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THE LOST DIARY OF JULIUSZ SŁOWACKI
Juliusz Słowacki’s The Eastern Diary is a notebook where the poet made his notes and drawings on his tour of, as he called it, the Holy Land. This travel notebook is the major source with which to explore the Romanticist poet’s ten-month voyage to the East, which lasted from August 1836 to June 1837
The history of this particular document is no less fascinating than its author’s journey. Before 1939 the notebook was owned by the Krasiński Library in Warsaw. Manfred Kridl, a literary historian who described the notebook in 1925, later remarked that the album “perished in fire during the war [i.e.,WW2]”. Never seen since the war’s outbreak in 1939 and thought to have been lost forever, the raptularz was discovered eighty years afterwards in a Moscow library by Dr Henryk Głębocki.
The content of this notebook had been published only partly before the war broke out. Professor Kridl, who in 1925 described its autograph and used it as a main source in his edition of Słowacki’s digressive poem Podróż do Ziemi Świętej z Neapolu, merely mentioned the other texts contained therein. Other editors of Słowacki’s works tended to pull selected poems or journey notes from their original context.
For these reasons, finding the diary’s autograph was a momentous event for Polish cultural heritage; its importance to research on the poet’s output is really high. The discovery has offered a unique opportunity not only to scholars, as these travel notes enable all of us to see Słowacki is an unusual way: he reveals himself as a mysterious traveller watching in a Lebanese monastery the stellar constellations which we look at today as well.
The notebook comprises, among other things, the final draft of the poem Podróż do Ziemi Świętej z Neapolu [A Journey to the Holy Land from Naples], along a multitude of other texts – including poetic letters, outline plans of poetic pieces, notes, sketches, as well as watercolour paintings and drawings made by Słowacki. You can browse through the sheets of the Eastern Diary, with scholarly comments, in the MANUSCRIPT tab.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT IN SCHOLARLY TERMS
The present edition of the Eastern Diary was prepared between 2015 and 2019 as part of the National Science Centre grant 2014/15/B/HS2/01360:
Juliusz Słowacki’s rediscovered notebook of the journey to the East (raptularz) as a Romantic syncretic work and a literary and iconographic source for research on the 19th century history and culture
The. project sought to investigate the document and use it in an interdisciplinary manner as a multiple source – in the areas of history of literature, history, text edition and textology, as well as biography.
The finding of this manuscript has opened the potential for a new description of Słowacki’s journey to Greece and to the Middle East in political, artistic, existential, and moral contexts. The efforts have focused on issues related to Polish ‘Orientality’ and European Orientalism, or, the European dimension of Słowacki’s voyage. Lebanon and the Holy Land in the Romanticist poet’s works, viewed in the cultural context of his time, have been re-approached, among other issues.
The project in question has enabled to shed a new light on the poet’s spiritual breakthrough during his sojourn in Jerusalem. Moreover, its importance for our knowledge on Słowacki’s heyday-period works has proved fundamental.
Also the drawings attracted special attention. The readings of the texts whose autographs can be found in the Eastern Diary have been revisited. A major outcome of the team’s several-year effort is the textological edition of the retrieved text, with a complete critical apparatus and interpretative commentary, including a reconstruction of the diary’s history. Never before had this travel album been furnished with substantive comments, which is of particular importance when it comes to a document that richly alludes to diverse cultural areas.
The scholars’ insightful work has discovered a number of revelatory facts. For instance, attentive reading of the content of one of the sheets has determined that the very important poem Czyż dla ziemskiego tutaj wojownika has two more lines compared to the existing editions.
The outcome of the five years of our international team’s effort has been published in several volumes. To mention those of special relevance, dedicated volumes include a reproduction the manuscript, a set of transcriptions and transliterations, and a collection of studies by various authors.
The problems that altogether portray the Eastern Diary as a multidimensional document have been developed according to the standards of the fields represented by each respective scholar. For detailed facts on project participants, see the tab RESEARCH TEAM. For selected discussions of the extensive contexts and other relevant information, please refer to the STUDIES tab as well as the SŁOWACKI@EU blog, which deals with subjects more or less directly related to the journey.
FURTHER WORK ON THE DIARY
With all the reliable and comprehensible work so far completed, there is much left to be done. The existing results incite further/follow-up research. Hence, the pivotal function of the website as the space of exchange and contact and, in fact, a tool enabling such further work on the poet’s fascinating notebook and his voyage, as well as on his entire output.
The site is therefore meant to be a space where research scholars, teachers, students, and passionate lovers of Słowacki’s works are invited to use the reliable materials put at their disposal, present their achievements, share their knowledge, or make use of the opportunity to consult the circle of scholars involved.
The SŁOWACKI@EU blog, integrated in the site, is meant to popularise the relevant content (which is to be verified by our team of experts before getting published).
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Do not hesitate to contact us at: mariakalinowska@al.uw.edu.pl – Professor Maria Kalinowska, Project Manager; or, m.chilinska@al.uw.edu.pl – Milena Chilińska, PhD, Site Coordinator.
Hoping that the Słowacki diary will inspire your own studies and explorations (if not travel), we encourage you to get involved in this highly valued manuscript as well as in the related material provided on the site.
We wish you a fruitful reading!
