Dziewiętnastowieczne wydania polskich przekładów pism Świętej Teresy z Ávili

From the 1840’s to the end of the 19th century more than twenty editions of Polish translations of texts by Saint Teresa of Ávila, as well as the ones attributed to her, were released. It was attempted to popularise her works, information about her life and thought, as well as the cult of her, knowledge about Christian mysticism and the revival of religious life. Two important bibliographies presenting the reception of Teresa in Poland: one by Stefania Ciesielska-Borkowska (1939) and the other one by Benignus Wanat (1972) require complementing and corrections, which should find reflection in contemporary editions and catalogues. The paper presents all the editions of works by Teresa (fragments, all works, collections of works, as well as paraphrases), released in Polish in the 19th-century books and periodicals. It corrects the mistakes in bibliographical descriptions, which result from mistakes in the publications themselves, as well as errors in attribution. It refers to the authorship of anonymous translations and their undetermined bases, it characterises briefly the environments in which Saint Teresa’s works were translated and published. It presents the religious, literary, social and scientific purposes accompanying the texts by Teresa, as well as translation, editorial and ideological assumptions. It shows the editions of Saint Teresa’s texts in translations or paraphrases by: Sebastian Nucerin, Ignacy Hołowiński, Nina Łuszczewska, Eleonora Ziemięcka, Michał Bohusz Szyszko, Eleonora z Paprockich Szemiothowa, Zygmunt Krasiński, Lucjan Siemieński, Ignacy Domeyko, Karmela Wiktima od Jezusa (Amalia Zenopolska), Tadeusz Miciński, Henryk Piotr Kossowski, as well as anonymous translators.

Modernism, Mysticism and the Pursuit of Freedom - Bringing the initial instinct of the Modernists to its fulfilment in the model of the Christian mystic

While one can certainly debate about the forms Modernism (in the artistic sense) manifested itself in and what actually qualified as Modernism, one cannot deny that the desire for freedom was one of its underlying tenets. In the 21st century it would seem however that the desire for freedom has not been satiated. In the following essay I will explore whether emancipating art from a moral authority achieved the freedom modernist artists so deeply desired and I will question whether severing himself from objective truth the artist was allowed to fully thrive. Comparing Modernist concept’s (Stream of consciousness, that art should reflect reality and the emphasis on subjectivity etc.) with the fundamentals of Christian mysticism (i.e. the interior life) and by reconciling subjective experience with objective truth through the use of St John Paul II’s philosophical anthropology – I hope to pose an alternative path to satiate, truly satiate, the Modernist’s thirst for freedom.

Christian mystical experience in the panorama of transformations of non-classical ontologies of being-in-time

Trajectories of intersection and divergence between philosophical and religiously mystical versions of the ontology of being-in-time are studied in the article. It is concluded that the soul is constituted in qualitatively different time than “I”. If the soul is the junction of times, then “I” lives in the place of time breaking. The exit from time to eternity is preceded by the transformation of temporality by the junction of time in the modus of the present. In mystical traditions, such a transformation can be carried out in opposite directions: both the expansion of the present and the compression of the moment. A paradoxical roll-call is stated between the experience of the present in Christian mysticism and the theme of the present in non-classical philosophy. They agree that “I” can stay in the modus of the present not with his own efforts, but only in co-existence – joint existence. In Christian experience, this is the co-existence of synergy with God. In modern post-philosophy, God is replaced by the figure of the Other. Implications of such a substitution are being investigated. The uniqueness of the Christian version of the relation between time and eternity is seen in the provision on the gradation of qualitatively different times: both “timeless time” and “creature eternity”.