice Tribunal of Brus-
sels that also possesses a copy of the Monita Secreta found in the house of
Ruremonde when the Jesuits were persecuted and expelled from Belgium
81
.
79
Sauvestres argument is resumed by Geoffrey Cubitt, op. cit., p. 206. The same argument had al-
ready been used in 1786 by the author of Vorlufige Darstellung des heutigen Jesuitismus..., op. cit., p.
15. The publicatoin in Cracow in 1889 of Historicum Diarium domus professae Societatis Jesu Cracov-
iensis, raises one more old testemony against the Jesuit authenticity of the Monita Secreta. The writ-
er, contemporary of the editio princeps of the Secret instructions, refers in his Dirio da Casa Professa
dos Jesutas de Cracvia, the events occured in August 1614, referring the edition of this anti-jesuitic
libel and immediately identifying the author: Jernimo Zahorowski. (Vol. XIV, p. 125).
80
Julius Hochstetter, Monita secreta. Die geheimen Instruktionen der Jesuiten. Lateinisch und Deut-
sch, Stuttgart, s.n., 1901, p. 5.
81
Monita secreta. Instrues secretas dos Jesutas, Pref. by J. Carrilho Videira, Lisbon, Nova Livraria
Internacional, 1881, p. X. This edition appears as volume XXIV published by Biblioteca Repub-
licana Democrtica. See also another edition still published in the same decade in Portugal: Moni-
ta Secreta (...), Lisboa, Imprensa Nacional, 1887 (edition made according with the 1834 edition).
280
The manuscripts of Father Brothier and of the College of Limburg do not null
the objection already mentioned by Anton Ernst Klausing in the middle of last
century according to which the presence of the Monita in the house of a Jesuit,
even in manuscript form, do not certify that the priests were in fact the authors.
Nevertheless, the arguments of Hochstetter were so persuasive that they were
almost literally copied by Bavarian editors of the Escritos populares para a rev-
oluo dos espritos in 1903
82
. The scientific style of Hochstetter is a response to
the positivist demands of scientific debate that revolve around the Monita Secre-
ta is especially in Germany. During the 19th century the flux of new editions is
accompanied by controversy. The first refutation appears in 1813 in Paderborn,
the city in which the Monita had been discovered for the first time, according to the
legend of Scioppius
83
. It is followed by the one regarding Leonhardt Aloys Nel-
lessen in 1825
84
. Three years later in Paris under the unorthodox title of Monita
Secreta Societatis Jesu, a violent attack is printed against the Monita. The author
announces the vanity of any attempts of refutation of these secret instructions that
only exist in the imagination of the enemies of the Society:
The Monita secreta only exist in the mind of the poor fellow that pub-
lished them and fighting them would show a greater insanity than the one
of Don Quixote when attacking windmills: nothing else can be done be-
sides proving that they do not exist.
85
In fact, some opposers of the Monita made effective efforts, in spite of all this,
against everything and everybody to demonstrate to the authenticity of this docu-
ment
86
. So in 1902 Johannes B. Reiber compares the Monita to the official sources
of the Society. However, the Monita contradicts fully all the rules of the Society
87
.
82
Die Jesuiten und deren Geheimnisse (Monita secreta). Nach dem Manuskripte des Jesuitenpaters Broth-
ier, Bamberg, Handelsdrucherei, 1903 (=Volksschriften zur Umwlzung der Geister XXXVII).
83
Die geheimen Verordnungen der Gesellschaft Jesu, ein Schanddenkmal, welches die Feinde der Jesu-
iten sich selbst wiederholt errichtet haben. Ausfhrlich beleuchtet von einem katholischen Laien, Pad-
erborn, Junfermann, 1813.
84
Leonhardt Aloys Nellessen, Die Monita secreta Societatis Jesu, op. cit..
85
Monita secreta Societatis Jesu. Instruction secrtes de la Socit de Jsus, Paris, private collection of
Mlle Cari de la Charie, op. cit., p. 14.
86
See, for example, Jean Chantrel, Monita secreta, Instructions secrtes des Jsuites, brochura
apcrifa, in Revue du Monde catholique, vol. 1, 1861, p. 468-471; C. Van Aken, La fable des
Monita secreta ou instructions secrtes des Jsuites. Histoire et bibliographie, Brussels, 1881.
87
Johannes B. Reiber, Monita secreta. Die geheimen Instruktionen der Jesuiten verglichen mit den
amtlichen Quellen des Ordens, Augsburg, Seitz, 1902.
281
A rebuttal does not wear down, in spite of everything, the conspirationist constitu-
tions. According to this logic, the rules and official constitutions of the Jesuits are
nothing but a mask behind which murderers are hidden. The Monita are the royal
code of the way of acting of the Jesuits.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, the generally reasonable arguments of Jesuit
historians that analyze anti-Jesuitism like Bernhard Duhr, Alexandre Brou and
Francisco Rodrigues, do not determine the death of the Monita Secreta
88
. Recent-
ly, in the last decade of the 20th century, there was published in Portugal an updat-
ed edition of one of the many translations of the 19th century Monita; it was based
on the 1859 edition without critical framing
89
.
In spite of a relative certainty regarding the author of the Monita, notwith-
standing the despise shared by some sworn enemies of the Society concerning this
gross forgery and, finally, in spite of the history of the Society of Jesus lack of any
rule of behavior according to the Secret Instructions, nothing can definitely affect
the mysterious power of this text. To confirm this it suffices to write Monita secreta
in any Web browser to arrive at obscure sites. These marginal authors, most of
them often right-wing Christians, think that they are serving mankind by publish-
ing the famous Secret Instructions. They associate them with the Protocols of Zion
to unmask evil doers. In a time of globalization and cyberspace, the conspirationist
paranoia still has supporters that believe that people can own the universe by se-
ducing wealthy widows...
As a matter of fact, the unknown, the inexplicable, the things that are consid-
ered impossible to know and impossible to search gives place to the manufacture
of colossal myths in a much larger scale than we can fathom. Things that supposed-
ly exist, but that cannot be known or proven, are often objects of the most incred-
ible conspiratorial lucubrations. This is why in this restricted domain of the explo-
ration of the collective imaginary for propaganda and ideological purposes, as written
by Umberto Eco:
To think about the complex relations between reader and history, be-
tween fiction and reality, constitutes a form of therapy against the sleep of
reason that begets monsters
90
.
88
Bernhard Duhr, S.J., Jesuiten-Fabeln, op. cit., p. 84-112; Alexandre Brou, s.j., Les Jsuites de la
lgende, op. cit., p. 276-301 ; e Francisco Rodrigues, s.j., Os Jesutas e a Monita Secreta, op. cit.
89
Monitoria Secreta ou Instrues Secretas dos Padres da Companhia de Jesus, Compostas pelo Padre
Cludio Aquavivei da mesma Companhia, Ericeira, Sol Invictus, 1990.
90
Umberto Eco, Six promenades dans les bois du romain et dailleurs, Paris, 1994, p. 150.
282
Final considerations
The Monita Secreta are one of the model works of Portuguese and European
anti-Jesuitic literature. The Secret Instructions contributed enormously to generate
a mentality and launched the inspirational bases of an anti-Jesuitic culture that
extends itself during the two following centuries with very significant fighting and
militancy effects. The anti-Jesuitic mentality was an instrument to serve as a weap-
on in political and ideological terms in the light of a decadent theory of the drift of
History. The Jesuits were transformed into the resource that justifies the evils of
the nation, as anchylosis of societies and even the problems of private life. Jesuit-
ism is defined as a philosophy of life, as a state of mind, as a supra-national entity
that conditions the life of citizens, confining them to atavism.
This anti-Jesuitic culture is always entrusted in the production of literature
and arts (paintings, engravings, caricatures) or even anti-Jesuitic gastronomy. The
anti-Jesuitic rhetoric is charged with symbolism and always pretends to give an
explanation of reality as well as unveil their occult motives. Such as explained by
Michel Leroy, the myth is a speech that reveals its transparence; it pretends to
unveil a hidden reality and a referential function seems essential; but it is nothing
more than a mystification, very cunning language. The myth tries to represent the
reality and not transform it. The validity criteria in a myth is not the truth, the
coincidence between the assertion and reality (...). The myth defines itself by its
instrumental value, by its capacity of mobilizing partisans, by transforming the ad-
versaries into devils and by offering an apparently coherent and possible explana-
tion of past, present and future events
91
. On the other hand, in the theory of
Malinowski, the fundamental part of the myth is the fact that it should constitute
lived reality. Myths only exist, in a certain way, while they are lived and believed by
the collective. When this does not happen, they transform themselves into sheer
fiction, fantasy, illusion, that is, into a legend
92
.
The anti-Jesuitic literature produced since the time of Pombal until the First
Republic dichotomizes reality, dividing it into darkness and light, progress and
decay, liberty and slavery. In this process of the segregation of opposites, two enti-
ties are raised and defined by the myth. We and the Other. We is the one who
designs and pursues tirelessly the achievement of a luminous utopia, positive, the
91
Michel Leroy, op. cit., p. 357.
92
Cf. Manuel Garca-Pelayo, Los mitos politicos, Madrid, Alianza editorial, S.A., 1981, p. 23.
283
utopia of progress, the happiness of the people, social harmony, the regeneration
of social bodies through the modernized and enlightened education of the individ-
ual. The We is often understood as the State and its agents, sometimes as the polit-
ical and ideological group, but the We always concentrates the ideal of exaltation
and national progress and that the elevation of the homeland to a higher podium
of glory and international recognition because the standard of comparison out al-
ways the most advanced nations of Europe.
The Other are the Jesuits and their philosophy of life, their political spirits,
their social and educational action and religious influence that results mainly from
the frame of mind that is generally referred to as Jesuitism. This is the author of
the negative utopia, better said, of a heteropia. The figure of the Other is terrible
and is also an ill-omened machine of destruction that wishes to destroy all the
powers and instituted orders to build over those ruins an universal domain formed
by its oppressing and obscurantist power; it does not pay any attention to national
or institutional fidelity besides its own. A really diabolical power that must be fought
against with all our means in spite of the conscience that it is like a weed that
always grows again even in the middle of the waste of his own death. The remedy is,
however, always its removal from the social body like a malignant disease that we
must isolate and exterminate because the efficiency is a basic objective of the myth
of complot, such as the Jesuit myth.
This mythical figure of the Jesuits has two large inherent objectives that pro-
vide it with sense and efficiency: the explanation and the action. To explain the
decadence of the country and promote the removal of its original evil, according to
the characterization of the Jesuit myth made by Michel Leroy:
The instrumental value depends strictly of the explanatory value: we
cleave more easily to a myth when it seems to offer a key, the only key, for
the movements of history and the mechanism of society. The explanation
begets action. Effectively, the revelation of the sources of evil is the sug-
gestion of the remedy
93
.
So being, cant the anti-Jesuitic literature and the myth it encloses through a
process of diabolic configuration of the Other, the evil Jesuitic Other, be a way to
clear all the responsibilities of each member of the community of a nation due to
its backwardness, ignorance and decadence? Isnt the Jesuitic myth the opposite of
93
Michel Leroy, op. cit.
284
the Portuguese sebastianistic myth? While in the sebastianistic myth we project in
a person, in a mythical entity, the possibility of realization of the best collective
hopes, in the Jesuitic myth we project our disappointments and deceptions. This
negative entity is given an expiatory character where the lack of success and evils of
the nation are projected and expiated. So being, while the myth of sebastianism is
a fruit of a collective utopia, and the results of the disappointment caused by the
State of the nation, the Jesuit myth derives from the constitution of the Society of
Jesus as locus of catharsis of that same decaying national state.
In spite of the antinomy, the two myths have in common the fact of appearing
as a result of a negative diagnosis made to the reality of the Portuguese nation.
Both were prepared by a process of written consignation. Sebastianism has as goal
the retrieval of hope, but delegates its responsibilities in the national progress, in a
being that will return. Jesuitism tries to instill rejection, disgrace and the need of
eradication of the national wrongs also concentrated in the same mythical entity;
but this one possesses an evil nature that must be eradicated. In spite of the strength
of the two myths, the Jesuit myth worried and pledged more the countrys politi-
cians and the investment of the State in its solution.
285
Danuta Knstler-Langner
(Nicolaus Copernicus University
Toru, Poland)
Spanish Inspiration in Seventeenth Century
Polish Poetry
The Spanish mystics were a source of inspiration to Polish and other Europe-
an Baroque artists and poets. Such great representatives of Iberian spirituality as
St. Ignatius Loyola, Luis of Granada, St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross
inspired many writers in their search for God
1
. In the seventeenth century in par-
ticular Polish poets took up mystical themes in order to show the spirituality of
human beings and their need to apprehend the sacred. The Polish Baroque poets
used Polish or, very often, Italian translations of the works of the Spanish mystics.
Polish Jesuits and their associates travelled to Italy, where the works of the Spanish
ascetics and mystics were already well known.
2
In the seventeenth century, a period of war and economic and social difficulties,
poets were expressing a longing for everlasting values and happiness on Earth and a
desire to be close to God at a time when others were not even aware how far from God
they were
3
. Iberian Christian spirituality at that time was rooted in the preaching of St.
Paul, the principle of truth and Logos in the Gospels, and the works of St. Augustine. In
his Confessions of a Sinner the bishop of Hippo showed the inner state of a human being
discovering love. The source of this love was God, perceived through the eyes of a sinner.
At the same time men were looking for a clear route through life, illuminated by Heaven.
1
Stefania Ciesielska Borkowska, Mistycyzm hiszpaski na gruncie polskim, Krakw 1939, p. 41-55.
2
I have discussed sample translations of the works of Santa Teresa of Avila and St. John of the
Cross used in Poland in the 17th and 18th centuries Religijne inspiracje poezji barokowej. W krgu
siedemnasto- i osiemnastowiecznych polskich przekadw dzie mistykw hiszpaskich w. Teresy z
Awili i w. Jana od Krzya, in: Barok polski wobec Europy. Sztuka przekadu, ed. Alina Nowicka-
Jeowa, Marek Prejs, Warszawa 2005, p. 258-276.
3
Manuel Tun de Lara, Julio Vanden Baruque, Antonio Domnguez Ortiz, Historia Hiszpanii,
transl. Szymon Jedrusiak, Krakw 1997, p. 309-315.
286
Saint Augustine, one of the philosophical masters of old Europe, pointed to
Christ as a great teacher offering everlasting patterns for the true life to those
human beings able to understand the rules of a truly Christian life, which required
an acceptance of obstacles and suffering. In his Confessions of a Sinner the great
Doctor of the Latin Church portrayed himself as a man who had to overcome his
own weaknesses:
I cared for nothing but to love and be loved. But my love went beyond
the affection of one mind for another, beyond the arc of the bright beam of
friendship.
Bodily desire, like a morass, and adolescent sex welling up within me
exuded mists which clouded over and obscured my heart, so that I could
not extinguish the clear light of true love from the murk of lust. Love and
lust together seethed within me. In my tender youth they swept me away
over the precipice of my bodys appetites and plunged me in the whirlpool
of sin. More and more I angered you, unawares.
(Confessions of a Sinner, Book II, 2)
4
Spanish mysticism was based on St. Augustines preaching and on a knowledge
of the world. The bishop of Hippo laid emphasis on contemplation as a way to
God. According to him that way was divided into 7 stages. Pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite added that prayer is as significant as contemplation.
5
That is why the
three stages of the approach to God through contemplation, purificatio, illuminatio
and unio, mentioned by Pseudo-Dionysius, became the leading themes of the Span-
ish mystics. These motifs also appeared in the poetry of the metaphysical poets, for
whom the philosophical heritage of Plato, St. Augustine and the Spanish thinkers
proved to be a key to the understanding of human nature.
6
We may wonder why the mystical works of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of
the Cross were so popular in seventeenth-century Poland and generally in Europe.
The translations were made in monasteries, especially Carmelite establishments,
where they functioned as guides to the spiritual life.
7
St. Ignatius Loyola, in his
Spiritual Exercises, preached that everything man is able to do may be turned to
4
Saint Augustine, Confessions of a Sinner, transl. by R. S. Pine-Coffin, London 1995, p. 38.
5
Pseudo-Dionizy Areopagita, Pisma teologiczne II. Hierarchia niebiaska, Hierarchia kocielna, transl.
Maria Dzielska, preface Tomasz Stpie, Krakw 1999, p. 70-79.
6
Janusz Pelc, Barok epoka przeciwiestw, Krakw 2004, p. 90-97.
7
Halina Popawska, Zabawa wesoo-nabona przyszych obywatelw nieba. Nad siedemnastowieczny-
mi sylwami karmelitanek bosych, in a book: Literatura polskiego baroku w krgu idei, ed. Alina
Nowicka-Jeowa, Mirosawa Hanusiewicz, Adam Karpiski, Lublin 1995, p. 133-138.
287
good (aplicatio sensum).
8
Every thought, every action shows that man as opus Dei
may be seen as an element of goodness in the world. Such works as St. Luis of
Granadas Libro de la oracion y meditation, Guia de pecadores, St. Teresas Libro de
su vida, Castillo interior and St. Johns La subida del Monte Carmelo seemed to
offer a new way of perceiving the human soul. This soul is a part of the divine world
and can be seen only when evil is rejected. The Polish Baroque poets studied the
work of the Iberian mystics in the conviction that the transformation of the human
heart is always possible.
9
One of the most impressive poets of the early Polish Baroque, Mikoaj Sp
Szarzyski, author of Rytmy abo wiersze polskie (sonnets, songs, psalms) is con-
cerned with Erasmian and Ignatian spiritualities. The Spiritual Exercises had a very
strong influence on his attitude and his poetry. His Ignatianism is clearly seen in
the discussion of nature and grace in his writings. The poet turned from Protestant-
ism to Catholicism in his youth and had to assimilate the theological system. He
adopted Catholic doctrine and sought to solve problems by the power of faith and
the mind.
10
Szarzyskis treatise on nature and grace shows the Catholic approach
to such questions. The poet knew the works of Luis of Granada, whose book he
probably acquired from his confessor, the Dominican father Antonin of Przemyl.
He even considered translating Luiss Guia de pecadores, but eventually gave up
this idea.
11
We may here recall Szarzyskis Sonnet II, referring to the Book of Job,
on the structure of Gods universe and the inhabitants of the celestial home:
On the words of Job:
Homo natus de muliere,
brevi vivens tempore etc.
In shame conceived, in anguish born, is man,
His brief life over when but scarce begun.
And wretched, fearful, constant but to change,
He dies, a shadow fallen from the sun.
By such a one (God of infinity,
Of your own self in joy and glory raised,
8
Josef Sudbrack, Mistyka, transl. Bernard Biaecki, Krakw 1996, p. 53-57; Piotr Urbaski, Natura
i aska w poezji polskiego baroku. Okres potrydencki, Kielce 1996, p. 46-52.
9
Czesaw Hernas, Barok, Warszawa 1999, p. 101-120.
10
Jan Boski, Mikoaj Sp Szarzyski a pocztki polskiego baroku, Krakw 1967, p. 187-191.
11
Julian Krzyanowski, Preface: Mikoaj Sp Szarzyski, Rytmy abo wiersze polskie oraz cykl ero-
tykw, Wrocaw 1973, p. X-XI.
288
Sufficient to yourself) do You desire
So greedily to be both loved and praised.
So strange your mercys ways, that Cherubim
(Deep chasm of comprehension) at the sight
Amazed stands wondering, while Seraphim,
That living flame, with happy love burns bright.
O holy Lord, pray give us that we lack,
And you require, that we may give you back!
12
This sonnet not only presents the Christian Hierarchy but also expresses the
poets own feelings in relation to the highest Triad of angels: Seraphim, Cherubim
and Thrones. The heavenly hierarchy created by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
forms a mysterious context in which to discuss the main topic and the question
posed by de Granadas book: how to get to God and how to improve ones own
nature? Angels are the chief characters in European mystical works.
13
Thus in
Baroque religious poetry these personages, appearing in the distinct groups of High-
er Triad, Middle Triad and Lowest Triad, are seen not only as friends to man but
also as guides to eternity, messengers bearing Divine Decrees and witnesses of
mans last journey. Luis of Granada wished to tell the sinner that life may be made
better, but everything depends on man and his free will. In his IV Sonnet Szarzyski
recalls the words of Luis when he says: Peace is happiness, but constant warfare
is / Our earthly portion.
14
The sonnets of Mikoaj Sp Szarzyski include praise for a cosmos put in or-
der by the hand of the Creator and maintained by his emissaries. The poet express-
es the belief that mans duty is to work upon his own inner being and become more
like his Maker. His convictions were close to those of the Iberian mystics, who
recommended inner transformation and the contemplation of angelic beings. St.
John was called Seraphim Incarnate and St. Teresa Seraphic Maid.
Another interesting poet of the Polish Baroque at the beginning of the seven-
teenth century was Kasper Twardowski, who belonged to the Jesuit Congregation
of the Assumption of St. Mary in Krakw, where he participated in spiritual exer-
12
Mikoaj Sp Szarzyski, Sonnet II, transl. by Anita Jones Debska, in the anthology: Time Holds
Sway. Baroque Poems from Poland, English versions and ed. by Anita Jones Debska, Wivenhoe
2005, p. 7.
13
Malcolm Godwin, Angels. An Endangered Species, New York 1990, p. 23-34.
14
Transl. by Anita Jones Debska, op. cit.
289
cises based on the Exercitia spiritualia of Ignatius Loyola. St. Ignatius suggested
that if we follow good thoughts and patterns of conduct in our lives, all we do will
have good applications, according to the rule aplicatio sensum.
15
The poets sought
to apply poetry in this way. Amor Divinus Sacer, replaced Amor Profanus in
poetry. St. Ignatius did not expect man to change into an angelic being, but rather
that he would apply his own faults and weaknesses. The religious poetry of Kasper
Twardowski, Pochodnia Mioci Boej (The Torch of Gods Love), is linked to the
seventeenth century art of meditation. The Jesuit monks suggested that all the
senses should be engaged in prayer and conversation with God, that the senses
should be applied in the right way. In Twardowskis The Torch. the Angel teaches
meditation, and his lessons appear as the right way to Christs heart
16
. According
to St Ignatius, by meditating on a visual image we are enabled to follow Jesus on
the Cross. We must look at Jesus, his blood, his suffering and death, and this is not
a simple matter. Twardowski and his master, St. Ignatius Loyola, ask: who is this,
suffering on behalf of human beings? Why do we participate in the mystery of
Christs death? Who is Christ thinking about? The Angel of meditation in this text,
seen as a being created for man, not only teaches us how to pray, but is master of
knowledge, Sophia. St. Ignatius was well-known as a religious writer in old Po-
land.
17
The rules for week two of his Retreat included images of angels, who help
people to be happy and to avoid bad habits and darkness of soul.
The mystic inspiration that came from the Benedictine, Carmelite and Jesuit
monasteries penetrated the poetic imagination and became part of the shared reli-
gious experience of Europe.
18
St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross created interest-
ing patterns of love based on Canticum cantinorum. The authors of emblem poetry
in Europe, including such Polish poets as Zbigniew Morsztyn and Aleksander Teo-
dor Lacki, described the features of Divine love (Amor Divinus) and the Soul of
Man.
19
These emblems were read by politicians, moralists, artists and students. In
15
Parmanda Divarkar, Droga wewntrznego poznania. O wiczeniach duchownych w. Ignacego
Loyoli, prze. Bogusaw Steczek, Krakw 1987, p. 145-150.
16
Krzysztof Mrowcewicz, Preface to: Kasper Twardowski, Pochodnia Mioci Boej z pici strza
ognistych, ed. by Krzysztof Mrowcewicz, Warszawa 1995, p. 7-8.
17
Ewa Poprawa-Kaczyska, Ignacjaski Modus Meditandi w kulturze religijnej pnego baroku, in a
book: Religijno literatury polskiego baroku, ed. by Czesaw Hernas and Mirosawa Hanusiewicz,
Lublin 1995, p.259-267.
18
wita Teresa od Jezusa, Dziea, vol. III, transl. Henryk Piotr Kossowski, Krakw 1995, p. 151-155.
19
Paulina Buchwald-Pelcowa, Emblematyka w polskich kolegiach jezuickich, in: Artes Atque Humaniora,
ed. Andrzej Rottermund, Hanna Samsonowicz, Warszawa 1998, p. 177.
290
his Emblem 8 Zbigniew Morsztyn employed erotic motifs in the manner of the
Song of Songs to create an emblem of love:
The sick Bride asks the Bridegroom to feel her pulse.
Inscription: I am faint with love.
(The Song of Salomon 2,5)
My heart that has been burned by the love fires
Has turned now to ashes and to charred pyres,
O my dear Bridegroom, o love thats most true,
It is sending a plaintive sigh to you.
Come and feel my pulse, see how from the fire
That your holy torch did in me inspire
I glow almost like the wheels of the sun
That burn into dust Libyan soil in their run.
Its wonderful love and unspeakable,
The love by my mind uncontainable,
That you, dear Bridegroom, took for me the cross
And suffered terrible wounds for my cause;
It kindles mutual love which in turn
Although is not equal, yet it will burn
To such degree that I see myself dead
But still alive in you, my Beloved-
Its neither life nor is it death outright,
The difference between them is just slight.
20
The emblematic writings of Morsztyn were based on the Bible, in which he
sought meaningful symbols and themes that illustrated the situation of man in search
of God. Throughout Europe we find a tendency towards a common language of
love, derived from the works of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross.
21
The mystic ecstasy described by St. John of the Cross in his poetry (The Living
flame of Love) was an important theme for poets expecting union with God. They
were able to find joy in waiting for Christ in a dark sphere. They could bear the
arrow of pain, as St. Teresa expressed it in her mystic works. Some of them had to
choose a narrow path to God before they could come face to face with Logos.
The 17th-century Polish poets were also fascinated by the idea of vanitas, the
20
Zbigniew Morsztyn, Emblem 8, transl. by Michael J. Miko, in the anthology by Michael J. Miko:
Polish Baroque and Enlightment Literature, Columbus 1996, p. 143.
21
The diversity of Polish emblem poetry has been fully discussed in the book of Janusz Pelc, Sowo
i obraz. Na pograniczu literatury i sztuk plastycznych, Krakw 2002, p. 226-267.
291
inefficacy of the world, the transitoriness of its forms and of human existence, an
idea they drew from such sources as the Book of Ecclesiastes and which was fur-
ther developed in the writings of the Spanish mystics. This idea, Graeco-Roman
and Hebrew in origin, was a feature of poetry reflecting a time of change, social
unrest and war, directing the attention of the reader to the unchanging, divine
world. The Baroque poet Daniel Naborowski saw the world in the mirror of time
and wrote verses with a clear temporal perspective.
22
His poem Vanity (Marno)
leads the reader into a space shaped by the hand of the Creator of all things:
This world and its domains
Are thrall to vanity,
And vanity for ever
Shall venerated be.
Let us just jest and love,
Let us love and jest,
But love with piety
What is pure and blest,
In fear of God, so then shall we
Both dread and death as trifles see.
23
Naborowski wrote a number of meditative poems, for example Rose (Ra),
Raspberry (Malina), that show his interest in the spiritual dimension of the life of
individual, who often feels lost in the material world but is not yet ready for the
flight of the spirit to the heavenly heights.
Iberian mystic inspiration in Polish Baroque verse, so impressive, deep and
vivid in meditative and emblem poetry, gave rise to the figure of God-Love and
Light. Amor Divinus as lauded by the artists and poets of the Baroque, the longing
for the vita contemplativa, the attempt to immerse the self in God in the act of
prayer, these are but a few features of the former culture of meditation and cult of
the living Logos.
22
Dariusz Chemperek, Umys przeci z swojego toru nie wybiega. O poezji medytacyjnej Daniela
Naborowskiego, Lublin 1998, p. 60-65.
23
Daniel Naborowski, Vanity, transl. by Anita Jones Debska, in the anthology: Time Holds Sway, op.
cit., p. 12.
292
Ewa Cybulska
(Polish Academy of Sciences, Torun, Poland)
Mystic Motifs In 17th century Polish Poetry
in the Context of Spanish Meditatio Meditatio Meditatio Meditatio Meditatio Culture
I
A variety of circumstances which have contributed to the emergence of so
called metaphysical poetry are presented by Krzysztof Mrowcewicz in the prologue
of his anthology:
The close of the 16
th
century brings a serious crisis in the European
culture. The Renaissance was fading away suffering from skepticism, as
the goal of preserving the unity of science, philosophy and religion was not
fulfilled. The dreamy concept of man- a multi-shape Proteus who holds
the potential to unite the whole universe inside himself, who is all and
nothing at the same time was shattered in the clash with the doubts con-
cerning the finiteness of cosmos and God [] The amazing discoveries of
new continents and stars open new infinities to humanity. The world ceas-
es to make sense [] It is no longer possible to preserve the beautiful and
logical image of the world. Armed with telescopes and microscopes the
wise men look into domains where our eyes cannot reach. In the world of
religion the doubts about human perfection brings about nagging insecuri-
ty and facilitates the search for new ways of reaching God
1
.
This search was manifested by new models of spirituality, originating from the
culture based on mysticism and meditation. The works of artists such as Ignacius
Loyola, the founder of Jesuit Society, as well as his successors Lorenzo Scupoli or
Laynez, and other works of art inspired by mystic experience, contributed to the
thorough change in the contemporary religious awareness and shaping a new mod-
el of a human being.
1
K. Mrowcewicz, Wstp to: Wysoki umys w dolnych rzeczach zawikany. Antologia polskiej poezji
metafizycznej epoki baroku, Warszawa 1993, pp. 8 9.
293
Humble self-cognition as the result of fully focused meditation was the goal
of Spiritual Exercises recommended by Loyola. In this work, the author defines
meditation as concentration and exercise at the same time: focusing the diffused
feelings and thoughts, the exercise of will, memory and mind
2
. Other members of
Societatis Jesu formulated their own definitions of meditation. Vicenzo Bruno con-
sidered meditation to be nothing else than meticulous and decisive use of mind in
the search and cognition [] It is like tasting the divine substance. Louis Pontan-
aus characterizes meditation briefly: deliberate prayer is an act with the God of
memory, mind, and will, the soul. His brother in Christ, Francisco Arias, who em-
phasizes its emotional aspect, defines it as the contemplation of divine secrets and
perfection, seeing them with the eye of the soul with affection and admiration
3
.
Pious contemplation was meant to involve all the Power of human mind, in or-
der to make him able to comprehend godly affairs. Memory provided the material
for deliberations; the mind analyzed the subject of meditation, whereas the role of
will was to make pious resolutions aimed at contributing to the spiritual revival of
man. Meditation combined traditional prayer with deepened self-analysis: it was a
kind of soliloquium, being at the same time a dialogue with God
4
. The benefits of the
Ignatian method were noticed and appreciated by Louis Granada, who emphasized
its role in shaping spiritual life: Contemplation brings a major benefit, since just as
speculative thinking and studying natural science is a great way of gaining human
wisdom, contemplation of godly affairs is a good way of gaining the godly wisdom
5
.
The essence of meditation was harmonious synchronization and full involve-
ment of imagination, senses, memory, reason and emotions in considering the Godly
Mysteries. The masters of meditation defined this act metaphorically as a journey
which starts on Earth and ends in Heaven. The human soul takes of to reach God
gradually, going through certain levels or stages of enlightenment. Reason the
tool enabling the distinguishing of truth, and heart the source of love, help in
reaching Heaven. This gradual rising towards cognition of a reality beyond human
senses makes meditation different from contemplation, which is based on admira-
tion and involves the feelings not reason, taking place without any stages.
2
J. B. Lotz, Wdroenie w Medytacje nad Nowym Testamentem, Krakw 1985, pp. 10 11.
3
L. Pontanus, F. Arias, see: K. Mrowcewicz, Wstp to: Wysoki umys..., cited, p. 21.
4
'wiczenia duchowne see: Encyklopedia wiedzy o jezuitach na ziemiach Polski i Litwy 1564 1995,
by: L. Grzebie SJ, Krakw 2004, p. 293n.
5
Louis Granada, Memorial de la vida cristiana, cited according to Polish translation by: K. Niklewi-
czwna, Aby nie zapomnia, e jeste chrzecijaninem, Pozna 1987, p. 166.
294
During mystic elation so-called internal senses are involved, being similar to
body senses. They are also described as the senses of inner man, divine senses or
the senses of heart. The senses were meant to develop along with the spiritual
development of a person and the gradual break from the constraints of body sens-
es. Through spiritual exercise a human being could develop his internal sensuali-
ty, only to a degree. The full ability to use the spiritual senses was possible only
with the help of God himself.
In order to experience spiritual revival and the grace of communing with God
according to the vitae contemplativa model, one was expected to reject earthly life
(vitae activa). Contemplation, thus, involved permanent detachment from the out-
side world and aiming at experiencing only what goes beyond this sphere, since the
object of perception by means of inner senses was Christ as the Only Holy Word
6
.
As Verbum increatum He is experienced through spiritual sight and hearing, as
Verbum inspiratum He stimulates the spiritual sense of smell, as Verbum incarna-
tum He is perceived through the spiritual taste and touch
7
. The climax of contem-
plative life is the development of spiritual touch, which leads to uniting human and
Gods will in ecstasy. It is nothing different than touching God. The act is carried
out without the use of intellect, as well as any external stimuli, in the throes of love,
in godly darkness, as claimed John of the Cross
8
.
Unlike contemplation, meditation was based on using (aplicatio) the items from
the outside world as symbols pointing to the sacrum (it should be noted, however
that the concept of aplicatio may originate from the concept of five inner senses).
Loyola, in his Fundament, defined the essence of Ignatian deliberations as follows:
Man was created in order to praise God, our Lord, to worship and serve Him- and
save his soul thanks to it. Other things on the surface of Earth were created for the
man and to help him reach the goal he was created for. Thus, it seems man should
use them as long as they help him and get rid of them when they inhibit him
9
. This
leads to the conclusion that all things surrounding man, including the body and the
passions connected with it, are by their nature morally neutral. Good and evil are
6
L. Koakowski, wiadomo religijna i wi kocielna. Studia nad chrzecijastwem bezwyznanio-
wym, Warszawa 1997, pp. 263 264; see also: W. James, Dowiadczenie religijne, translated by J.
Hempel, Krakw 2001, p. 293n.
7
M. Hanusiewicz, wite i zmysowe w poezji religijnej polskiego baroku, Lublin 1988, pp. 130 131.
8
J. Sudbrack, Mistyka, Dowiadczenie wasnego ja Dowiadczenie kosmiczne Dowiadczenie Boga,
translated by B. Biaecki, Krakw 1996, p. 55.
9
I. Loyola, wiczenia duchowne, translated by J. Og SJ, Krakw 1996, p. 21.
295
thus not the properties imbued in the items, but resulting from the way they are
used. Everything, if properly used, may be useful in reaching salvation. It is the
applicatio or accomodatio that was the essence of the Ignatian method. Even the
things which push human beings to sin may reveal deep spiritual truths. One exam-
ple may be the idea for holy love, making use of deeply sensual lexis as opposition
of bodily love. According to the ancient rule followed by contemporary medics:
similia similibus curantur treat similar with similar. One should then fight passion
with passion. Human weakness should be used for saving ones soul, through sub-
stituting bodily love with holy one
10
. Amor profanus thus beaten by the heavenly
Amor with his own weapon, which is the perfect fulfillment of Loyolas sugges-
tions: One should confront one passion with another, a habit with a different hab-
it, just as you remove a wedge with another one
11
.
II
The motif of holy and bolidy love was the main idea of emblematic cycles com-
bining visual arts with the art of word. In Poland the genre was practiced by Zbig-
niew Morsztyn, Aleksander Teodor Lacki, a Jesuit Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski,
as well as the leading Baroque poet Stanisaw Herakliusz Lubomirski. The Ba-
roque emblematic cycles referred to the Bible, especially to the Book of Psalms
and The Song of Songs, the most poetic books of the Old Testament
12
. The study
of the latter especially inspired the poets creating through meditation aplicatio.
The sensual language describing the betrothed, the mystic love of Christ to the
Church was the tool for poetic expression.
Baroque emblems describe the journey of soul-Betrothed to God. The jour-
ney is gradual, which is the realization of Ignatian meditatio. Another example of
applying this pattern is Pobone pragnienia by A.T. Lacki. The whole cycle was di-
vided into three parts which reflect the stages of elation towards God: Jczenia
dusze pokutujcej, dze dusze witej, Wzdychania dusze kochajcej. The first stage
is the earthly world. The soul performing penance is lost in thoughts and discovers
the hollowness of earthly reality and firmly rejects it, which goes together with the
resolution of self-improvement in order to be worthy of heavenly glory. In the sixth
10
K. Mrowcewicz, Wstp to: A. T. Lacki, Pobone pragnienia, Wrocaw 1997, p. 10.
11
I. Loyola, Pisma wybrane, by M. Bednarz, vol. 1, Krakw 1968, p. 591.
12
J. Pelc, Sowo i obraz na pograniczu literatury i sztuk plastycznych, Krakw 2002, pp. 191 196.
296
emblem of the third book of Pobone pragnienia the Heavenly Lover is confronted
with the world. The love of Christ surpasses everything in the universe, it is the
most precious. The reader is told this through the words of Psalm 72: What is then
in Heaven and around you of what I have desired on Earth?, as well as through the
illustration of a man sitting on the globe, reaching his hand towards Heaven. From
there emerges an angel, who holds out his hand in an inviting gesture. The subject
soul-Betrothed addresses Christ:
Me wiato, czeg da na ziemi, na niebie,
[Oh my Light what should I desire on Earth and In Heaven]
gdy niebo, ziemie, morze za nic mam bez Ciebie?
[When the Sky, the Land and the Sea are nothing without you?]
Wiem dobrze, jako wielkie niebieskie radoci,
[I know well how great heavenly joys are]
Jakie morskie s, jakie ziemskie obfitoci,
[And what sea and earthly abundance awaits]
Lecz bez Ciebie, me wiato, wszystko w obrzydzeniu
[But withou you, my Ligot, I hold all in disdain]
Cokolwiek ziemia, morze ma w swoim zamknieniu
13
.
[Whatever the earth and the sea may hold within]
This declaration leads the soul to a difficult area of battling its senses and
body. It is their complete mortification that allows it to reach the second stage of
perfection to fill itself with holiness. However, it is the reaching of the third stage
the ability to love that predestines the soul to full unification with God.
Another creator of emblems, Z. Morsztyn, was a meditating poet. To medi-
tate, according to him means to attend to the object of deliberation with constant
thought. His emblems, which are not only the result of meditation but a good
inspiration for it as well, are the manifestation of reflection over God, man and the
world. The works are an example of ordinatio vitae the devotion of ones life to
God. The overlapping didactic tone seems to prove that. The author presents cer-
tain truths to the reader and arguments for them. In doing so he frequently uses
comparisons of which the first part (like) introduces the other (like this), which
serves as a much more elaborate exemplum. Comparisons and examples formed
by them are the axis of most of Morsztyns emblems. This points to their connec-
tions with meditation, which often refers to an example and analogy. Some of the
Morsztyns works, however, have a different structure and are written in the mood
13
A.T. Lacki, Pobone pragnienia, by K. Mrowcewicz, Wrocaw 1997, p. 141.
297
of a statement, such as Emblemat 51 describing the universe. The statement is in
this case one of the parts within a contradiction. The author presents cosmos
perfect and spherical as the opposite of earthly world. In this way it instructs a man
that it is towards the eternal Heaven powered by eternal love that ones sight
should be directed. The earthly world is only a shadow of supernatural reality.
The elements of this world serve their purpose in accordance with the aplicatio rule
as symbols pointing to sacrum.
III
The world viewed through the prism of applicatio can be compared to a book,
filled with mystic signs, which watched in a proper way, lead to the revelation of
Gods mysteries. Baroque emblem books often contain illustrations of Gods hand
appearing from the clouds, in which an open book lies, with a phrase: here is every-
thing (hic omnia)
14
. According to Alanus Lille:
Omnis mundi creatura
Quasi liber et pictura
Nostram est et speculum
Nostrae vitae, nostrae mortis
Nostri statu nostri sortis
Fidele signaculum.
15
The poets who perceived the world as a book, mirror or a picture were Mikoaj
Sp Szarzyski and Sebastian Grabowiecki. The means of poetic expression, as
well as the lexis used by both poets are totally different, concerning different spheres.
Grabowiecki operates with concrete issues, which can be touched, sensed. In
doing this he is at the same time very careful about details, which results in the
creation of impressive, ornate poetic images. His sonnets are a kind of finely craft-
ed mosaics of motifs and symbols. The elements of sensual world are meant to
reveal to the reader the mystery of the Passion and at the same time to make him
aware of the human feebleness and sinfulness. Grabowiecki is the master of Ba-
roque metaphor. He is especially fond of sea landscape (rocks, sand, pearls, rough
14
A. M. Fredro, Peristoma primum, in Peristomata Regum sive Memoriale Principis monitorum symb-
olis expressum, Gdask 1600.
15
Cited after: J. Sokolski,Miejsce to zowi ywot. Staropolskie romanse alegoryczne, Wrocaw 1988,
p. 31.
298
or calm sea). In Sonet V for example, the image of the sea has two aspects. In the
negative one, the rough sea where fish are plentiful and where many ships sail
symbolizes the heart of a man, which is full of doubts. On the other hand, the
abundance of the sea is a positive symbol of hope. The author concludes: there is
enough water there (in the sea), just as there is enough hope in me.
The series of sonnets about the seven cardinal sins is an attempt to define and
pinpoint what human experience is often unable to grasp. The author personalizes
Vanity, Envy, Wrath and the remaining sins, addresses them: Mistress of all Anger,
Mother of Disdain, Infernal Servant, Witch unambiguously characterizing his he-
roes. Numerous epithets help the reader imagine given sins and recognize their
features. We thus get to know that Vain is deceitful, lewd, haughty, big-head-
ed, full of disdain, cruel and at the same time hard as flint, from which a terrible
dragon gets its fire. The detailed description of a subject is another feature of
poetry meant for meditation. The multitude of details allows for reconstructing
with mind what is being described.
Such multitude is not only characteristic of sonnets. Also Pieni by Grabow-
iecki are full of typical meditation emblems. Human life is here perceived through
the study of Kohelet, presented as fleeting cloud or petty spider web and the scant-
iness of the earthly world, which changes according to Gods orders directs the
thoughts of an individual towards eternal Heaven and unchangeable God (Pieni
XXXV and LXXVI):
Panie, co wiecznym rozumem kierujesz
[Oh Lord who directs the eternal mind]
Niebo i ziemi, czasom rozkazujesz
[The earth the sky and time]
I zawdy, zmiennym sam nie bdc, wszemu
[being unchangeable yourself, why]
Mieni si kaesz, co da miertelnemu
16
.
[Do you order to be called what you gave to the mortals]
Unlike the very concrete poetry of Grabowiecki, Sps poetry is more intellec-
tual and abstract. The imagery is significantly reduced. The world is only briefly
sketched, never described in details, which is why it is hard at first to see connec-
tions to applicatio.
16
S. Grabowiecki, Pie LXXVI, in Wysoki umys w dolnych rzeczach zawikany... cited p. 73.
299
Szarzyskis connections to Spanish culture are of a different nature, with their
sources to be found among the influence of the mystics, especially Louis Granada,
whose program is close to the Ignatian theory of meditation. His Raniec was one
of the most important works which influence Sp, who was even supposed to trans-
late it to Polish. Eventually, he did not do it, because of feeling unworthy
17
.
Raniec was the translation of the Italian version of Memorial de la vida cris-
tiana describing the journey of a soul towards perfection. Out of the lengthy book
by Granada, the most inspiring for Szarzyski were the fragments depicting the
Holy Mother. In his Sonet III, we can find direct references to the expressions used
by the Spanish master of meditation. Granada considered Mary as mediator be-
tween Heaven and Earth, God and the people. For this is the main idea of the
sonnet to the Holy Mary Mother of God. Following the Spanish theologian, Sp
calls Mary the mother of her creator, the daughter, mother and betrothed of the
eternal God. Such expressions have also appeared among the Medieval theolo-
gians. The glory of the Holy Virgin was described by Granada as follows:
Ty jeste nad chory anielskie posadzona [] od wiata z ciaem i z dusz
moc Bo wzita [] na krlewskiej stolicy jeste posadzona; ktra pod
krzyem bya najnieszczliwsza, z nieba widzi si wyniesiona nad anielskie
chry. [] Ty jest ona Krlowa Niebieska, ktra si jako jedna Jutrzenka
byskasz, cudna jako Miesic, wyborna jak Soce, straszna duchom piek-
ielnym []
18
You are the one placed over the angels [] taken from the world by the Gods
Power [] you are the one pitting In Gods capital, you who was in the biggest
sorrow under the cross see yourself assumed into Heaven over the angel choirs []
you are the Heavenly Queen who shines like the Morning Star, graceful like the
Moon and magnificent like the Sun, deadly to infernal spirits
In Raniec the mystic also compares Mary to the Sun and the Moon. The
metaphors are taken over by Sp. In the sonnet to the Holy Mary Mother of God,
Mary is compared to the Moon, as well as to the Morning Star, which heralds the
coming of Christ the Sun
17
Sps work as translator is described by his monographer J. Boski in maspiece Mikoaj Sp
Szarzyski a pocztki polskiego baroku, Krakw 1967, p. 202n., and K. Mrowcewicz in Trivium
poetw polskich epoki baroku: klasycyzm manieryzm barok, Warszawa 2005, p. 98n.
18
Louis Granada, Aby nie zapomniacited, s. 361.
300
Ty, gow starwszy smoka okrutnego
[You, who shattered the head of the cruel dragon]
()
Wzita jest w niebo nad wysokie Chory,
[You are taken to Heaven beyond the high Choirs]
Chwalebna, szczcia uywasz szczerego.
[Glorious and joyful]
Ty jest dusz naszych jak Ksiyc prawdziwy,
[You are the Moon of our souls]
W ktrym wiecznego baczymy promienie
[For whose merciful Light we always wait]
Miosierdzia, gdy na nas grzech straszliwy
[When a horrible sin]
Przywodzi smutnej nocy cikie cienie.
[Leads us into shadows]
Ale <Ty> zarz ju nam nasta ran,
[But you, be our Morning Star]
Poka twego Soca wiato dan!
[Show the grace and Light of your Sun!]
Granada understood the phenomena in the same way. A human being is una-
ble to look into the Sun for too long, since its light is too strong. It can, however,
contemplate the Moon as long as he pleases, for its diffused light is the result of the
Suns activity. Thus, we can compare Mary to the Moon: by means of her gentle
and motherly mediation a human being can get closer to cognition of the mighty
God
19
. Mary-the Moon reflects the rays of Christ- the Sun and directs them to-
wards the heart of man, which in turn resembles a mirror: focuses the rays of godly
love and reflects them back. This mutual relations were called the economy of
mercy, which is at the same time the physics of light
20
by Szarzyskis monogra-
pher J. Boski. The opposition between light and darkness is the compositional
axis of many of Sps works. He perceives human life as the struggle between the
domain of darkness and the domain of light (e.g the sonnet Of our War). The gleam-
ing Heaven- the home of God and angels- is the opposition of Earth, where the
cruel Lord of Darkness reigns. The vision of Heaven appearing in his works is
reminiscent of the images of cosmic mirrors created by Dionisius Areopagitus and
the Medieval masters (Thomas, Bonaventure, Eckhart). A similar motif can also
19
K. Mrowcewicz, Trivium poetw..., cited, p. 104.
20
J. Boski, Mikoaj Sp Szarzyski..., cited, p. 51.
301
be found in Granadas Memorial de la vida cristiana. God is motor immobilia he
dwells on the fiery firmament coelum empireum and moves the gleaming sky. He
is accompanied by angels, which Sp calls after St. Thomas as pure inteligence.
In the maze of reality the people from the Baroque period searched for the
magical Ariadnas thread, which would allow them to tread through it safely and
confidently, a safe haven which will shelter them after sailing a rough sea. One of
the manifestations of metaphysical insecurity and the pain of existence, as well as
common and individual doubts, was the contemporary poetry which emerged from
the longing for an ordered and wisely governed world, where everything is compre-
hensible. The motifs, plots and symbols taken by the Baroque masters from the
Iberian mystical and contemplative works helped them express the doubts, as well
as find the goal of their life journey. For the writers of the 17
th
century the goal was
God- the personification of permanence, as opposed to the temporary condition of
earthly world.
A Baroque poet was an individual opposing surrounding chaos. Struggle was
the essence of his life. Activity and the proper use of the elements of a hostile,
incomprehensible world allowed him to rise to the higher and more excellent spheres
of life, beyond the earthly poverty and misery.
302
Olga Roussinova
(European University of Saint Petersburg,
Russia)
Lisbon St. Petersburg: Portuguese Portuguese Portuguese Portuguese Portuguese tpos tpos tpos tpos tpos
and its elements in the Russian culture
One of very few authors who studied Russian-Portuguese relations, Rmulo
de Carvalho, began his book with the statement:
...A grande distncia entre Portugal e a Rssia, a morosidade e a inco-
modidade dos transportes no tempo passado e a ausncia de interesses
imediatos que estimulassem a procura de convvo entre os dois pases jus-
tificam que o estabelecimento das respectivas relaes se tivesse efectiva-
do to tarde...
1
Though this may be true for direct political, diplomatic, trading and scientific
relations, there is no doubt that apart from those, there existed indirect but stable
cross-cultural influences connecting both countries.
In this paper I will focus only upon those key moments in the whole range of
Russian-Portuguese mutual influences, which led to the formation of the Portu-
guese tpos in the Russian culture. So, the first question is when does Portuguese
motifs become interesting for the Russian culture, and what are the reasons for
this?
To begin with, Portuguese motifs become known in the Russian culture be-
tween XVIII and XX centuries. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Russia
attempts to strictly isolate itself from whatever foreign influences there might have
been. Even diplomatic contacts were preserved with only a small number of coun-
tries. For example, Russian-Portuguese diplomacy was broken off at that time and
1
Romulo de Carvalho, Relaes entre Portugal e a Rssia no sculo XVIII (Lisbon: S da Costa
Editora, 1979), 1
303
restored only in 1974. Similarly, during the period of Moscow kingdom, till the
XVIII
th
century, one could not expect the Russians to be open to any influences
from abroad. Thus, our question is limited by three centuries, from 1700 till 1917.
During this period and due to reforms of Peter the Great Moscow Kingdom turns
into Russian Empire and it becomes a state opened for influences, even from far
European countries. Particularly, it was the establishment of St. Petersburg that
built the ground for Portuguese tpos in Russian culture.
Peter the Great turned Russia into a marine country with its own sea-ports
and its own fleet, with the sea-port St. Petersburg as the capital of this new
country. With this, the Russian mind started to open for the influences from
abroad exported first of all by the sea. From the very beginning these were
inhabitants of Petersburg and Kronstadt who encountered people from other
countries with developed navigation and sea mentality: Holland, England, par-
tially Spain, and Portugal.
Additionally, the new Russian capital was the best ground for adopting abroad
influences, because it was the most European and the most artificial city in the
whole Russia.
2
St.-Petersburg was built in the low delta of the Neva, where it meets
the Baltic Sea. Unlike Moscow, the new capital was located on the border of the
sea, on the geographical periphery of Russian state. That way, St.-Petersburg was
set up as an alien city regarding Russia as a whole. The citys character was deter-
mined by its frontier location, in-between Russia and non-Russia, and in-between
the land and the sea. Besides, the new capital was built by the order of Peter the
Great on the empty space and within an extremely short period of time.
This ambivalent position itself supplied Petersburg with some artificial fea-
tures, additionally strengthened by the fact that the city imitated the most well-
known cities of Europe in their sublime and theatrical forms. Impressive architec-
tural ensembles and regular urban spaces of St.-Petersburg remained the mixture
of different European cityscapes and, thus, provoked permanent comparisons with
other capitals.
The Europeanism and theatricality of the city determined the unique specifici-
ty of St.-Petersburg culture. Among all the values at this cultures disposal, it was
location on water that was considered of the most importance. The so-called Pe-
2
Juri Lotman, Simvolika Peterburga I problemi semiotiki goroda, Semiotika goroda i gorodskoi
kulturi. Peterburg. Trudi po znakovim sistemam XVIII. Uchenie zapiski Tartusskogo gosudarstven-
nogo universiteta 664 (Tartu: TGU, 1984).
304
tersburg text,
3
produced by this culture (e.g. Pushkin and Dostoevsky, of course)
represented a mythopoetical City-on-water not only in its harmonious magnificence,
but also in its menacing image. As for the latter, one would find that the most
frequent narrative within the Petersburg text is about the city destroyed by flood or
bogged down in a swamp.
This Petersburg text, together with its eschatological expectations, deeply pene-
trated into the oral city mythology. Petersburg to be empty became the key phrase
in the minds of the people. Prophecies shared by city inhabitants influenced both
everyday routine and official life of the capital. For example, Peter the Great him-
self, and later administrations of Elizabeth and Catherine II, struggled with these
prejudices and took a lot of official measures against it. Yet the shadow of the
above-mentioned prophecy is responsible for permanent exaggerations concern-
ing floods; no such exaggerations and anxieties could be upset either by official
religious, or by natural explanations. In this context the mythological image of flood
devastating St.-Petersburg was regarded as a general image of the Deluge, of the
Universal Cataclysm.
It may seem strange that exaggerated eschatological mythology belonged to
people who already had a successful experience of survival in the floods. The Neva
delivered floods to the city usually in October-November almost every year. These
floods were not unexpected in themselves, although their reasons were more com-
plicated than usual (e.g. contrary wind and conflict of sea and river flows). There-
fore, people lived in permanent expectations and anxieties. But since the second
half of XVIII century it became a tradition to describe Petersburg floods as a sud-
den tragedy with infinitive victims and terrible aftermaths. As was already men-
tioned, floods themselves could hardly inspire descriptions of such sort. Dramatic
images were mainly copied from other impressive events and disasters and the
Lisbon Great earthquake was among these.
Portuguese motives in Russian culture were originally connected with the Lis-
bon disaster of 1755. Further on, these motives would merge more and more into
the eschatological mythology of the Russian capital.
News about the earthquake in Lisbon reached the other end of Europe fast
enough. The Petersburg newspaper Sanktpeterburgskie Vedomosti printed a short
3
Term first introduced by Vladimir Toporov. See, for example: Vladimir Toporov, Peterburg i
peterburgskii tekst russkoi literaturi, Semiotika goroda I gorodskoi kulturi. Peterburg. Trudi po
znakovim sistemam XVIII. Uchenie zapiski Tartusskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 664 (Tar-
tu: TGU, 1984)
305
notice about it as soon as December 5, 1755 (97); later, a longer report in a special
Addition (Pribavlenie) followed. The Russian journalist shows horrors of disaster
by the pathetic image of Kings family: Tis trembling of ground that was there
in the First of November at morning and in this half of Lisbon city churches and
palace were collapsing there; but evil fortune did not touch Kings family which
settled in Belm at the time yet this building was also damaged; and almost
without a meal or a servant nearby, it [Kings family] was to spend the night in their
coaches in a shed Description finds its culmination is the back address to the
letter written by a Lisbon priest, mentioned by journalist: From there, where the
city of Lisbon stood before.
By the year of 1755, the general image of a demolished city has already entered
into the minds of St.-Petersburg inhabitants. This menacing image clearly shows
itself through and regardless to illuminations, fireworks and other Petersburgs
entertainments of Elizabethan time. For example, what can be found in the Cata-
logue of Civil books of XVIII century?
4
In 1745, ten years prior to the Lisbon
earthquake, one finds a numerous opera libretto, a few fireworks programs, The
Ceremonial Ode to Her Majesty by Lomonosov, and a speech of Archbishop Simon
(Todorskyi) The Gods Especial Benediction. These books were intended mainly for
official use. But in the same year a non-official Russian reader would get Tassos
poem printed under the title Story About Jerusalem City Demolished, which was obvi-
ously far from any entertainments as well as Homers Story On Devastation of Troya
in adaptation of Guido della Colonna. In 1760, Devastation of Troya was printed for
the second time, as well as Experimental Physics by Wolf, first issued in 1746.
In these years common Russian readers get a variety of new information: about
distant countries, about decrees of nature, about philosophy, etc. Historical writings
are as popular as books on navigation or physics. Civil typographies also print moral
writings, as multivolume issue of Sermons by Ilia Miniatyi or Collection of Didactic
Speeches by Bishop Gedeon (Krynovskyi) and, finally, Monthly Writings for Benefit
and Entertainment, which were published exactly in unfortunate year of 1755.
A wide set of translations and Russian books seem to embrace ever new subjects;
it is very rare to find a book printed for the second time, or thematic series. The only
permanent interest of readers seems to be grasped by writings on Spanish-Portuguese
subjects, including both recent and old books. They are, for example: novel Isabella
4
Svodnii katalog russkoi knigi grazhdanskoi pechati XVIII veka. 1725-1800. Tt. 1-5. (M.: Kniga, 1962-
1967)
306
Mendoza by Mademoiselle Cochois, Don Carlos, Historical Novel by C.V.de Saint-Ral
(numerous reprints), Adventures of Estebanillo Gonzlez by Alain-Ren Lessage, etc.
Finally, Don Quichote translated from French is published in a numerous reprints and
(also from French De la Garpe Translation) Russian reader gets Luziade.
Portuguese-Spanish novels appeared in Russian bookstores not earlier than
1760, anticipated by two books of another character, issued in 1756-1757. One of
them has a long title On terrible trembling[that] took part in 1755.
5
It is a sort of
philosophical didactic treatise written by Bishop Gedeon, which he included in the
second volume of his above-mentioned Collection, probably when the book was
already in print (issued 1756). As for another book, it was in May 1757 when the
Russian Science Academy commissioned its member Mikhailo Lomonosov with
the writing annual ceremony speech to Her Majesty Elizabeth I. In the autumn he
presented both Russian and Latin versions of the treatise entitled A Word on Met-
als Originated from Trembling of Ground.
6
Clearly enough, Lomonosovs approach
is far from that of Gedeon: they both have in common only the concept that All
the nature came into disorder (by Gedeons words). Scientist Lomonosov, men-
tioning severe Lisbon fate, continues the idea of bishop Gedeon when he states
that: No need to present more about devastation of cities by trembling of ground,
cause all the face of Earth has clear demonstrations of that.
In 1780s Lisbon earthquake returns in the new image due to Bogdanovich
who published his Russian translation of both Voltaires Poem on Disaster of Lis-
bon and Rousseaus reply.
7
In this context it becomes a very valuable argument
used by Russian freemasonry against French enlighteners. For instance, Vassilyi
Levshin, who played an important role in Russian mason society, published his
treatise against Voltaires interpretation of earthquake. His treatise entitled A Let-
ter with some reflections on Voltaires poem on disaster of Lisbon
8
was written in
spirit of philosopher Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. As regards these matters, sci-
entists emphasize that Russian Freemasonry interpretations of life and death
come from the school of Martnez de Pasqually and his famous stalwart Saint-
5
Gedeon (Krynovskyi), O sluchivshemsia 1755 godu v Evrope I Afrike uzhasnom triasenii in:
Gedeon (Krynovskyi), Sobranie pouchitelnikh slov (SPb., 1756), T.2
6
Mikhailo Lomonosov, Slovo o rozhdenii metallov ot triaseniia zemli in: Mikhailo Lomonosov,
Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (M.-L., 1954), T.5
7
Voltaire, Poema na razrushenie Lissabona s vozrazheniem Rousseau, transl.I.Bogdanovich (SPb,
1809) 2nd ed.
8
Vassilyi Levshin, Pismo, soderzhaschee nekotorie razsuzhdeniia o poeme Voltera na razrushenie Liss-
abona (M., 1788)
307
Martin towards the Russian Rosicrucians, called at that time Martinists. Freema-
sons considered the human spirit to be much wider, complicated, and powerful
than the classical science of the time.
9
Thus, topics of Lisbon earthquake and of sudden death expand, and during
XVIII century they spread into various fields of Russian culture.
The Lisbon earthquake was already adopted by the Russian mind by the year
of 1833, when Pushkin wrote his poem The Bronze Horseman. The picture of the
earthquake, alongside other images of Sublime and Horror, provided a model for
the description of cities demolished by sudden disaster. According to this model,
the image of the Petersburg flood of 1824 (one of four most terrible floods, indeed)
in The Bronze Horseman is far from being a separate story or just a background. In
the poem the flood becomes an all-penetrating force an element that determines
the whole composition of poem.
Madder the weather grew, and ever
Higher upswelled the roaring river
And bubbled like a kettle, and whirled
And like a maddened beast was hurled
Swift on the city. All things routed
Fled from its path, and all about it
A sudden space was cleared; the flow
Dashed in the cellars down below;
Canals up to their gratings spouted.
Behold Petropol floating lie
Like Triton in the deep, waist-high!
A siege! the wicked waves, attacking
Climb thief-like through the windows; backing,
The boats stern-foremost smite the glass;
Trays with their soaking wrappage pass;
And timbers, roots, and huts all shattered,
The wares of thrifty traders scattered,
And the pale beggars chattels small,
Bridges swept off beneath the squall,
Coffins from sodden graveyardsall
Swim in the streets!....
And contemplating
Gods wrath, the folk their doom are waiting.
in Peters Square
10
9
Mikhail N. Longinov, Novikov I moskovskie martinisti (M.: Lan, 2000), 110
10
Wacaw Lednicki, Pushkins Bronze Horseman (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1955),
144-145.
308
The Exaggerated picture of the flood filling up the city represents a total catas-
trophe of the universal character. Besides, separate scenes are exaggerated as well,
even in reports by Petersburg army officials largely deprived of any imagination.
For example, in the report of Baron Josef Vellio, the future superintendent of Tzar-
Village town, we read:
Street lamps were covered with water up to their tops. While we were
going slowly almost swimming from the palace to the quarters [i.e.
approx. 1 km, from the Palace Square to St.-Isaacs Square], the storm
took off my coachmans hat and we both were glad that we got off so light-
ly [When I arrived to the quarters] street lamps in boulevard showed
their tops [over the water] The storm was strong and waves raged.
11
To point out only the most significant detail: the epicentre of the catastrophes
was present, both in The Bronze Horseman and in the oral mythology St.-Isaacs
Square. St.-Isaacs was the second in the suite of the official squares in Petersburg,
after the main one called the Palace Square.
It seems to be quite meaningful that even before Pushkins poem it was St.-
Isaacs Square that was pre-eminently associated with Lisbon. For example, a Rus-
sian navy officer staying in Lisbon in 1806 with admiral Seniavins fleet, wrote:
after the famous Lisbon earthquake the streets were built very regular here,
and they come towards the river, as St.-Isaacs in Petersburg. The building in the
square is not finished, but it would be of a good look. There is the monument to
King Josef in this square: it is a horseman on the high beautiful pedestal
12
Further on, the author, a young officer Panaphidin, compares it with the monu-
ment to Peter the Great.
There is no need to mention that Peter the Greats monument was one of the
heroes of Pushkins Bronze Horseman, as well as of Mickiewiczs Dziady (Pomnik
Piotra Wielkiego), and in the Petersburg text it is the monument that spreads death,
chaos, and destruction around itself, by St.-Isaacs and all round Petersburg. The
monument was made by French sculptor tienne Maurice Falconet by commission
of Catherine II and inaugurated in 1782. One may guess that from the very begin-
ning Falconet also had some fatal association in mind. For example, he named the
following list of subjects that met his demands of horrible images: ocean, great
11
Iosif Velio, Zapiski, Russkaia starina 156 (1913)
12
Pavel Panaphidin, Pisma morskogo ofitzera, Morskoi sbornik 393, 394 (1916)
309
forest fires, tempests, dikes broken in Netherlands. He also added here earth-
quakes which bury the cities.
13
The full version of Pushkins poem was published only in 1905, when the Silver
Age completed the circle of Petersburg culture, whereby poets, writers and artists
turned back again to the topics of XVIIIth century. Eschatological images embod-
ied the flood of 1903, the last one among the four most powerful for three centu-
ries. One may guess that Alexander Benoiss famous illustrations for The Bronze
Horseman were based partly on his own catastrophic experience. Nevertheless, an-
other writer, Alexander Green, had no personal experience of his own that could
have been realized in his novel Ground and Water.
14
Here he enacts Pushkins
flood story as Petersburg earthquake:
We reached St.-Isaacs Cathedral by tram- Green points out the place and
location. Then a sort of a day-dream starts expanding: As if I were stricken on my
legs I staggered A soft persistent bump from beneath repeated itself, reverber-
ating in the body as a whole, and I realized that the pavement was stirring. The crowd
ran. Further on, the story turns to the numerous disjointed images: fainted women
lied with their heads let down survived houses seemed short among the ruins, gaps
and glimpses opened at the parallel streets everywhere clerks, children, officers,
crying ladies, workers, soldiers, beggars, grammar-school boys, officials, students
all plunged in all directions, pushing each other, falling and shouting, having lost
their minds The girl with dishevelled hair was clutching at stones in ruined walls,
but would each time loose her strength and fall down, crying: I am here, Vania!
Half-dressed young man tried to raise a dead woman and frowned, not paying atten-
tion to anything else. I saw a priest, a rather old stout man with tired and half-
closed eyes, hatless; he stood on the piece of a fallen wall, clasping to his bosom the
brightly shining cross and spoke with a loud authoritative voice: The time has come.
The time If you understand And finally: Earthquake! My God, oh, my
God! everything roared around me, who united my cry with the general rage of the
fall After this, a sound resembling gloomy deep breath spread from the Neva,
literally cracking the city Immobile, I watched the avalanche slipping into the earths
bowels: falling people, walls of the houses, coaches, dead bodies and horses were
disappearing in the void of darkness torn ground trembled. And now the flood
came: one couldnt see anything but the dark mass embracing the horizon that
13
tienne Maurice Falconet, Quelques ides sur le Beau dans lArt, Oeuvres dtienne Falconet,
Statuaire (Lausanne: Chez la Socit Typographique, 1781), V, 50
14
Alexander Green, Ground and water, Sobranie sochinenii (M.: Pravda, 1980), t. 3
310
water rushed. Thus towards the end of the Petersburg period of Russian culture,
Alexander Green openly and doubtlessly proclaims the tpos of the Lisbon disaster.
Interestingly enough, no significant earthquake is possible taking into consid-
eration the ground of Petersburg area. Geophysical data already known in XVIII
century proves that wind and floods are typical for Northern (German) countries,
whereas Southern (Roman) countries are marked by tectonic activity, earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions. In Pushkins poem the city changes its tint from northern
to southern and becomes Petro-polis, and not Peters-burg. As for Alexander Green,
apart from Lisbon earthquake and of The Bronze Horseman, one finds the third
important southern text in his novel: it is the famous picture The Last Day of Pom-
peii by Carl Brullov. This can be clearly attributed as a source for the Greens
depiction of the running crowd and dying people.
Alexander Green had never been to Lisbon (Beautiful Liss as he often called it
in his writings). His Liss is of a different nature compared to the romantic images
of Carl Brullov, although they had both originated from the same source. In the
poetics of Greens novel, the picture of a city being demolished is based on the
doubling status of clearly opposed and/or related elements (the title Ground and
Water itself is meaningful enough). Brullovs poetics represents the same eschato-
logical motives still as an indissoluble whole.
In the final part of the paper I intend to show shortly Brullovs turn from an
Italian tpos to a Portuguese one, which started since 1820 and continued in the
course of the next 30 years of his creative activity. First sketches for The Last Day
Brullov made in 1827. In 1833 he exhibits the finished picture at Milan, then in Paris
and finally at the Petersburg Art Academy. It is this picture that made Brullovs
name famous in Europe, and he spent 6 years making this large-scale painting. In the
next year, 1834, whilst again in Milan, Brullov paints another historical composition
in only 17 (!) days. This new picture was The Death of Inessa de Castro after Cames
(where Inessa resembles one of the main woman characters of The Last Day of Pom-
peii). Usually Brullov left his historical compositions unfinished, so both finished
compositions made one after another seem to be a meaningful event in itself.
Even more importantly, Brullov never painted landscapes in oil. The only ex-
ception for the present day is his View of the Pico Temple. Official web-pages of
Tretiakov Gallery State museum dedicated to this painting, say that: the artist
represented a romantic subject: there is a pink sunset sky with approaching dark
cloud, the concept of two light sources known from The Last Day of Pompeii
Nevertheless, Brullov painted this landscape not in Naples in Italy, but at Madeira
311
Islands, where he was recovering in 1849-1850. During the next 150 years The View of
the Pico Temple belonged to the family and dependants of Antnio Alves da Silva
who was Brullovs physician there. In February 2004 the last owner of the picture,
senhora Margarita Lemos Gomes, sold it to Tretiakov Gallery at Moscow. There the
painting got its honourable place in the museum exhibition. So, Portuguese tpos in
the Russian culture is in demand again. It is proved by the fact that financial support
for this acquisition was supplied by Russian Presidents Foundation.
To conclude, Portuguese motives played an important role in Russian culture
of the Petersburg period. In the literature and art of the XVIII-Xx centuries they
were associated, first of all, with eschatological ideas of the new Russian capital.
This means that with all their diversity, the most significant motives would be con-
nected either with the Lisbon earthquake itself (as Greens novel) or with Sublime
and Horror around it (as is the case with Brullovs paintings). They are topical until
nowadays, whatever form they might assume.
Bibliography:
1. Carvalho, Romulo de. Relaes entre Portugal e a Rssia no sculo XVIII. Lisbon: S da Costa
Editora, 1979
2. Lotman, Juri. Simvolika Peterburga i problemi semiotiki goroda, Semiotika goroda i gorodskoi
kulturi. Peterburg. Trudi po znakovim sistemam XVIII. Uchenie zapiski Tartusskogo gosudarst-
vennogo universiteta 664. Tartu: TGU, 1984
3. Toporov, Vladimir. Peterburg i peterburgskii tekst russkoi literaturi, Semiotika goroda i gorod-
skoi kulturi. Peterburg. Trudi po znakovim sistemam XVIII. Uchenie zapiski Tartusskogo gosudarst-
vennogo universiteta 664. Tartu: TGU, 1984
4. Svodnii katalog russkoi knigi grazhdanskoi pechati XVIII veka. 1725-1800. M.: Kniga, 1962-1967
5. Gedeon (Krynovskyi), Sobranie pouchitelnikh slov. SPb.: Pri Imp. Akad. nauk, 1756, t.2
6. Lomonosov, Mikhail. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. M.-L.: Izd. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 1954, t.5
7. Volter, Fransua Mari. Poema na razrushenie Lissabona s vozrazheniem na onuju, pisannym Zan
Zakom Russo, transl. Ippolit Bogdanovich. SPb: tip. Gub. Pravl.,1809. 2nd ed.
8. Levshin, Vassilyi. Pismo, soderzhaschee nekotorie razsuzhdeniia o poeme Voltera na razrushenie
Lissabona. M.: Univ. tip u N.Novikova, 1788
9. Longinov, Mikhail. Novikov i moskovskie martinisti. M.: Lan, 2000
10. Lednicki, Wacaw. Pushkins Bronze Horseman. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1955
11. Velio, Iosif. Zapiski, Russkaia starina 156. SPb: Tip. V.S.Balasheva, 1913
12. Panaphidin, Pavel. Pisma morskogo ofitzera, Morskoi sbornik 393, 394. SPb: tip. Morsk. M-va,
1916
13. Falconet, tienne Maurice. Oeuvres dtienne Falconet, Statuaire. Lausanne: Chez la Socit
Typographique, 1781, V
14. Green, Alexander. Sobranie sochinenii. M.: Pravda, 1980, t. 3
313
VI. LINGUISTIC
PERSPECTIVES
315
Barbara Hlibowicka-Wglarz
(Maria Curie Skodowska University,
Camoes Institute Lublin, Poland)
Lusitanian-Slavonic relations:
a linguiss perspective
1
The importance of a pluridimensional notion of relations among different
countries, cultures or nations has been recognized for many years. Therefore, the
Lusitanian Slavonic relations, which constitute the main topic of our congress can
also be perceived from a variety of perspectives. Offering scholars the opportunity
to address problems related to various spheres of life, this topic can be treated as a
historical category, as a social or cultural phenomenon, or as a literary subject.
Unfortunately, the role of linguists and teachers of the Portuguese language has
been, in this respect, very often neglected.
The intention of this presentation is to show that the efforts to promote the
Portuguese language and culture abroad undertaken in many countries, both Sla-
vonic and non-Slavonic, play a fundamental role in the development of relations
among various societies and cultures. The work of Lusitanists dedicated to the
dissemination of the Portuguese language and culture abroad has been extremely
successful and it has had a marked influence on various areas of study. It has result-
ed in educating translators of literature, inspiring artistic and literary explorations
and in promoting specialist research in numerous fields such as trades, business,
economy, and others.
Starting with the assumption that the knowledge of languages and cultures
plays a crucial role in the development of relations among nations, my paper will
present some reflections on these issues as seen by a linguist and university profes-
sor who has dedicated many years of her life to disseminating the Portuguese lan-
guage and culture in Poland.
1
A shortcut of a speech delivered in the Opening session of the International Conference Iberian
and Slavonic Cultures: Contact and Comparison, 18 May, 2006
316
Jaroslava Jindrov
(Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic)
INTERCORP
A parallel corpus project of the Czech National
Corpus Institute attached to the Faculty of Arts
and Philosophy of Charles University, Prague,
Czech Republic
I. Introduction to Czech National Corpus
1. What is corpus? Corpus is a body of computerised texts (or a body of speech
transcription records in the case of a spoken language corpus) designed to facil-
itate linguistic research. A dedicated search software is used to work with the
corpus. The software supports search of words and phrases in a context, check-
ing word and phrase frequency in the corpus, and checking the original text
source reference. In addition, the corpus allows for follow-up processing of the
compiled material, such as its ordering in alphabetical order, etc. Some corpus-
es support search by word classes or morphological criteria.
2. The Czech National Corpus is an academic project the aim of which is to build
an extensive computerised corpus of the Czech language and of its written form
in particular. The owner of the project is the Czech National Corpus Institute
attached to the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of Charles University, Prague,
Czech Republic. The institute was founded in 1994 and in addition to the cor-
pus, it also runs corpus related activities, primarily the teaching of and research
in corpus linguistics. Additional information on the Czech National Corpus
Institute can be found at http:// ucnk.ff.cuni.cz/korpus.
3. There is an opinion that building a special corpus for linguistic research does
not make sense in the era of the Internet, as the web provides us with an enor-
mous and regularly updated quantity of texts available for such research. Yet
317
there are some advantages of the corpus as compared with the Internet. The
corpus is extended without any changes being introduced to its current con-
tents. The texts in the corpus can be used as a permanent reference material.
This fact allows for repeated quoting with precise source and date reference.
4. The texts in the corpus meet certain criteria the objective of which is to gather
varied texts which represent, with as much fidelity as possible, the respective
language. While it is journalistic and technical texts which prevail on the Inter-
net, the corpus focuses on literary texts and compiles specific text-bases of con-
temporary and historic texts, as well as of written and spoken language.
As a result, the Czech National Corpus contains different parts which can be
used for the study of the different aspects and variants of the language (spoken
Czech, written Czech, dialects, diachronic and synchronic studies).
5. Structure of the Czech National Corpus
CZECH NATIONAL CORPUS
Synchronic part
The synchronic text-base of Czech contains contempo-
rary Czech texts beginning with the second half of the
20
th
century, which are aligned (converted in the SGML
format) to be used for research with the help of the
research tool (the corpus manager).
Diachronic part
The diachronic text-base of Czech contains
transcribed texts of old Czech
(2 million words)
transliterated texts
(approximately 100,000 words)
old dialectal texts
(approximately 200,000 words)
Diachronic corpus
Old texts from the
first manusc
ript texts to
the 20
th
century
* DIAKORP
Written corpuses
* SYN2005
* SYN2000
* FSC2000
* PUBLIC
* SYNEK
* LITERA
* ORWELL
Parallel corpuses
InterCorp project
Spoken corpuses
* Prague corpus
* Brno corpus
Linguistic perspectives
318
II. Introduction to InterCorp project
1. Objective
The objective of the Intercorp project is to compile an electronic corpus of
parallel texts (i.e. translations and the respective originals) which link the Czech
language to the greater part of European languages studied at the Faculty of Arts
and Philosophy of Charles University. Work has already started in 20 languages,
including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian,
Slovak, Slovenian, Croatian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Swedish, Serbian and Danish.
In addition to European languages, the project also involves Japanese, Arabic and
Chinese.
1
2. Applied methods
Collaborator teams made up of students of the different languages and tu-
tored by teachers of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy will be used to gather and
process InterCorp material. The project has been scheduled for 7 years and in-
cludes the following areas:
a) Progressive compilation of parallel corpuses in all the languages involved, de-
fining the global strategy, addressing the copyright issues, issues of cataloguing
and filing, collaborator training, coordination of team work and hardware and
software support to teams.
b) Progressive acquisition of texts (we expect some 400,000 to 1,000,000 words for
each language involved, depending on accessibility, cultural relevance of the
language, and, in particular, on the extent of available translated texts. The
software designed for bilateral data processing will be tested in this first phase,
even though the objective of the project is language data processing and con-
trastive studies in different parallel languages (the minimum of 4 or 5).
c) Once the corpuses gain sufficient size, the follow-up activity will focus on re-
search according to topical themes and needs of the different languages, on the
development of methodology for research in grammar, lexicology, translation,
etc., with special regard, however, to the new possibilities of grasping the syn-
tagmatic aspects of occurrence in its widest scope, for which the corpus is of
vital importance.
1
For list of languages included in the project (with the institutions which guarantee the respective
versions) visit: http://utkl.ff.cuni.cz/~rosen/INTERCORP/ucastnici.html
319
d) Publishing the parallel corpuses, at least on the Intranet or for authorised users
for study and research (depending on the possibilities and terms and conditions
imposed by entities which made the texts available, the greatest part of which
are Czech and foreign publishing houses).
3. InterCorp project outcome
The parallel corpuses will be used for both theoretical linguistic research (con-
trastive studies, writing of comparative grammars, of MA and PhD theses) and
teaching purposes (language and translation training). The parallel corpuses will
also be utilised in the preparation of quality language textbooks and reference
books (e.g. dictionaries), as well as of software tools, such as the CAT tools.
In its final phase (in 2011), the new corpus will be put on the Internet for those
interested who will accept the agreement on non-commercial use of data (the same
system already works for the Czech National Corpus). Nevertheless, the body of
texts will be secured (and never made available in its integrity). This means that the
context of a word (or a phrase) searched for will be limited to the maximum of 140
words.
4. Project funding
The Intercorp project forms part of the Corpus nacional checo e corpus de
outras lnguas research project funded by the Ministry of Education, Youth and
Physical Training of the Czech Republic (program registered under no. 0021620823).
5. Practical demonstration of potential parallel corpus utilisation
320
321
Hanna J. Batoro
(Open University, Lisbon, Portugal)
Bilingual Acquisition Revisited.
Some Implications of a Polish-Portuguese
Case Study Twenty Years Later
0. Abstract
The last twenty years have yielded a considerable number of bilingual acquisi-
tion case studies that were conducted around the world using a wide range of lin-
guistic and psycholinguistic methodologies. They made contributions to theoreti-
cal linguistics on the one hand and language acquisition and development on the
other. As part of this field of research the present study reports on a European
Portuguese-Polish bilingual child case, revisited 20 years after the basic data had
been collected. The case has now been perspectivised backwards from adulthood
as an example of direct contacts between Iberian and Slavonic languages and cul-
tures.
Special attention has been given to the character of the language input which
the bilingual person/speaker acquires in early childhood and to the characteristics
of his/her morphosyntactic development in the first stages of language acquisition.
1. Issue
The main aim of bilingual acquisition case studies is to explore its implications
for linguistic theory, some of them for language acquisition theory in general, while
others for theories of bilingual acquisition in particular. Specific implications for
bilingual acquisition include the questions of (i) whether a bilingual child original-
ly had one or two linguistic systems, (ii) what criteria should be used in identifying
one versus two systems, and (iii) what the most important determinants of lan-
guage choice are for the developing bilingual.
The term bilingual acquisition is used in the present study to refer to a childs
regular exposure to two languages after birth and during the first years of life (cf.
322
De Houver 1990, 1995; Lanza, 1997; Deuchar & Quay, 2000). We report on the
data of simultaneous acquisition of Polish and European Portuguese by a Polish-
Portuguese child, Marta, produced since she was born in 1982. The report is based
on longitudinal data samples of the girls spontaneous language production in her
first five years (cf. Batoro, 1989, 1991, 1998), and on all other kinds of linguistic
information gathered during the first twenty years of her life.
The implications of a Polish-Portuguese bilingual acquisition case, revisited
twenty years after doing the original study, can be perspectivised not only from the
linguistic point of view but also from a cultural perspective, as an example of direct
contacts between Iberian and Slavonic cultures and the respective culturally em-
bedded languages.
2. Theoretical foundations
From the linguistic point of view, bilingual families are classified according to
(i) parents languages, (ii) the community language, and (iii) parental strategy of
language interaction (cf. Romaine 1995). It is generally assumed that developing
bilinguals need language separation in the input in order to differentiate between
the two languages to which they are exposed.
Many existing case studies of bilingual acquisition describe a situation in which
the parents speak different native languages, and each parent addresses the child
in her or his own language. This has come to be known as the one-person-one-
language approach (cf. Romaine 1995: 183, following Ronjat 1913) and contrast-
ed with the opposition between the home language and the outside home/com-
munity language. The parental strategy is seen as using monolingual versus bilin-
gual input by each interlocutor, also referred to as mixed input, varying according
to (i) other (different) language speakers presence at the moment of language
interaction (such as other members of the family, friends, caretakers, neighbours,
kindergarten staff, other monolingual or bilingual children, or accidental interloc-
utors), and/or (ii) specific formal and informal situation characteristics (e.g. a birth-
day party, school interaction, group outings with other children, and so on).
In many discussions of child bilingualism it is common to pay particular atten-
tion to parental input as in the one-person-one-language approach and to
exclude other sources of input to the child. Such studies tend to assume a middle-
class, Western-type nuclear family with two parents, whereas in fact many bilingual
children are brought up in families ranging from the extended non-nuclear type to
the Western single-parent type. This emphasis on parental input in standard West-
323
ern nuclear families is particularly obvious in discussions of the type of bilingual
family, in which both parents speak different native languages to the child:
Several recent writers on bilingual acquisition claim (...) that this [the
one-person-one-language approach] is the best method, but note that
the term method or even strategy takes us into a prescriptive rather than
a descriptive realm where parents, usually middle class and well educated,
are being given advice about how to bring up their children to be bilingual.
This orientation to method also ignores the fact that, while parents
may be able to control their own linguistic behaviour (...), they cannot con-
trol all linguistic behaviour to which the child is exposed, both inside and
outside the home. From this point of view the one-person-one-language
approach might be seen by a prescriptivist as leading to imbalance in the
input, if only one of the parents languages is used to address the child in
the community. Even in the home there is likely to be an imbalance, in
that the parents are likely to use one of the two languages to address each
other (or interact with the child in a group) more than the other.
(Deuchar & Quay, 2000:8).
3. Martas data analysis
3.1. A case of Polish-Portuguese bilingual acquisition
The data in our bilingual acquisition corpus come from Marta, who was born
in Lisbon in 1982, in a middle class and well-educated family of a Polish mother
and a Portuguese father, with Portuguese being used at home as the family lan-
guage. Martas mother, a linguist, felt very strongly about bringing up her daughter
bilingually and devoted some of her linguistic research to studies of her childs
case. From the very beginning the one-person-one-language strategy was adopted
in language interaction as a method that guaranteed bilingual acquisition (cf. Fan-
tini 1985, Saunders 1982 and 1988). Polish was used only by the childs mother and
European Portuguese by her Portuguese father, family, friends and all other inter-
locutors.
This method proved to be quite fruitful in the first two and a half years of
Martas life when she was in her mothers care. At 2;06 the child joined a Portu-
guese private kindergarten. At that time her possibilities of verbal interaction in
Polish started to decrease, while the diversity of interaction possibilities in Portu-
guese experienced a remarkable growth. Due to sociolinguistic reasons of the en-
riched Portuguese environment and the growth of differentiated Portuguese lan-
guage interactions with teachers and new friends, Martas mother felt she could
324
not control the input as initially desired and had to give up in part the adopted
method, starting to use Portuguese while addressing her daughter in monolingual
Portuguese group interactions. Thus the presence of the Polish input, non-bal-
anced from the very beginning and practically restricted to the mothers language
source, started to decrease dramatially, becoming partly substituted by mixed bi-
lingual input. This tendency has been continuing ever since with some ups and
downs in Martas language development, receiving some imbalanced Polish input
from her mother. Some other Polish language contacts contributed to the situa-
tion: since she was age 1;0 Marta started to receive alternate visits of her Polish
grandparents every two/three years, and at age 5;4 she made her first monthly trip
to Poland, after which she visited her Polish family regularly, every two years.
Martas language data prove that she can be considered a balanced Polish-
Portuguese bilingual until the age of 2;6, when she began to lose her balanced
capacities.
At age 5;0 she was considered a non-balanced bilingual dominant in Portu-
guese, and eventually a Portuguese monolingual with some (uneven) command of
Polish (cf. Batoro 1989, 1991, 1998)
3.2. Mixed period in bilingual development
A great number of studies of bilingual acquisition confront and discuss the
problem of the existence of one or two linguistic systems:
Studies in bilingual acquisition have been dominated by the question
of whether children acquiring two languages simultaneously start out with
one linguistic system that later develops in two, or whether they have two
systems from the very beginning. Klausen, Subritzky and Hayashi (1993:
63) label these the one-system-model and the two-system-model respec-
tively. De Houwer (1995: 231-5) provides an overview of the one-system
model and its critics, but also asks whether it is appropriate to raise this
question in relation to developing bilinguals under the age of 2 years.
(Deuchar and Quay 2000: 111).
Our data show that being definitely decisive in the process of her bilingual
acquisition the first four years of Martas life can be considered in terms of a three-
stage developmental sequence (cf. Batoro 1998). The first part of the sequence
can be seen as a mixed period in language acquisition, subdivided subsequently in
stages 1 and 2, and followed by a post-mixed period (stage 3), as some examples of
language production illustrate below, in sections 3.3 and 3.4.
325
The 1st stage (age 0 2;2) can be considered a one language system when the
child language production cannot be classified as either Portuguese or Polish, but
rather as a Luso-Polish language, with some mixed utterances and mixed word
forms made up of both Portuguese and Polish morphemes.
The 2nd stage (age 2;2 3;6) can be considered a transitory period, when a
progressive bifurcation of one mixed language system, i.e., the Luso-Polish lan-
guage, into two separate languages (Polish and Portuguese) takes place. At 2;2
there begins a self-code-switching phenomenon, when the child produces utter-
ances in one language and repeats them immediately in the other without mixing,
but juxtaposing them instead as if they were some self-translation products. Then,
at age 2;4, the earliest systemic code switching appears as a function of the Partic-
ipant Variable. As the mixed constructions are still used and the separation of the
two systems is in progress, the utterances that are effectively produced belong to
three (rather than two) types: Portuguese, Polish and mixed Luso-Polish.
The 3rd stage (after age 3;6) corresponds to the post-mixed period in language
acquisition. That is when a new type of translation in a given Language Setting
arises as a function of the well defined Addressee variable while self-translation
ceases. Although metalinguistic awareness can be detected from the very early age
of language production, a marked growth of metalinguistic awareness becomes
overt in this period with code-switching as a function of the categories Participant,
Topic and Setting
In order to illustrate the three-stage developmental sequence we shall focus
on two mixed language categories: verbs (section 3.3) and nouns (section 3.4.). In
the mixed examples presented below, their Polish morphemes are marked in bold
and the Portuguese ones are marked in italics.
3.3. Mixing verbs
In the mixed period, the child uses mixed Polish-Portuguese utterances in which
individual verbs and verb periphrastic constructions show up as constructs of mixed
lexical and grammatical morphemes of the two languages to which the child is
exposed (see examples 1, 2 and 3 below):
326
Example 1a (at 2;2)
deixa (a) pani trabalhar
let (the) woman work
= Let the woman work.
Example 1b (at 2;4)
deixa p(rz)ytuli(c)
let (me) be hugged
= Give me a hug.
Example 2 (at 2;3)
vamos dmuchar
lets blow (the nose)
= We shall blow the nose.
Example 3a (at 3;2)
moze lavac glowe?
may (she=I) wash (her) head?
= May/ can I wash my hair?
Example 3b (at 3;2)
j umylas glowe?
already have you washed (your) head?
= Have you already washed your hair?
Even if the initially observed framework may seem to be, broadly speaking,
that of Portuguese morphosyntax and Polish lexicon, examples 1 and 2 show that
the linguistic choice in the mixed construction is not linear at all. In example 1, at
the same age and in the same sort of periphrastic Portuguese structure let sb. +
Infinitive, Marta uses either the Portuguese infinitive (example 1a) or the Polish
one (example 1b). In example 2, on the other hand, in a future two-verb construc-
tion, she chooses to form a Luso-Polish infinitive, made up of a Polish lexeme and
327
a Portuguese infinitive marker (see also example 3a). In examples 3a and 3b, at age
3;2, Marta shows that she can refer to the same event with mixed language materi-
al, processing the mixing activity in two different ways. In 3a, the whole utterance
seems to be Polish, with the Portuguese lexeme attached to the Portuguese infini-
tive marker. Nevertheless, the whole utterance is pragmatically Portuguese, as the
child uses the self-reference in the 3rd person singular, the form frequently used in
the standard European Portuguese child addressing system while unacceptable in
its Polish counterpart. In 3b, on the other hand, the whole utterance seems to be
Polish, yet its pastness is marked with an extra perfective Portuguese equivalent of
already. Thus the child may arguably tend to develop her mixed language making
it up with Polish lexicon and Portuguese grammar, but the evidence seems incon-
clusive.
3.4. Mixing nouns
As in the case of the verb constructions presented above, nouns are also pro-
duced by mixing the material of both languages. They are made up with Portu-
guese and Polish morphemes, although this process is less visible at the surface
level of the language material due to language dependent characteristics. Whereas
both languages have obligatory grammatical (inflectional) markers in the verb sys-
tem, providing transparent built up examples, with grammatical markers coming
from both systems, as observed above, in the case of the noun production we face a
grammatically rich system of case markers in Polish and no case marking in nouns
at all (marker 0) in contemporary European Portuguese (with the exception of the
fixed case marked personal pronoun system). This explains why the examined lan-
guage data display Polish noun lexemes used with (correct) case markers (exam-
ples 4b & 5a) next to (incorrect) usage of unmarked forms (examples 4a & 5b), as
if the grammatical system was Portuguese and the lexical material inserted in it
were of Polish origin, not allowing grammatical case marking (marker 0). The lin-
guistic material of noun mixing is illustrated below (examples 4 a & b and 5 a & b).
Example 4a (at 2;3)
chlebek com mas(l)o
bread with butter (Nom)
= Bread and butter.
328
Example 4b (at 3;0)
chlebek z maselkiem fechado
bread with butter (Instr) closed (= a sandwich)
= A sandwich of bread and butter.
Example 5a (at 2;2)
nie ma wagi
there is no balance (Gen.)
= There are no bathroom scales.
Example 5b (at 2;5)
Marta nie ma, mamusia, Marta nie ma.
Marta (Nom) is not here, Mummy, Marta (Nom) is not here.
= Marta is not here = you cannot find me
When compared with the language data from Martas Corpus, other data of
bilingual child acquisition in other languages, as in the case of the English/ Spanish
speaking child, reported on by Deuchar and Quay (2000), the visibility of morpho-
logical mixing seems much stronger in our case, probably due to language depend-
ent phenomena: rich overt case marking on Polish nouns and no case marking on
Portuguese ones. Nevertheless, bilingual child acquisition appears to follow the
same overall pattern of language development, with mixed and post-mixed stages,
regardless of the particular languages, even if they occur in some children earlier
than in others:
Thus we have seen that, in our data, utterances can be classified as
either English or Spanish by about age 1;11, on the basis of language spe-
cific morphology. We were then able to go and identify language specific
syntax, or two systems, in the utterances we analyzed from ages 1:11 to 2;3.
(Deuchar and Quay, 2000: 87).
4. Results of the early data examined twenty years later: Looking
back without anger
Twenty years after the language material presented above had been gathered
Marta is a maths graduate, working on her MA thesis in applied mathematics. She
329
can be considered a monolingual proficient Portuguese speaker with a fairly good
command of English and a rather good command of French, both learnt at school
and in language institutes, that is within a formal framework. Compared with these
languages, her command of Polish is probably the poorest. She still uses it in regu-
lar oral (informal) interaction with her mother, especially in those situations in
which it can be considered their private language. Martas Polish can be seen as
fully responsible for quite a good language contact with her Polish grandparents
and some other monolingual Poles. She has very good passive understanding of
spoken language, and some reading capacity (but no writing). Her active speaking
is quite good but her oral capacity improves significantly after some practical warm-
ing-up period in Polish environment.
Martas Polish has some idiosyncratic language characteristics such as, for ex-
ample, (i) practically no foreign accent (especially after embedding periods in
Polish monolingual community); (ii) poor formal pragmatic strategies, especially
as far as the very rigid formal addressing system in concerned; (iii) restricted active
lexicon (formal level); (iv) reduced case system (from six/seven obligatory cases of
contemporary Polish to three/four pragmatically motivated ones); for instance, she
totally ignores the obligatory (not motivated) Genitive in negative constructions;
(v) frequent code-switching (but rare code-mixing) in a bilingual environment.
5. Discussion and conclusions: Was it worth it?
Martas imbalanced exposure to Polish in the first years of her life and her
even more limited exposure to it in subsequent years seem to have determined the
way the early bilingual acquisition developed into non-balanced bilingualism that
eventually became replaced by predominant monolingualism with a command of
some other languages. Nevertheless, we accept that there are other possible rea-
sons for the loosening and possible loss of the bilingual condition, as suggested by
other authors:
It is sometimes assumed that language separation in the input is neces-
sary for developing bilinguals to differentiate between the two languages
to which they are exposed. In our study (...) language separation was ac-
cording to location and the presence or absence of monolingual English
speakers. However, it may not be necessary for the languages in the childs
environment to be separated in order for her to acquire the two languages.
(Deuchar and Quay, 2000: 114).
330
Even if the separation of the input languages is not a decisive factor in the
bilingual balanced development, the importance of the amount of input in each of
the languages seems evident. At this stage of the development it is also important
that the mixed period in language acquisition is only a phase through which early
bilinguals seem to pass, and which has no lasting effect on the future language
development of the child.
Nevertheless, we cannot forget that learning difficulties due to irregular lan-
guage contact and scarce linguistic input may, in some cases, lead a child, if not
properly accompanied, to the risk of semilingualism not just in his/her weaker lan-
guage but even in both of them.
In spite of some potential problems, the gains of bilingualism are greater than
the risks, both at individual and at global levels.
The way children build up their one language system in the mixed period and
the translating strategies they develop along this stage seem to give us sufficient
evidence for the high and early metalinguistic conscience and capacity they reveal.
Early linguistic awareness proves to be an unquestionable linguistic potential in
the childs linguistic make-up facilitating quicker access to other languages in his/
her life span.
Even though both dealing with identity questions and struggling against lin-
guistic difference in our predominantly monolingual society is never an easy task
for a child, bilingualism has the effect of enriching his/her individual and social
identity, as it gives access to linguistic and cultural heritage of both parents.
It also enriches the bilinguals social and emotional ties, enabling language
contact with grandparents, other relatives and friends, and more broadly speaking,
allows them to belong to different communities and live in different countries.
Having had access to bilingual acquisition the individual has an opportunity to
choose from a larger range of cultural and professional possibilities in the future,
as well as becoming aware of language plasticity, language relativity, language and
culture contact and language interdependence. And even more than that: there is
a global gain that enables potentially bilingual individuals (even if they do not fully
maintain their bilingual capacity beyond early childhood) to bridge the gaps be-
tween different languages, societies and cultures
331
References:
BATORO, Hanna J.
1989 A Categoria Lingustica Aspecto no Discurso Conversacional de uma Criana Bilingue aos Cin-
co Anos de Idade, Dissertao de Mestrado em Lingustica Portuguesa Descritiva, Faculdade de
Letras da Universidade de Lisboa.
1991 Crescer Com Duas Lnguas: Aquisio da Linguagem por uma Criana Luso-Polaca at aos
Cinco Anos de Idade, ms.
1998 Some Morphosyntactic Phenomena in the Mixed Period of Language Acquisition in a Polish-
Portuguese Bilingual Child: Acquisition od Case Marquers, Psychology of Language and Com-
munication, Vol. 2, n 1, 63-73.
DE HOUVER, Annette
1990 The Acquisition of Two Languages from Birth: A Case Study, Cambridge: Cambridge Universi-
ty Press.
1995 Bilingual Language Acquisition in: P. Fletcher and B. MacWhinney (eds.), The Handbook
of Child language, Oxford: Blackwell, 219-250.
DEUCHAR, Margaret and Suzanne QUAY
2000 Bilingual Acquisition. Theoretical Implications of a Case Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2001.
FANTINI, A. E.
1985 Language Acquisition of a Bilingual Child: A Sociolinguistic Perspective (to Age Ten). Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
LANZA, Elizabeth
1997 Language Mixing in Infant Bilingualism: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
MEISEL, J. M. (ed.)
1994 Bilingual First Language Acquisition : French and German Grammatical Development. Amster-
dam: John Benjamins Publishing Co.
ROMAINE, Susan
1995 Bilingualism, 2
nd
edition, Oxford: Blackwell.
RONJAT, Jean
1913 Le Dvelppemment du langage observ chez un enfant bilingue, Paris: Librairie ancienne H.
Champion.
SAUNDERS, George
1982 Bilingual Children: Guidance for the Family, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
1988 Bilingual Children: From Birth to Teens, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
332
Gueorgui Hristovsky
Ernesto dAndrade
Why do Bulgarian and Portuguese unstressed
vowels behave almost in the same way?
*
1. Introduction
Vowel reduction (VR) is a familiar term to linguists, but actually it does not
refer to a single phonetic or phonological phenomenon. Traditionally, it has been
divided into two basic types: (i) purely phonetic vowel reduction a shift of vowel
quality, in unstressed position, from a peripheral to a more central acoustic space,
and a tendency for vowels to become perceptually less distinct without losing their
contrastive properties, or (ii), phonological vowel reduction (neutralization) loss
of some contrastive features in unstressed position.
But what to say about changes such as the shifts of unstressed /o/ to [a] (Belaru-
sian) or to [] (Russian)? These are neither typical examples of neutralization nor of
phonetic reduction although both are called vowel reduction in the literature.
Crosswhite (2000, 2001), working in the Optimality Theory framework (OT)
(Prince and Smolensky, 1993[2002]), proposes a new typology for the phonological
VR: (i) a contrast enhancement VR which targets the non-corner vowels, and (ii) a
prominence reduction VR which eliminates more sonorous vowels in unstressed
position. The first type serves as a basis for the explanation of the Belarusian and
Russian empirical facts. The second one makes it possible to explain cases like that
of Bulgarian and Catalan where /o/ changes to [u] via rising
1
. To explain the second
type of VR, Crosswhite (2000, 2001) adopts Prominence Alignment constraints, which
* We thank Hugh Denman for his useful comments and suggestions concerning the first written
version of our presentation. We are grateful to Amlia Andrade for valuable discussions that
affected the form and the content of the final version of this paper. The authors, alone, are re-
sponsible for errors that may still be found.
1
This typology makes it possible to solve what Crosswhite (2000, 2001) refers to as reduction
paradoxes.
333
are derived from the crossing of two phonetic prominence scales (Prince and Smo-
lensky 1993[2002]).
The aim of our study is to provide a phonological account of vowel neutraliza-
tion in European Portuguese (EP) and Western Bulgarian (WB), which, according
to Crosswhites typology, are prominence reduction type languages. Most of our
presentation is devoted to the EP analysis and is motivated by the need to review
the phonological status and the feature specification of [] a mid-high central
vowel of the schwa-like type, traditionally classified as [+high] and [+back]. We
argue that if we maintain the view that the EP schwa is a high and back vowel we
will encounter difficulties in expressing some generalizations, as well as technical
problems in the description of some constraint interactions. The first part of the
presentation is dedicated to WB. Crosswhite (2000) presents an analysis of Bulgar-
ian VR, but based on the Eastern Bulgarian (EB) dialects
2
. The main variety spo-
ken in Bulgaria is that of WB and the capital Sofia where /e/ does not reduce to [i].
Our concern here is mainly to explain the /e/ preservation in unstressed position.
The height/aperture dimension is described by the Clements & Humes (1995)
feature [open]. We take this step not only because the feature geometry model is
generally accepted to be superior to the previous models of feature organization,
but also because there is evidence from both languages which support the view that
the main articulator producing variations alongside the height/aperture dimension
is in fact the jaw and its degree of openness. Pettersson & Wood (1987) and Wood
& Pettersson (1988) present convincing arguments in their spectrographic and cin-
eradiographic studies that vowel reduction in Bulgarian is a question of not im-
plementing the open jaw position of /e, o, a/. Redenbarger (1981), based on Wood
(1975), proposes the feature low jaw in order to explain phenomena of vowel
height in Portuguese. These studies use Portuguese and Bulgarian data to argue
against Bells tongue arching model and the SPE
3
tongue body movement model
4
.
2
The sources for the Bulgarian data used by Crosswhite (2000, 2001) are mainly the studies of
Pettersson & Wood (1987) and Wood & Pettersson (1988) who take the option to describe the
symmetric rising of unstressed vowels observed in East Bulgarian as a general single process
(Pettersson & Wood, 1987: 268). Notice that actually this extreme VR described in the analysis
of Crosswhite is seldom applied by Bulgarian speakers particularity when the reduction of /e/ to [i]
is taken into account.
3
The Sound Pattern of English, (SPE). Chomsky, N., and Morris Halle (1968). Harper & Row, New
York.
4
Clements and Hume (1995: 299) also recognize the importance and the correctness of the Woods
model: these categories [discrete vowel categories as proposed by Stevens, 1972], as well as those
proposed by Wood (1982), are generally consistent with those that we have defined in terms of
[labial], [coronal], [dorsal] and [pharyngeal].
334
In the last few years it has been demonstrated that some distinctive features
are active in phonological processes although they appear as redundant by bearing
non-contrastive or non-marked values (see Archangeli & Pulleyblank, 1994, among
others). Following Clementss (2001) principle of Feature Activation, we will show
that some EP and WB redundant aperture features behave in this way.
2. Vowel Reduction in Western Bulgarian
2.1 Data
WB has six surface phonological vowels /i, e, , a, o, u/ (Cyrillic letters n, e,
, a, o, y). At the underlying level, like other Slavic languages, Bulgarian also has
the so-called abstract yer vowels, one front and the other one back, (which surface
as [e] and [], respectively), and the yat vowel, (realized as [e] or []), (cf. Hris-
tovsky, 2000); vocalized yers and all yat realizations undergo vowel reduction in the
same way as other vowels do, so we do not need to present here an additional
explanation for yers and yat reduction.
In (1) we give examples of Western Bulgarian vowels in stressed and unstressed
positions. The phonetic vowels in question are represented within square brackets.
(1) Stressed Position Unstressed Position Translations
on [] onr [u] valley /the valley
eno [] ena [e] work/works
rpa [] rpar [] city/the city
nynen [] nyna [u] moon (adj)/moon (noun)
nennnen [] nnna [i] innocent/fault
WB is used in the present study because it is the dialect spoken in Sofia, the capital
of Bulgaria. Grammarians consider it to be the most prestigious dialect and conse-
quently the orthoepic norm. It is worth mentioning one difference between WB and
EB: the underlying vowel /e/ is pronounced as [i] in the latter and as [e] in the former.
So, in EB [del] works would be pronounced by a typical EB speaker as [dil]. Given
that i-forms are heavily stigmatized, many EB speakers tend to avoid them.
In traditional phonetic and phonological studies, the stressed vowel is classi-
fied as a phoneme or a phonological segment and the correspondent segment in
unstressed position is seen as its allophonic variant:
335
Unstressed /a/ changes to [],
Unstressed /o/ changes to [u],
Unstressed /e, i, u/ do not change.
2.2 Representations
To describe vowel properties, we use the Feature Geometry model of Clem-
ents & Hume (1995). Hristovsky (2000) uses the Combinatorial Specification model
of Archangeli & Pulleyblank (1994) to describe Bulgarian vowels as follows:
(2) Underlying V-place and aperture features for the Bulgarian vowels:
/i/ [coronal], [-open
2
]
/e/ [coronal]
/u/ [labial], [-open
2
]
/o/ [labial]
// O vowel (underspecified for V-place and aperture)
/a/ [+open
1
]
5
However, we will use in this study a grammatical model Optimality Theory
within which phonological constraints may interact at the surface phonological lev-
el. This means that we need to posit surface representations which may differ from
the lexical ones. For this purpose, first let us refer to the scheme of representation-
al levels proposed in Clements (2001):
(3) lexical representation
underlying phonological representation
surface phonological representation
phonetic representation
6
5
For the linguists unfamiliar with the above models, the representations in (2) mean: /i/ has a vocal
constriction made by the tongue blade and is one of the less open vowels of this system; /u/ has a
vocal constriction made by the lips and the same degree of openness than /i/; // () does not have
place and aperture features and /a/ is the most open vowel; /e/ and /o/ have the same place as /i/
and /u/, respectively, but are neither open nor closed.
6
Clements (2001: 4) argues that these four levels represent a minimum for phonological descrip-
tion and that a more complete model of phonology and morphology would need further levels of
representation.
336
Now, in which cases will surface phonological representations differ from lex-
ical or phonological ones? Clementss (2001) answer is as follows: in all cases when
a given feature is active at the surface phonological level (cf. (4)).
(4) Activation Criterion:
In any language, redundant feature values are specified in all and only
the segments in which they are active.
A feature value is active in any segment or segment class which satisfies
a term in a constraint mentioning that feature. (Clements 2001: 17)
We assume that at the surface phonological level Bulgarian vowels maintain
the same features for constriction location ([coronal] and [labial]) as specified in
(2) but have full specifications (all features are active) for aperture (cf. (5)).
(5) Surface phonological representation for aperture:
[i, u] [, e, o] [a]
aperture aperture aperture
open: tier 1 +
tier 2 + +
2.3 Analysis
The prominence alignment approach to Vowel Reduction (Crosswhite 2000,
2001) takes into account the position (scale 1) and the absolute sonority of vowels
(scale 2):
Scale 1: Accentual prominence
Stressed
prom
> Unstressed
Scale 2: Vocalic prominence
a
prom
> E,
prom
> e, o
prom
> i, u
prom
>
337
(6) *Unstressed/a *Unstressed/e, o *Unstressed/i, u *Unstressed/
The alignment/markedness constraints in (6) are the result of crossing scale 1
with scale 2 where, for the present purposes, only unstressed position is considered
relevant. The constraint *Unstressed/a means the worst candidate for unstressed
position is [a]; *Unstressed/e, o means [e, o] are slightly better but are still bad
the last constraint says that [] is the best of the bad.
Constraint ranking for EB (Crosswhite 2000, 2001):
(7) Max[round], Max[+fron] *Unstressed/a *Unstressed/e, o *Unstressed/
i, u *Unstressed/ Max[-high]
In (8) we present Crosswhites explanation for the reduction of /e/ to [i] in EB.
The author uses traditional features like [round], [front] and [high].
(8) Reduction of /e/ in Eastern Bulgarian (Crosswhite 2000, 2001):
[sil]
[sel]
[sl]
[sal]
/sel/
villages
Max
[round]
Max
[front]
*Unstr-
a
*Unstr-
e,o
*Unstr-
i,u
*Unstr-
Max
[-high]
*!
*! *
*!
*
*
*
*
*
*
Our proposal for Western Bulgarian constraints and their ranking:
(9) Ident[labial], Ident[coronal] *Unstressed[+open
1
]
*Unstressed[+open
2
]&
7
[labial] Ident[open] *Unstressed[+open
2
]&[coronal]
*Unstressed[-open
2
]
8
7
The symbol & is used here to mean and; in OT it is used generally with the value & = Local
Conjunction of. Constraints.
8
For the linguists unfamiliar with the OT framework: the Ident constraints protect a given property
to survive at the phonetic level. For example, Ident[labial] says dont loose the labial property
of a vowel. The alignment/markedness constraints (those with *X) are constraints which point
out bad combinations. For instance, *Unstressed[+open
1
] means the most open vowels are bad
candidates for unstressed position. The symbol means dominates and allows us to establish
the ranking of constraints. For instance, Ident[coronal] dominates *Unstressed[+open] in the
338
For the sake of simplicity, in the tableaux that follow, we do not include con-
straints that do not interact (are not violated) and constraints which interact after a
fatal violation (*!) because their function is irrelevant for the final assessment. The
ranking of constraints is the same for all candidate evaluations.
(10) Preservation of /e/ in unstressed position:
sense that it states that to preserve the coronal property of a vowel is more important than to look
at the fact if a vowel is a bad candidate for unstressed position. The same happens in the ranking
of the alignment/markedness constraints *Unstressed[+open
1
] *Unstressed[+open
2
]
*Unstressed[-open
2
]. *Unstressed[+open
1
] dominates *Unstressed[+open
2
] which means it is
worse to be the most open vowel in unstressed position than to be the less open one, etc. Comma
(,) between two constraints means that they are unranked one to the other. And the symbol &
points out a conjunction of constraints, for example, *Unstressed[+open
2
]&[coronal] means the
combination of [+open
2
]&[coronal] is a bad combination to occur in unstressed position.
[dil]
[del]
[dl]
[dal]
[dol]
/del/
works
Ident
[coronal]
Ident
[open]
*Unstr-
[+open
2
]&[coronal]
*!
*!
*!
*!
*
(* = constrain violation; *! = fatal constraint violation; shading = any further violation is irrele-
vant for this candidate; F = the correct phonetic output; importance of constraints (ranking) =
from left to right)
In (10) one can see that the preservation of coronal in WB is essential and the
violation of Ident[coronal] eliminates at once three candidates. The winning candi-
date is [del] because it violates the lowest ranked constraint.
(11) Rising of /a/ in unstressed position:
[grd t]
[grud t]
[grod t]
[grad t]
/grad t/
the city
*Unstr-
[+open
1
]
*Unstr-
[+open
2
] & [labial]
Ident
[open]
*Unstr-
[-open
2
]
*!
*!
*
*
*!
339
In (11) we can see an interesting case where the winning candidate is deter-
mined at the second round, which is a possibility allowed in OT. The first two
forms violate Ident[open] but only [grudt] fatally violates the lowest ranked con-
straint *Unstr-[-open
2
].
(12) Rising of /o/ in unstressed position:
[dl t]
[dol t]
[dul t]
[dal t]
/dol t/
the city
Ident
[labial]
*Unstr-
[+open
2
] & [labial]
*Unstr-
[-open
2
]
*!
*!
*!
*
In (12) we show the rising of /o/ to [u], due to the [+open] value of the o-
candidate.
(13) Preservation of /i/ in unstressed position:
[vin]
[ven]
[vn]
/vin/
fault
Ident
[coronal]
Ident
[open]
*Unstr-
[-open
2
]
*!
*!
*!
(14) Preservation of /u/ in unstressed position:
[lun]
[lon]
[ln]
/lun/
moon
Ident
[lab]
*Unstr-
[+open
2
] & [labial]
*Unstr-
[-open
2
]
*!
*!
*
In (13) and (14) /i/ and /u/ do not shift because they are [-open
2
] and the
constraint *Unstr-[-open
2
] is the lowest ranked, i. e. its violation is irrelevant.
340
3. Vowel Reduction in European Portuguese
3.1. Data
It is consensual between linguists that European Portuguese has a system of
seven phonological vowels: /i, e, E/ palatal, /a/ central and /u, o, / rounded
9
. In
general, three degrees of height have been proposed for this system in the litera-
ture: /i, u/- high, /e, o / mid, and /E, a, / low (cf., e. g., Mateus & Andrade
(2000)). Phonetically, /a/ is lower than any other vowel so that one may consider
the existence of four degrees of vowel height in this language. However, from a
structural point of view, we may claim that three degrees of height are sufficient to
describe the Portuguese vowel system.
The phonetic EP vowel system also includes [, ] and a set of five nasalized
vowels [I ) , e , , o) , u)]. All phonological or phonetic vowels except [] may occur in
stressed position. Nasalized vowels in unstressed position do not undergo vowel
reduction although low nasalized vowels are raised by independent conditioning
into mid ones
10
.
The following examples of morphologically related words from Mateus &
Andrade (2000: 135) illustrate the VR in EP, for front vowels (a) and back vowels
(b):
(15) a. dedo [] dedada [] finger/fingerprint
bater [] bate [] to beat/you beat
festa [E@] festejo [] party/festivity
mel [E@] melado [] honey/sweetened with honey
fita [] fitinha [i] band/small band
b. fogo [] fogueira [u] fire/fireplace
porta [@] porteira [u] door/doorkeeper
furo [] furado [u] hole/pierced
gato [] gatinho [] cat/pussy
virar [] vira [] to turn/you turn
9
See Morais Barbosa (1965) for a structuralist view and subsequently for a different vowel counting.
10
As a matter of fact, there is a low nasalized vowel in EP, []. This vowel may appear as the result of
the fusion of the sequence [) ], as in a Antnia, which is pronounced [].
341
Unstressed /e, E/ change to [],
Unstressed /o, / change to [u],
Unstressed /a/ changes to [],
Unstressed /i, u/ remain unchanged.
Mateus & Andrade (2000: 135)
3.2 Representations
Let us start with the vowel []. It is a schwa or schwa-like vowel. Phonological-
ly, it exhibits the properties of a neutral or default vowel, it is never stressed, it is
the main epenthetic vowel, it is the most frequently deleted vowel, and it is the
result of the /E, e/ neutralization.
We assume that [] is underspecified for V-place and that it has not a full set of
aperture features. Bearing the specification [-open
1
], [] is thus identical to high
and mid vowels on the [open
1
] tier but distinct from them on the [open
2
] tier be-
cause the former are [-open
2
] and the latter are [+open
2
] (cf. (16)).
/i, e, E/ are [coronal], /u, o, / are [labial] and /, a/ are [dorsal].
We assume that two aperture tiers are necessary and sufficient for the descrip-
tion of three vocalic heights and all phonological contrasts in EP.
(16) Surface phonological representations for aperture:
[i, u] [] [e, o, ] [E, a, ]
aperture aperture aperture aperture
open: tier 1 +
tier 2 + +
3.3 Analysis
The Hierarchy of constraints we propose for EP VR is as follows:
(17) Ident[labial], Ident[dorsal] *Unstressed[+open
1
] *Unstressed[+open
2
]
Ident[open] *Unstressed[-open
2
] Ident[coronal]
342
(18) Preservation of /i/ in unstressed position:
The feature [coronal] survives in [i] of [vizi@u] because [] is penalized by
Ident[open], for [] differs in height value from the input vowel.
Notice that the form [vzi@ u] exists in EP but its first vowel is an effect of an
independent dissimilatory process. Generally unstressed /i/ does not change to [].
(19) Centralization of /e/ in unstressed position:
The vowel /e/ is penalized by *Unstressed[+open
2
]. The i-candidate fatally
violates *Unstressed[-open
2
]. /e/ looses [coronal] and becomes schwa because of
the low ranking of Ident[coronal] (remember the ranking in (17)).
(20) Centralization of /E/ in unstressed position:
[didd]
[dedd]
[dEdd]
[ddd]
[ddd]
[dadd]
/dedd/
fingerprint
*Unstr
[+open
1
]
*Unstr
[+open
2
]
Ident
[open]
*Unstr
[-open
2
]
*!
*!
*!
*!
*
*
!*
[mEldu]
[mildu]
[meldu]
[mldu]
[mldu]
[maldu]
/mEldu/
s. w. honey
*Unstr
[+open
1
]
*Unstr
[+open
2
]
Ident
[open]
*Unstr
[-open
2
]
*!
*!
*!
*!
*
*
!*
[vizu]
[vezu]
[vEzu]
[vzu]
[vzu]
[vazu]
/vizu /
neighbour
*Unstr
[+open
1
]
*Unstr
[+open
2
]
Ident
[open]
*Unstr
[-open
2
]
*!
*!
*!
*!
*!
*
343
The vowel /E/ is penalized by *Unstressed[+open] constraints. The i-candi-
date fatally violates *Unstressed[-open
2
] and /E/ looses [coronal] and becomes schwa
because of the low ranking of Ident[coronal] as in the case of /e/.
(21) Rising of /a/ in unstressed position:
[dorsal] is a strong feature in EP, so non dorsal candidates are all penalized.
The candidate [gatu] is penalized by *Unstr[+open
1
].
(22) Rising of /o/ in unstressed position:
(23) Rising of // in unstressed position:
[fog jr]
[fg jr]
[fug jr]
[fg jr]
[fg jr]
[fag jr]
Ident
[open]
/fog jr/
fireplace
Ident
[labial]
*Unstr
[+open
1
]
*Unstr
[+open
2
]
*!
*!
*!
*!
*!
*
[gatu]
[gtu]
[gtu]
[gutu]
[gotu]
[gtu]
[gitu]
[getu]
[gEtu]
*Unstr
[+open
2
]
/gatu/
little cat
Ident
[dorsal]
*Unstr
[+open
1
]
*!
*!
*!
*!
*!
*!
*!
*!
*
[port]
[prt]
[purt]
[prt]
[prt]
[part]
Ident
[open]
/prt/
little door
Ident
[labial]
*Unstr
[+open
1
]
*Unstr
[+open
2
]
*!
*!
*!
*!
*!
*
344
(24) Preservation of /u/ in unstressed position:
Ident
[open]
/pulr/
to jump
Ident
[labial]
*Unstr
[+open
1
]
*Unstr
[+open
2
]
*!
*!
*!
*!
*!
* [pulr]
[polr]
[plr]
[plr]
[pilr]
[plr]
From the evaluations presented in tableaux (22), (23) and (24), we can see that
[labial] is also a strong feature in EP. Ident[labial] penalizes all non labial candi-
dates. On the other hand, *Unstr[+open] constraints penalize forms with [o] or []
because, as stated before, these constraints do not tolerate open vowels.
Notice, that the ranking Ident[open] *Unstr[-open
2
] prevents the lowering
or centralization of high vowels so that /u, i/ preserve their original aperture.
4. Concluding remarks
With Feature Geometry features and Feature Activation we can easily express
combination between features or between features and positions, and make possi-
ble for lexically or phonologically redundant features to take part in the constraint
interaction.
If empirical data and future research require it, one may translate FG features
to, for example, an acoustic, and auditory or other articulatory ones.
In an OT framework it was possible to determine which features are strong
and which ones are weak; for instance, [coronal] is a weak feature in EP and it is
strong in WB: coronal vowels are decoronalized when reduced in EP, but not in
WB; [dorsal] plays no phonological role in WB but it is active in PE; [labial] be-
haves the same way in both languages it is strong since it preserves its underlying
value.
PE and WB have in common the fact that they have the same set and the same
ranking of constraints concerning aperture, penalizing more open (mid and low,
more sonorous) vowels in unstressed position. Both languages show some differ-
ences in the ranking of place constraints but nevertheless they belong to the prom-
inence reduction type.
345
Bibliography:
1. Bates, S. A. (1995). Acoustic Characterisation of Schwa: a Comparative Study. In Proceedings
of the XIIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Vol. 3: 230-233.
2. Browman, C. and Goldstein, L. (1992). Targetless schwa: An articulatory analysis In Docherty
e Ladd (eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology, II: Gesture, Segment, Prosody. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press. 26-67.
3. Clements, G. N. (2001). The Representational Economy in Constraint-Based Phonology. In T.
Alan Hall (ed.), Distinctive Feature Theory. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
4. Clements, G. N. and Hume, E. (1995). The internal organization of speech sounds. In J. Gold-
smith (ed), The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Cambridge USA/Oxford UK: Blackwell.
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7. Hristovsky, G. (in press). Ocorrncia Mltipla de Traos e a Conjuno Local de Restries:
dados do Blgaro. In Actas do XX Encontro Nacional da APL. Lisboa: APL.
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sity.
9. Mateus, M. H. e Andrade, E. d (2000). The Phonology of Portuguese. Oxford: OUP.
10. Pettersson, T. e Wood, S. (1987). Vowel reduction in Bulgarian and its implications for theories
of vowel production: a review of the problem. In Folia Linguistica XXI/2-4: 261-279.
11. Prince, A, and Smolensky, P. (1993), [2002]. Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Gen-
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12. Redenbarger, W. (1981). Articulator Features and Portuguese Vowel Height. Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts: Harvard University.
13. Steriade, D. (1995). Underspecification and Markedness. In J. Goldsmith (ed), The Handbook
of Phonological Theory. Cambridge USA/Oxford UK: Blackwell.
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tion, 14(2):143-162.
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experiments. Folia Linguistica XXII/3-4: 239-262.

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