Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa

St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów in the Early Polish Literary and Intellectual Culture
This essay by Tadeusz Ulewicz (and its English translation by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa) presents a synthesis of the impact of the figure and legend of St Stanislaus on early Polish culture, particular the verbal and literary tradition. One of the principal patron saints of Poland, Stanislaus of Szczepanów, Bishop of Cracow, was killed by order of King Boleslaus the Bold in 1079 in a conflict involving a clash between the ecclesiastical and temporal power. Following the murder the King fled the country, while in 1254 the Bishop was canonised. His legend has exerted a strong and ubiquitous impact on Polish culture. This monographic outline begins with the linguistic evidence for St. Stanislaus’ influence. Not only did the originally aristocratic name Stanisław become one of the most popular male names, but it also generated a host of derivative patronymic surnames and place-names. St. Stanislaus also entered the Polish proverbs, especially those referring to the weather on his feast-day (May 8th).  The figure of this Saint appeared in the written culture at a very early stage. The historical events were recorded in the mediaeval chronicles: first in a laconic note in the early 12th-century anonymous chronicle (Kronika Galla Anonima) commissioned by the ruling Piast dynasty, just a few decades after the deed. A hundred years later came the next record, this time in a Church-inspired and thus more extensive passage decidedly more sympathetic to the Bishop, in the Chronicle by Master Vincentius  Kadłubek. By this time a local cult had already grown up in Cracow, and grew throughout the Middle Ages. St. Stanislaus soon became one of the main patrons of Poland, and Cracow developed into an important pilgrimage centre. His legend was enshrined in the mediaeval hagiographies: the Vita Maior and the Vita Minor, and it also came to be appended to local variants of the  Legenda Aurea. It made its way into foreign chronicles, like the one by Adam de Salimbene, as well. There were also hymns  and sequentiae about and to St. Stanislaus, the principal one being the anthem Gaude Mater Polonia, which is still sung on important occasions. By the late Middle Ages there was a stanza referring to St. Stanislaus and invoking his intercession for the people of Poland inserted into the earliest “national” (or in fact dynastic) anthem Bogurodzica. This fact shows that St. Stanislaus became a popular figure associated with the national patriotic tradition. He appeared in other types of religious writings, such as sermons and poetry, both in Latin and Polish. Significantly, during the Reformation he continued to receive literary attention in the works of Polish Protestants like Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski, and foreign political writers (e.g. Jean Bodin). He inspired the Tridentine celebrity Cardinal Hosius to name the Polish church and hospice he founded in Rome after St. Stanislaus. And his story also provided an interesting plot for the plays created and performed in the 17th- and 18th-century Jesuit schools and colleges, both in and beyond Poland. This was perhaps one of the chief ways in which the name was disseminated beyond Poland-Lithuania, apart, of course, from its spread  to those parts of the world where there were large communities of Polish immigrant (hence the St. Stanislaus’ Churches in the USA). This synthesis was originally compiled for an academic conference organised to mark the ninth centenary of St. Stanislaus’ martyrdom and held in Cracow in May 1978 by Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, Metropolitan Archbishop of Cracow – just five months before his appointment to the See of St. Peter in Rome.
The English version was originally published in the Italian journal Aevum in 1980, and a reprint appeared in Tadeusz Ulewicz's collective  volume  Studies on the Spiritual and Intellectual Culture of the Polish Middle Ages. Z kultury umysłowej polskiego średniowiecza. Kraków: Collegium Columbinum, 2003. pp. 279-299.

Tadeusz Ulewicz, Św. Kazimierz w polskiej kulturze umysłowo-literackiej. Conference paper later published in Studies in the Spiritual and Intellectual Culture of the Polish Middle Ages. Z kultury umysłowej polskiego średniowiecza. Kraków: Collegium Columbinum, 2003. pp. 279-299.  English translation by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa

St. Casimir, who died in 1484 at the age of just 25, was the second son of Casimir the Jagiellonian and his consort Elisabeth. His distinction not only among his ten siblings but also publicly in the then vast dominions of Poland-Lithuania was attracting literary tributes already in his short lifetime. It was to him (not the eldest of the royal offspring) that a local adaptation of Enea Silvio Piccolomini’s De institutione principis was dedicated around 1467. When he was just 10 this paragon of the princely virtues was publicly delivering a welcome address in Polish to his father, and in his early adolescence he was the one chosen out of the 5 princes for his father’s dynastic ambitions in Hungary. At 15, when the Lithuanians were beseeching his father to officially appoint an heir for the Grand Duchy, he showed no interest and seemed glad to decline in favour of a younger brother. Not only his tutor the historian Jan D³ugosz left enthusiastic commendations of him, but so did contemporary observers from abroad, like the Venetian envoy Ambrogio Contarini in 1474. His obituaries preserved in chronicles stress both his royal virtues and his sanctity. It is not surprising that his early legend – which no doubt contributed substantially both to the dissemination of the name Kazimierz among the people of Poland and Lithuania and also put it into the Polish folk proverbs –  continued to attract the literary attention of the humanists, notably the fugitive Filippo Buonaccorsi Callimacho, Rudolf Agricola the Younger, Clemens Janicius, and Andreas Cricius, and in the 1520’s, after beatification in 1501 was prompting a canonisation campaign involving literary contributions from foreign admirers like Zaccaria Ferreri of Vicenza. Unfortunately nothing came of these efforts due to the deaths of the promoter, Bishop Erazm Cio³ek, and Pope Leo X, and the loss of the documentation in the Sacco di Roma which followed in 1527. St. Casimir would not be canonised until 1604, but throughout the 16th century his cult grew, leaving literary records in the historiographers’ tributes, the dynastic panegyrics, and the religious works, especially hymns and homilies. The Court preacher Piotr Skarga held him up as a model of the Christian prince. Not surprisingly, the cult and its literary records developed in two centres: Cracow, but also Vilnius, where the saint’s mortal remains were interred in the Cathedral. St. Casimir is the principal patron saint of Lithuania. The figure and story of St. Casimir became a favourite subject for 17th-and 18th-century dramatic productions in the morality-play tradition, propagated especially in the theatres attached to the Jesuit schools, colleges and academies. Thanks to the Jesuits plays about St. Casimir travelled abroad, and were both published and performed in places like Ingolstadt. His character was extolled in the works of Poland’s Latin poet best-known abroad, Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (accorded a place of honour as the poems of “Casimire” in the textbooks of Latin poetry used in the English public schools in the 17th century). Having continued to flourish in the court literary events in Baroque and early Enlightenment times, not surprisingly the legend of St. Casimir made a substantial mark on the work of Polish writers, especially the Romantics, who lived in the times when Poland had lost its independence. The 19th-century émigré poet Józef Bohdan Zaleski, made a fine translation into Polish of the hymn Omni die dic Mariae, with which St. Casimir is associated and even, according to an old tradition, reputed to be its composer. Adam Mickiewicz put St. Casimir into both his poetic and prose works. Numerous other 19th-century Polish writers, clergymen and academics, and their successors on the country’s restoration to independence in the 20th century, made copious mention of St. Casimir in religious works, scholarship, patriotic writings, and fictionalised biography.

A short history of the work of a team of Polish doctors and psychiatrists who looked after hundreds of survivors of the Nazi German concentration camps, dispensing treatment and keeping a record of their scientific observations. Paper by Zdzisław J. Ryn, English translation by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa

The KZ-Syndrome (post traumatic disorder) as observed and treated in survivors of Nazi German concentration camps. The work of a team of Polish doctors and psychiatrists who treated hundreds of survivors and their children. Paper bt Zdzisław J. Ryn, English translation by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa

The aim of the Medical Review - Auschwitz Project is to make the 31 volumes of the scientific journal Medical Review - Auschwitz available
worldwide to internet users. The creators of this annual were Polish medical practitioners and psychiatrists who provided medical care for concentration camp survivors and published a record of their observations.

Three Old Polish Treatises on Education in the de Institutione Principum Tradition

An examination of the remarks on education in three Early Polish works (in Latin) on political issues, from Andreas Fricius Modrevius’ De Republica emendanda, Simon Maricius’ De Scholis seu Academiis, and Laurentius Goslicius’ De optimo Senatore, showing how the three authors made use of the traditional de institutione principis model to present their views on education.

In his treatise De Optimo Senatore (1568) Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki (Laurentius Grimalius Goslicius) wrote on the politico-constitutional order of Poland. The concept of freedom was an integral part of his deliberations, but his idea of freedom differed substantially from the concept of aurea libertas (golden freedom) espoused by the Polish szlachta. This paper shows that the Polish 16th-century concept of aurea libertas was not a homogenous view, generally accepted by all Polish political writers. Differences were significant and depended on the writer's political sympathies and affiliation. (Article in Polish)

The mission of Ambassador Paweł Działyński to Queen Elizabeth in the summer of 1597, conducted on behalf of Sigismund III, King of Poland, and the City of Gdańsk, is usually presented by scholars relying exclusively on English records as an embarrassment to Poland-Lithuania. However, the Polish point of view, expounded at length in the Ambassador’s account of the embassy, gives an entirely different picture and interpretation of the events, far more consistent with the practical outcome for relations between the two states in the following years. The full original manuscript of Mercurius Sarmaticus survives in a major Polish library, and copies are extant elsewhere in Europe. Of particular interest are Działyński’s observations on Elizabeth and the religious situation in her realm.  Mercurius Sarmaticus also throws light on the Isle of Dogs incident in the history of the Elizabethan theatre and may be regarded as a Shakespeare source. This article will provide an introduction to the manuscript source, a synopsis of its content, and English translations of selected passages

Zanim zasadzono Dąb Wolności, Uniwersytet Jagielloński wobec I wojny światowej. Katalog wystawy.  - Before the Liberty Oak was Planted. The Jagiellonian University and the First World War. - Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2008. Authors: S. Waltoś, K. Stopka, and U. Perkowska. English translation by T. Bałuk-Ulewiczowa

Languages in Symbiosis and Evolution: An Observation on an Interactive Mechanism in the Natural Development of Vernaculars, published in  Tradition and Postmodernity. English and American Studies and the Challenge of the Future. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on English and American Literature and Language (Papers on Language and Culture), Kraków, April 7-9, 1999. Ed. Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld, Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2000, p.135-150.

Languages in Contact and Conflict: Nazi Death Posters in the Generalgouvernement, 1943-4. In: Language and Identity. English and American Studies in the Age of Globalization. Volume 2: Language and Culture. Justyna Leśniewska and Ewa Witalisz (eds). Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2006, pp.347-363.

Published in The Legacy of the Holocaust: Women and the Holocaust ; eds. Z. Mazur, Jay T. Lees, Arnold Krammer, and Władysław Witalisz; Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2007.
Proceedings of the Conference of the same name held at the Jagiellonian University and on the site of the former German Auschwitz concentration camp, May 26-28, 2005.

Polski przekład listu dedykacyjnego Wawrzyńca Goślickiego do króla Zygmunta Augusta w De optimo Senatore (1568 r.). W: O Senatorze doskonałym studia.  Prace upamiętniające postać i twórczość Wawrzyńca Goślickiego pod redakcją Aleksandra Stępkowskiego (Warszawa 2007)

Polish translation of the opening part of Book One of Goslicius' De optimo Senatore (1568).
In O senatorze doskonałym studia. Prace upamiętniające postać i twórczość Wawrzyńca Goślickiego pod redakcja Aleksandra Stępkowskiego (Warszawa: Kancelaria Senatu, 2007) p.216-226

In over a century of Shakespeare scholarship sporadic attention has been devoted to the evident mentions of Poland in Hamlet. Since Sir Israel Gollancz’s observations in 1904–1916, the main focus has been on the character of Polonius. The other Polonica have been given intermittent, but rather inconclusive (and sometimes fantastic) explanations. The author presents a compact explanation of Fortinbras’ Polish expedition and its connection with historical events. Bałuk-Ulewiczowa has recently published her book announced at the first Brno Seminar, in which she addresses all the Polish issues in Hamlet comprehensively and with the use of Polish source materials

Published in Najstarsze przywileje Uniwersytetu Krakowskiego. The Oldest Charters of the University of Cracow. Kraków: Biuro Jubileuszowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2000. (Translation of documents from Latin into English and of the Introduction by Bożena Wyrozumska from Polish into English). ISBN 83-91228-2-9.

English translation for Joanna Daranowska-Łukaszewska's text for the photographic album Małopolska architektura drewniana. Lesser Polish Architecture in Wood. Olszanica: Bosz, 2005. Polish-English bilingual version (Introduction and Glossary of terms)

In: Informator Stowarzyszenia Żołnierzy Armii Krajowej Zarząd Główny w Krakowie. Kraków. 2003: 4 (88), pp. 7-14. Also in J. Rusek (ed.), O Mieczysławie Małeckim. Materiały z Sesji Naukowej Mieczyslaw Małecki. Człowiek uczciwy, organizator nauki UJ i PAU, 7-8 listopada 2003. Kraków: Instytut Filologii Słowiańskiej UJ, 2004. pp. 31-35.

English (amended) and Polish version of the same article (both published). See Polish version for illustrations. English version originally published as ‘Cross-Cultural Communication Breakdown: A 16th-Century Case Study.’  In: Cognition in Language. Volume in Honour of Professor Elżbieta Tabakowska. Eds. W. Chłopicki, A. Pawelec, and A. Pokojska. Kraków: Tertium, 2007. pp. 275-289.    Summary to the Poloish version: Dialogue Broken Off: The Role of Early Modern Latin as an Instrument Making Communication Difficult (or Impossible) between Jan Zamoyski and Jean Bodin in the Context of the Election of Henri de Valois to the Throne of Poland - Summary
The article describes Jean Bodin’s failure to empathise with the Polish political theory of the Mixed State presented by Jan Zamoyski in a speech during the official embassy sent from Poland to France to inform Henri de Valois that he had been elected to the throne of Poland-Lithuania. The fact that the two political theorists used the same Latin words to mean different concepts made an important contribution to the lack of empathy and, effectively, their failure to understand each other. They were speaking and thinking in two different, national versions of Latin, and the result was that, irrespectively of Bodin’s diplomatic motives for apology on behalf of Henri after the latter’s absconding from Poland – they actually failed to understand each other.  The episode illustrates a potentially much broader phenomenon of communication breakdown at the international level due to cultural barriers inherent in different meanings extant in national or regional versions of a world language, such as contemporary English. The present text is a revised version of an essay originally  published in English as “ Cross-Cultural Communication Breakdown: A 16th-Century Case Study” in the festschrift volume Cognition in Language. Volume in Honour of Professor Elżbieta Tabakowska

Translations of the poetry of Zbigniew Herbert have secured for him the place he deserves in the universalistic culture of world  literature. But despite the high quality of the translations an intrinsic element of his poetry eludes the pens of his gifted translators. The deepest layer of the message in this poetry – what life was like under Communism – constitutes an inherent untranslatability. The true value and virtue of Zbigniew Herbert’s poetry remains locked in the personal experience of his language, culture, and times.  - First published in ‘Zbigniew Herbert – klasyk nieprzekładalności.’ Arcana. Dwumiesięcznik. Kultura – Historie – Polityka 110 (2/2013). pp. 53-59.

Amid the turmoil the bell tolls of hope - translated by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa, first published in 'Stereotyp a nieprzekładalność bezwzględna.' In: Między oryginałem a przekładem VIII: Stereotyp a przekład. Eds.U. Kropiwiec, M. Filipowicz –Rudek, J. Konieczna-Twardzikowa. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka 2003, pp. 35-44.

Conference proceedings volume of the Medical Review Auschwitz - Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire International Conference, 2018. Polish texts translated by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa (Półtawska interview translated by Katarzyna Spiechlanin and Mikołaj Sekrecki)

Trilingual (Latin - Polish - English) bibliophile edition of Contra Saevam Pestem Regimen Acuratissimum by Matthias of Miechów (A Very Acurate Regimen against the Vicious Plague, editio princeps  Cracow, 1508). Ed. Zdzisław Gajda. Transcription and Polish Translation by Danuta Turkowska. English Translation by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa. Kraków: Jagiellonian University Medical College, 1995/

Two places in Poland called Kazimierz, in two photo albums by Bosz. Polish texts by Olgierd Budrewicz. English translation by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa. Photos by Piotr Witosławski (Kazimierz Dolny, 2003) and Janusz Leśniak (Kazimierz Krakowski, 2004)

Między Mykenami a Bałtykiem. Kultura Otomani-Füzesabony. Between Mycenae and the Baltic Sea: The Otomani-Füzesabony Culture. Exhibition catalogue, Poland and Slovakia, 2002. Texts by Jan Gancarski and Dárius Gašaj. Translators: Magdalena Jaworska - from Slovak into Polish; Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa - from Polish into English