DOI Heft:
Recenzje
DOI Artikel:Kurzej, Michał: Jeannie Łabno, "Commemorating the Polish Renaissance Child": [Rezension]; Ashgate, Farnham 2011
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32431#0194
188
2. Images of Hieronim, Zofia, and Małgorzata Modliszewski on the
family tombstone, church of St. Michael (presently a Cathedral) in
Łomża (photo: K. Blaschke)
difficult to say whcther her sphere of interest extended to
monuments located in the Lithuanian territory. Admittedly,
the opening chapter provides a description of the social and
political situation of Lithuania, while the catalogue contains
two monuments from Lithuania (tombstones of members
of the Radziwiłł family in Nesvizh [Polish: Nieśwież]), yet
on several occasions the author declares that she employed
only Polish examples (p. 13,153,154). Perhaps it is so due
to the fact that in her opinion the areas of the present day
Belarus were part of Poland, not Lithuania (pp. 153, 154,
footnotes 5, 251), or since she uses the word ‘Poland’ instead
of the term Commonwealth 4. The book also contains an
array of untrue information regarding the society of Poland
and its neighbours. Reading it, one may hnd out that before
Poland formally converted to Christianity, Judaism had
been the locał religion 5, whereas Ducal Prussia was estab-
lished already in 1466 (p. 419). The author also muses why
tombstone inscriptions in Silesia are in German if inha-
bitants of the province speak Silesian, only to be concluded
that the tombstone inscription had the status of an official
document, while German gained the status of the official
language in Silesia after the province had been annexed by
the Habsburgs (p. 163).
Yet it is the information presented by the author in rela-
tion to the topic of the allegedly unusual status of women
in the Polish society, in which the author sees the reasons for
the “exceptional” popularity of children’s tombstones in our
4 Such a possibility is indicated by the sentence on p. 3: “’Poland’
otherwise refers to a cultural realm that includes the Polish-Lith-
uanian Commonwealth and the adjacent territories, which were
both influenced by, and mediated, cultural patterns”.
5 “...Judaism, introduced in the ninth century, had a longer his-
tory than Christianity, to which Poland was formally converted
in ad 966...” (p. 31).
country, that is particularly bizarre. Labno (p. 142) quotes an
opinion of Bianka Pietrow-Ennker, according to whom the
Polish woman, “Matka Polka” (the term translated by the
author as “the holy mother of Poland”) was considered to
be the earthly successor of the Blessed Virgin Mary 6 7, which
in turn is related to the fact that the cult of Mary in Poland
is significantly more popular than in any other country,
including Italy (p. 53). The spurious nature of this thesis
would be best verified by comparing the situation in Poland
with that in other countries, however, the author did not
take the efforts to do so. Limiting such a comparison to but
a single example, it would be possible to find that whereas
in Bohemia and Moravia as many as 52 Loreto Chapels were
erected', in Poland only 22 such objects were constructed 8.
Perhaps this argument would not suffice to convince the
author who, as already mentioned, holds that in the 16 th
century these lands were part of Poland, yet the literature
on the subject easily supplies more in-depth analyses of the
sources of the cult of Mary in Europe 9. Numerous other
distortions which found its way to the pages of the work
subject to the present analysis also must be rectified. E.g. the
coronation of the painting of the Holy Mary of Częstochowa
in 1717 was not equivalent with the recognition of the Black
Madonna as the Queen of Poland (p. 142), the principle of
nobility’s equality by no means signified that in the Old
Połish society women enjoyed the same rights as men (p. 45,
46,140), while ius communicativum did not vest the wife
with the right to inherit her husband’s office (p. 49). Neither
is it true that families using the same coat of arms belonged
to a single clan and added the name of their coat of arms to
their surname to emphasise this community (p. 45).
The amount of untrue information included in the book
obviously refiects the quality of sources on which the author
based her knowledge. E.g. the exceptional nature of the
Polish cult of Mary was brought to her attention by Włodek
Kowalski of the University of Warsaw 10. She particularly fre-
6 “This readiness to accord recognition and respect to women is held
to be expressed most clearly in the image of matka Polka, the holy
mother of Poland: just as Mary - symbolized in the iconography
of Częstochowa - had been appointed to watch over the Polish
nation, so too women - as Mary’s successors on earth - were seen
as being entrusted with the task of caring for the smallest unit of
the nation, the family, and seeing to it that it had Christian values
instilled into it” (B. Pietrow-Ennker, Women in Polish society:
a historical introduction, [in:] Women in Polish society, ed. R. Jawor-
ski, B. Pietrow-Ennker, Boulder, New York 1992, p. 1).
7 J. Bukovsky, Loretdnske kaple v Ćechdch a na Morave, Praha 2000.
8 S. Michalczuk, Domek loretański w Gołębiu. Genezajego treści
ideowych i artystycznych, [in:] Treść dzieła sztuki, Warszawa 1969,
p. 153, footnote 2.
9 Cf. especially J. Royt, Obraz a kult v Ćechdch ly. a 18. stoleti, Praha
2011 pp. 222-248 (i st edition 1999); A. Coreth, Pietas Austriaca.
Osterreichische Frómmigkeit im Barock, Miinchen 1982, p. 45-72.
i° perhaps he is identical with Włodzimierz Kowalski, m.a., who
in 2007 worked as a Polish language lector at the holiday Polish
2. Images of Hieronim, Zofia, and Małgorzata Modliszewski on the
family tombstone, church of St. Michael (presently a Cathedral) in
Łomża (photo: K. Blaschke)
difficult to say whcther her sphere of interest extended to
monuments located in the Lithuanian territory. Admittedly,
the opening chapter provides a description of the social and
political situation of Lithuania, while the catalogue contains
two monuments from Lithuania (tombstones of members
of the Radziwiłł family in Nesvizh [Polish: Nieśwież]), yet
on several occasions the author declares that she employed
only Polish examples (p. 13,153,154). Perhaps it is so due
to the fact that in her opinion the areas of the present day
Belarus were part of Poland, not Lithuania (pp. 153, 154,
footnotes 5, 251), or since she uses the word ‘Poland’ instead
of the term Commonwealth 4. The book also contains an
array of untrue information regarding the society of Poland
and its neighbours. Reading it, one may hnd out that before
Poland formally converted to Christianity, Judaism had
been the locał religion 5, whereas Ducal Prussia was estab-
lished already in 1466 (p. 419). The author also muses why
tombstone inscriptions in Silesia are in German if inha-
bitants of the province speak Silesian, only to be concluded
that the tombstone inscription had the status of an official
document, while German gained the status of the official
language in Silesia after the province had been annexed by
the Habsburgs (p. 163).
Yet it is the information presented by the author in rela-
tion to the topic of the allegedly unusual status of women
in the Polish society, in which the author sees the reasons for
the “exceptional” popularity of children’s tombstones in our
4 Such a possibility is indicated by the sentence on p. 3: “’Poland’
otherwise refers to a cultural realm that includes the Polish-Lith-
uanian Commonwealth and the adjacent territories, which were
both influenced by, and mediated, cultural patterns”.
5 “...Judaism, introduced in the ninth century, had a longer his-
tory than Christianity, to which Poland was formally converted
in ad 966...” (p. 31).
country, that is particularly bizarre. Labno (p. 142) quotes an
opinion of Bianka Pietrow-Ennker, according to whom the
Polish woman, “Matka Polka” (the term translated by the
author as “the holy mother of Poland”) was considered to
be the earthly successor of the Blessed Virgin Mary 6 7, which
in turn is related to the fact that the cult of Mary in Poland
is significantly more popular than in any other country,
including Italy (p. 53). The spurious nature of this thesis
would be best verified by comparing the situation in Poland
with that in other countries, however, the author did not
take the efforts to do so. Limiting such a comparison to but
a single example, it would be possible to find that whereas
in Bohemia and Moravia as many as 52 Loreto Chapels were
erected', in Poland only 22 such objects were constructed 8.
Perhaps this argument would not suffice to convince the
author who, as already mentioned, holds that in the 16 th
century these lands were part of Poland, yet the literature
on the subject easily supplies more in-depth analyses of the
sources of the cult of Mary in Europe 9. Numerous other
distortions which found its way to the pages of the work
subject to the present analysis also must be rectified. E.g. the
coronation of the painting of the Holy Mary of Częstochowa
in 1717 was not equivalent with the recognition of the Black
Madonna as the Queen of Poland (p. 142), the principle of
nobility’s equality by no means signified that in the Old
Połish society women enjoyed the same rights as men (p. 45,
46,140), while ius communicativum did not vest the wife
with the right to inherit her husband’s office (p. 49). Neither
is it true that families using the same coat of arms belonged
to a single clan and added the name of their coat of arms to
their surname to emphasise this community (p. 45).
The amount of untrue information included in the book
obviously refiects the quality of sources on which the author
based her knowledge. E.g. the exceptional nature of the
Polish cult of Mary was brought to her attention by Włodek
Kowalski of the University of Warsaw 10. She particularly fre-
6 “This readiness to accord recognition and respect to women is held
to be expressed most clearly in the image of matka Polka, the holy
mother of Poland: just as Mary - symbolized in the iconography
of Częstochowa - had been appointed to watch over the Polish
nation, so too women - as Mary’s successors on earth - were seen
as being entrusted with the task of caring for the smallest unit of
the nation, the family, and seeing to it that it had Christian values
instilled into it” (B. Pietrow-Ennker, Women in Polish society:
a historical introduction, [in:] Women in Polish society, ed. R. Jawor-
ski, B. Pietrow-Ennker, Boulder, New York 1992, p. 1).
7 J. Bukovsky, Loretdnske kaple v Ćechdch a na Morave, Praha 2000.
8 S. Michalczuk, Domek loretański w Gołębiu. Genezajego treści
ideowych i artystycznych, [in:] Treść dzieła sztuki, Warszawa 1969,
p. 153, footnote 2.
9 Cf. especially J. Royt, Obraz a kult v Ćechdch ly. a 18. stoleti, Praha
2011 pp. 222-248 (i st edition 1999); A. Coreth, Pietas Austriaca.
Osterreichische Frómmigkeit im Barock, Miinchen 1982, p. 45-72.
i° perhaps he is identical with Włodzimierz Kowalski, m.a., who
in 2007 worked as a Polish language lector at the holiday Polish