Aleksander Chodźko – romantyk i uczony-orientalista

Abstract

Aleksander Chodźko was one of those Polish Romanticists whose life passions and scholarly biographies were profoundly shaped by the values and inspirations derived from their home universities. He was a graduate of the Vilnius faculty of literature and liberal arts, a member of the Filaret Association and a close friend of Adam Mickiewicz, an excellent Iranologist, a member of Royal British Asiatic Society, a professor of College de France, a founding member of the Parisian ` Societ´ e de linguistique, a Vice President of Soci ´ et´ e d’ethnographie and ´ a member-correspondent of the Polish Academy of Learning. The Vilnius lectures (especially those by Gotfryd Ernest Groddeck) and the romanticized atmosphere of academic associations evoked in Chodźko a deep interest in the culture of the Orient. Chodźko focused on Persian “folk” literature and was the first scholar in Europe to publish an anthology of this genre, which became widely acclaimed by contemporary academia. Chodźko nurtured national and international contacts with members of many scientific societies, institutions and authorities on the subject of the Orient of the time (such as members of the Royal Asiatic Society, l’Institut de France, Societ´ e Asiatique and ´ scholars of l’Ecole des langues orientale vivantes, and many others). ´ Aleksander Chodźko published his works with the most prestigious publishers on the subject of the Orient in the 19th century. His research conducted in Persia produced highly respected publications in both English and French languages, such as Specimens of the Popular Poetry of Persia; Le Ghilan ou Les marais Caspiens; innovative Grammaire de la langue persane, popular Drogman turc or the revelatory Theatre persan ´ . Untranslated into Polish until this day, these works were fundamental to European Iranology and still remain reissued and quoted. The Cracow Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) hosts a rich collection of Chodźko’s works with his personal dedications. The Jagiellonian Library is in turn in possession of the manuscripts of his letters to various recipients. The majority of source documents related to the life of this scholarly Romanticist can be found, however, in France.