DOI Heft:
II. Ostatnie prace Jana Białostockiego
DOI Artikel:Artykuły
DOI Artikel:Białostocki, Jan: Matejko's "Wernyhora": a Slav prophet and bard
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19643#0188
If the master turned to this subject in the seventies, and if he later executed his large
picture in 1883—84, he must have been guided no doubt by some definite intention. The two
outstanding critics of Matejko have not paid any specific attention to this intention.
Mieczysław Treter believed — in 1939 — that, like another work painted in 1883, Sigismund I
listening to the Sigismund-Bell, Wernyhora "did not include any tendency or any didactic
idea" and it was only "a sincere plastic expression of that poetic mood which was typical for
Matejko, who was so much fascinated by the Polish past"5.
In 1953 the prominent literary critic and historian Kazimierz Wyka, who devoted a whole
book to the relationship between Matejko and Słowacki, agreed that "the idea for the picture
derives with great probability from Salomeą's Siher Dream and Beniowski, but" — he wrote
— "it is not possible to find any direct tracę of these works in Matejko's canvas, unles one
takes into account the very kind of artistic vision, pathos, and Romantic realism so
characteristic of Słowacki"6. Wyka did not develop the idea any further, he explained only
that Matejko took over from Słowacki the idea "of a popular peasant prophet, whose mission
it was to reconcile the two conflicting nations".
It is evident that Słowacki's works presented the best source of literary inspiration which
could have been used by Matejko. But they were not the only source. We have also
mentioned other writings in which the Ukrainian bard played a role. For Matejko — as for
many other Polish representatives of Romanticism — Wernyhora was more than just an
expression of a poetic mood and of "Romantic Realism" (if it is at all possible to combine
these two rather contradictory stylistic terms, as Wyka once tried to do). Wernyhora
represented the figurę of the popular folk-bard, several of whom appeared in Ukrainę and
Byelorussia. They were mostly blind; half beggars and half prophets they wandered through
the wide spaces of Eastern Europę, highly trusted and regarded with awe7. They were simple
people. Precisely such an image of Wernyhora had been drawn by Słowacki in Salomeą s
Siher Dream — in the words of Gruszczyńskie letter to Colonel (regimentarz) Stempowski,
with which he describes his visit to the "famous Wernyhora"8:
...But Lord — have pity! —
The old man on a solitary farm
Above which the oaks wave
Their golden sibylline leaves
Is not worthy the fame
Which had been spread by
Ukrainian songs and which
People in the country believe.
The farm of the Augur is far removed
From Triphonius'den, although even be
Close to the old mounds
Fuli of old lyres and jugs
184
picture in 1883—84, he must have been guided no doubt by some definite intention. The two
outstanding critics of Matejko have not paid any specific attention to this intention.
Mieczysław Treter believed — in 1939 — that, like another work painted in 1883, Sigismund I
listening to the Sigismund-Bell, Wernyhora "did not include any tendency or any didactic
idea" and it was only "a sincere plastic expression of that poetic mood which was typical for
Matejko, who was so much fascinated by the Polish past"5.
In 1953 the prominent literary critic and historian Kazimierz Wyka, who devoted a whole
book to the relationship between Matejko and Słowacki, agreed that "the idea for the picture
derives with great probability from Salomeą's Siher Dream and Beniowski, but" — he wrote
— "it is not possible to find any direct tracę of these works in Matejko's canvas, unles one
takes into account the very kind of artistic vision, pathos, and Romantic realism so
characteristic of Słowacki"6. Wyka did not develop the idea any further, he explained only
that Matejko took over from Słowacki the idea "of a popular peasant prophet, whose mission
it was to reconcile the two conflicting nations".
It is evident that Słowacki's works presented the best source of literary inspiration which
could have been used by Matejko. But they were not the only source. We have also
mentioned other writings in which the Ukrainian bard played a role. For Matejko — as for
many other Polish representatives of Romanticism — Wernyhora was more than just an
expression of a poetic mood and of "Romantic Realism" (if it is at all possible to combine
these two rather contradictory stylistic terms, as Wyka once tried to do). Wernyhora
represented the figurę of the popular folk-bard, several of whom appeared in Ukrainę and
Byelorussia. They were mostly blind; half beggars and half prophets they wandered through
the wide spaces of Eastern Europę, highly trusted and regarded with awe7. They were simple
people. Precisely such an image of Wernyhora had been drawn by Słowacki in Salomeą s
Siher Dream — in the words of Gruszczyńskie letter to Colonel (regimentarz) Stempowski,
with which he describes his visit to the "famous Wernyhora"8:
...But Lord — have pity! —
The old man on a solitary farm
Above which the oaks wave
Their golden sibylline leaves
Is not worthy the fame
Which had been spread by
Ukrainian songs and which
People in the country believe.
The farm of the Augur is far removed
From Triphonius'den, although even be
Close to the old mounds
Fuli of old lyres and jugs
184