sehepunkte 26 (2026), Nr. 1

Mirosława Hanusiewicz-Lavallee: The Call of Albion

Despite relying on a monograph published in Polish in 2017 [1], Mirosława Hanusiewicz-Lavallee's The Call of Albion is largely a revised work, since it not only provides additional information about the Polish-Lithuanian cultural milieu to English-speaking readers but also differs from the previous publication in terms of content and even interpretation. Although Polish-British cultural relations have recently become an object of scholarly interest, most research has focused on the second half of the eighteenth century, when Anglomania spread across Poland-Lithuania. [2] In this context, Hanusiewicz-Lavallee's monograph fills a glaring historiographical gap by investigating the Polish-British cultural exchange before the Enlightenment. In particular, the author focuses on the reception of literature from England, Wales and Scotland in Poland-Lithuania.

There are good reasons for limiting the scope of research to the Renaissance and Baroque (which, in Poland-Lithuania, lasted until the mid-eighteenth century). During most of the early modern period, religious conflicts and the long-lasting humanistic tradition fueled Polish curiosity about England and Scotland. Later, Anglomania was driven rather by the economic and political achievements of the expanding British Empire. Another reason for the chosen timeframe is that during the Renaissance and Baroque, translation work aimed more at bringing the text closer to the reader than the opposite, as would become the case during the Enlightenment.

Hanusiewicz-Lavallee mainly focuses on literary texts, particularly translations, which she situates within a broader intertextual framework. For a long time, literature historians have diminished this approach as it did not fit the idea of the originality of each national literature. Even more than authors, translators are the heroes of this book, thanks to their constant and often underrated work of imitation, adaptation, and transposition. Besides the analyzed literary texts, the author exploits other sources, like private correspondence, to reconstruct the relationship between writers, patrons, and publishers.

The first chapter deals with Cyprian Bazylik's translation of John Foxe's Rerum in ecclesia gestarum commentarii. Like Foxe's martyrology, Bazylik's Historyja o srogim prześladowaniu was conceived as a great book of martyrs from John Wycliffe to the mid-sixteenth century. However Bazylik, a court musician and poet, sought to forge a spiritual and emotional bond among his Polish Protestant readers. Thus, he was much less interested in the doctrinal debate within the English Reformation and dampened Foxe's epideictic tone.

Chapter 2 analyses the reception of English Catholic writings in sixteenth-century Poland-Lithuania. Initially, the author reconstructs the activity of Stanisław Hosius, bishop of Varmia, who not only established the first Polish Jesuit college in Braniewo but also was an advocate of English Catholics and a protector of Nicolas Sanders. Sander's posthumously published De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani served as one of the main sources of Piotr Skarga's Żywoty świętych, along with the writings of other English Catholic (and often Jesuit) emigres. According to Skarga's agenda, representations of English martyrdom had to suggest that Polish Catholics would face persecution if Protestants overtook power. English writings were also fundamental in controversial theology, particularly Thomas Stapleton's Promptuarium and Edmond Campion's Rationes decem, with the latter even being translated by Skarga.

The third chapter moves away from religious debates to delve into humanist culture. In particular, Hanusiewicz-Lavallee explores the influence of George Buchanan's poetry on Polish authors. Buchanan's paraphrases of psalms inspired Jan Kochanowski and Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński, while Jan Zawicki adapted the Scotsman's tragedy Iephthes sive votum. In the first case, Buchanan's biblical meditation reached a cross-confessional audience as both Kochanowski and Szarzyński were Roman Catholics. In the second, Zawicki changed the sense of Buchanan's tragedy. Instead of interpreting it as a Protestant manifesto against religious vows as Buchanan did, the Polish translator saw Jephte's figure as an allegory of the vicissitudes of Fortune.

The fourth chapter analyses the reception of John Barclay's writings in Poland-Lithuania. So far, Polish scholars have almost exclusively focused on Barclay's Icon animorum, whose unfavorable representation of the Commonwealth and its inhabitants prompted the reaction of Polish authors. Hanusiewicz-Lavallee expands the scope of research beyond Łukasz Opaliński's defense of Poland's reputation. Against the background of John's adventurous life, she also investigates Łukasz Górnicki's jr. translation of Paraenesis ad sectarios, and the various adaptations of Argenis, among others by Wacław Potocki. John's political views developed under the influence of his father William, a Catholic jurist and a supporter of absolute monarchy. In his eyes, Poland-Lithuania, with his monarchia mixta and religious pluralism, was the antithesis of a well-organized state. Argenis, a poetic romance about a mythical kingdom ruined by internal struggles and an excessively mild monarch, became very popular in the mid-seventeenth century as the Commonwealth plunged into a deep political and military crisis.

After Barclay, in chapter 5, Hanusiewicz-Lavallee turns to another humanist author, the Welshman John Owen, whose Latin epigrams inspired various Polish authors. Above all, Owen's reception was particularly pervasive in Jesuit circles, among which Owen found numerous imitators despite his apostasy. The fortunes of the Welsh epigrammatist as a school author lasted well into the eighteenth century.

Chapter 6 moves back to religious issues, focusing on two eighteenth-century translations of Sander's De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani: one anonymous from the Sandomierz College, and the other (in fact a compilation of various sources) by the Lithuanian Jesuit Jan Poszakowski, both published in 1748. The author convincingly argues that both works combined historical narrative with religious polemics, after the teaching of history had been introduced in Jesuit schools just prior. In this regard, Hanusiewicz-Lavallee reinterprets Poszakowski's work compared to her previous book, where she considered the Lithuanian Jesuit a "belated martyrologist" [3], devoting him the final part of the chapter about Catholic polemicists and apologists.

The seventh chapter explores the Polish reception of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress which was one of the first books in English vernacular translated into Polish to become Droga pielgrzymującego chrześcijanina. Published in Toruń in 1764, the Polish version preceded the various translations of English literary works that began to appear in the 1780s. Like other pious books from the Puritan milieu, The Pilgrim's Progress had a significant interdenominational potential and was eagerly read by German Pietists and their Polish associates. Polish translators of Bunyan's work not only extensively relied on its French (Huguenot) translation but also dampened the anticatholic tone of the original and distanced themselves from the democratization of English religious culture.

In conclusion, The Call of Albion is a highly valuable scholarly work, offering a deep insight into the meanders of early modern cultural exchange. In particular, it shows how this phenomenon changed between the sixteenth and the mid-eighteenth century, when French superseded Latin as the medium of knowledge transfer. By restoring translators to the place they deserve in the history of literature, Hanusiewicz-Lavallee answers a wider research question that underpins the entire book. She depicts the rise of Polish national consciousness through the representation of the other.

Notes:

[1] Mirosława Hanusiewicz-Lavallee: W stronę Albionu. Studia z dziejów polsko-brytyjskich związków literackich w dobie wczesnowożytnej, Lublin 2017.

[2] Richard Butterwick: Poland's Last King and English Culture: Stanisław August Poniatowski, 1732-1798, Oxford 1998.

[3] Hanusiewicz-Lavallee, 121.