Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów w oczach przybyszów z Francji i Niemiec
Wilanów, 28-29 June 2013
Organized by Prof. Włodzimierz Zientara and Prof. Jarosław Dumanowski, Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika Toruń (UMK)
In cooperation with: Prof. Jan Borm, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ), Paweł Jaskanis, Muzeum Pałac w Wilanowie (Warsaw) and the research laboratory “Centre d’études des mondes moderne et contemporain” (CEMMC), Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux III
The conference is supported by the Programme for the development of the Humanities of the Polish Ministry for Science and Higher Education.
Polish-German relations in the early modern period were both constant and an evident phenomenon due to the fact that they were neighbouring cultures in continuous contact, especially in the border areas. A sharp rise of published travel accounts, however, guidebooks, dictionaries, phrasebooks and manuals, is to be noted in the 17th century. Travellers thus had access to effective tools for gaining knowledge about a foreign country and its culture. To contemporary scholars, these documents are precious in view of studying representations of otherness and stereotypes about foreign cultures.
In mid 17th century, as a result of Louise-Marie de Gonzague’s marriage to Władysław IV Wasa and her subsequent marriage to John Casimir II, a major French court developed in Warsaw constituting a cultural model (or anti-model) for Polish magnates and nobility, leading also to an intensification of Polish-French relations. French diplomats, travellers and military men discovering this country wrote down their observations, publishing accounts which were also read in translation and that became one of the principal sources of information on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in early modern Europe. These narratives were also used and translated into German by authors one would have expected to know more about the Commonwealth than their French counterparts.
The conference purports to discuss these French and German accounts in context : presenting types of authors and groups of readers, identifying and analysing common tropes and stereotypes, as well as opening new, multilateral perspectives of comparison in research.
The following questions in particular are going to be addressed:
- Who were the authors of narratives on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and how were the representations they created influenced by their own culture, identity and sensibility?
- In which way are French and German accounts inter-related and what are their common points?
- Who were the target readers and to what extent can we conceive of them as groups?
- What functions were assigned to these texts by authors and publishers? What horizon of expectation was the reader’s?
- How was the content chosen and then discussed? Did authors come back on their opinions in later times and which of their tropes became commonplace?
- Which new research perspectives does such a multilateral and comparative approach open?
If you have any questions concerning the conference and its programme please contact:
Anna Mikołajewska
Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika
Katedra Filologii Germańskiej
ul. Bojarskiego 1
PL 87-100 Toruń
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tel. +48 606 449 529
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