Henryk Sienkiewicz i chrześcijaństwo. Idee – obrazy – konteksty

Abstract

The book is the result of the Nationwide Academic Conference „Henryk Sienkiewicz and Christianity. Ideas – debates – contexts”, which was held on 24 September 2016 at the Łukasz Górnicki Podlasie Library in Białystok. The session was connected with the celebration of the Year of Henryk Sienkiewicz, announced by the Polish Senate in 2016. The book is divided into four chapters. The first part, entitled Citizen of the “Eternal City”, features articles discussing the similarities and differences in the approach to Christianity by young Warsaw positivists and Sienkiewicz (Anna Janicka), the image “Urbs Aeterna” based on the “Rome Trilogy” (Adrianna Adamek-Świechowska), the catechesis. of St. Peter in Quo Vadis (Edward Jakiel), the impact of the “Roman novels” of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski on Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis (Andrea F. De Carlo) and the libretto of the opera Dal “Quo Vadis” of 1901 (Barbara Szartog). The second chapter, Eastern inspiration and enlightenment, focuses on the “Ruthenian issue” in the works of Sienkiewicz. It tackles the issues of the ethics of forgiving as the basis of the Trilogy’s author’s attitude towards the Russians (Sylwia Karpowicz-Słowikowska), the issues of Orthodoxy in By Fire and Sword (Anna Kołbuk), the “religious” points of contact between the work of Sienkiewicz and Mikhail Bulhakov (Maciej Glover), and the “Ruthenian element” in 19th-century literary criticism (Tetiana Czuża). In the third chapter (Comparative literature) the reader will find an analysis, among others, of Sienkiewicz’s Letters from a journey described in binary “infernal – Edenic” terms (Paweł Wojciechowski), the fruit of research on the impact of Zygmunt Krasinski’s Irydion on Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis (Maciej Szargot), reflections on Sienkiewicz’s literary criticism activities (Łukasz Zabielski), considerations on the relationship of Tadeusz Miciński to the creator of the Trilogy (Jarosław Ławski) and an analysis of the protagonist of “Memoirs of Mariposa”, Putrament (Kazimierz Maciąg). The book with closes with a panel compiled and edited by Dr. Michał Siedlecki of the Research Department of the Łukasz Górnicki Podlasie Library in Białystok panel on the subject of The presence/ absence of Sienkiewicz?, which was conducted with the participants of the „Henryk Sienkiewicz and Christianity” conference in 2016. Speakers then included Prof. Tadeusz Bujnicki, Dr. Adrianna Adamek-Świechowska, Prof. Andrzej Stoff, Prof. Barbara Szargot, and Prof. Maciej Szargot. In discussion they were joined by invited guests, teachers and students from Białystok secondary schools: including Dr. Marta Białobrzeska, Elvira Tomczyk (MA), as well as representatives of the library: director Jolanta Gadek and Grzegorz Kowalski (MA) from the Podlasie Library. The theme of the panel discussion was the presence of the author of By Fire and Sword in contemporary Polish culture, the media, schools and other educational institutions. Attempts were made to find an answer to the question of whether Sienkiewicz (and what kind of „Sienkiewicz”?) operates in the Polish reality of the 21st century.