1.1: Our Mythical Childhood
Why is a quote from Aeschylus’ tragedy the motto of the last volume of Harry Potter’s adventures? What connects Fernando the bull with Virgil’s poetry and the efforts to promote peace after World War II? Why did Tytus, Romek and A’Tomek travel to ancient Athens? Asking such questions leads to an important research problem – the role of antiquity in shaping the identity of young people through the phenomenon of the reception of Greek and Roman heritage in children’s and youth culture. Research in this area is conducted by an international, interdisciplinary team of scholars as part of the Our Mythical Childhood programme.
The Our Mythical Childhood programme was initiated in 2011 by Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak, who in the following years received the Loeb Classical Library Foundation Grant, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Alumni Award for Innovative Networking Initiatives, support from the Artes Liberales Institute Foundation, and the first Consolidator Grant in the humanities in Poland from the European Research Council (ERC).
The conception of the programme is to approach the ancient tradition as a living cultural experience which is subject to creative change. The scope of the programme goes beyond the Western European perspective. Studies on culture for young audiences require the inclusion of the most distant regions, which is why researchers from all over the world participate in the programme – from the United States to Cameroon to Australia and New Zealand. The importance of regional contexts in research was demonstrated by pioneering study on Old Polish culture, conducted under the supervision of Prof. Jerzy Axer at the Centre for Research on Ancient Tradition (OBTA), which he founded in 1991 (today a permanent unit of the Faculty, headed by Prof. Marciniak).
The programme has resulted in, among other things, the Our Mythical Childhood series published by Warsaw University Press and the Our Mythical Childhood Survey database, which contains over 1,500 entries created by approximately 380 researchers from 52 countries, with over 3.5 million user visits to date.
A special feature of the programme is the principle of testing and applying research results in cooperation with schools in educational, pro-social and therapeutic projects. The added value of the programme is the teaching materials based on scientific research, such as exercises for children on the autism spectrum or animations of Greek vases from the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw. Further activities in the field of education were made possible by an ERC Proof of Concept grant for the next stage of the programme – The Modern Argonauts.
The myth of Prometheus
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818) bears the subtitle A Modern Prometheus. In this way, the writer draws attention to the dangers inherent in scientific research. For us, the famous titans are primarily benefactors of humanity. The ancients, despite their great respect for Prometheus, were also aware of his other side: the one that Mary Shelley saw as she observed the rapid development of science in her time. By giving fire to humans, Prometheus commits an act of hubris and breaks Zeus’s order. He does not think about the consequences of his gift, which could bring destruction to the world if it is ill-used by humanity, say, to wage war. Doctor Victor Frankenstein crosses ethical boundaries by creating a being for which he does not take responsibility. Christopher Nolan followed in Shelley’s footsteps referring to the myth of the titan at the beginning of his Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer (2023). The ‘American Prometheus’, as the father of the atomic bomb was called, gave humanity a technology that could destroy the entire world. The code of mythology helps us understand this so that we can ensure a safe future.
FROM THE TOP. 1 Participants of the Our Mythical Hope conference, 2017 (photo: M. Kaźmierczak) 2 Matylda Tracewska, Our Mythical Childhood, 2013. Symbolic image of the programme 3 Steve K. Simons working on an animation of a Greek vase (photo: S. Nevin) 4 Participants of the Our Mythical History conference, 2019 (photo: R. Przybysz)