2.1 Discovering Tradition. Understanding The Contemporary Times
How did the Hellenic and Roman concepts of culture and nature, virtue and state come into being? How did medieval theology, seeking unity between Jerusalem and Athens, organise relations between people, animals and the cosmos? How did Renaissance humanists create the languages of modern science, art, and philosophy? How did epistolary writing, theatre and monasteries function as laboratories of ideas in the modern era? Do the old concepts and relations between Poland and Ruthenia still shape contemporary disputes? These questions concern different eras, but they are linked by one subject: the process of the birth, continuation and transformation of European civilisation. A profound understanding of the past allows us to better see our everyday life.
The past is understood through the continuity and transformation of concepts, ideas, and practices which, constantly reinterpreted, continue to influence our understanding of the world. Therefore, we should investigate their sources and trace the conditions and consequences of their transformations. Since we perceive culture as an organic whole, we consider politics and science, philosophy and theology, literature and art, religious life and everyday bodily practices within a network of multilateral connections. For it is only their intertwining that reveals the process of shaping ideas about knowledge, truth, community, power, and the relationship between humans, nature, and sacrum.
An important aspect of our research is also the relationship between humans and the surrounding world. The concepts of nature, responsibility and the boundaries between the human and the non-human, which took shape in antiquity and the Middle Ages, are returning today in interdisciplinary research combining humanistic perspectives with the natural sciences. All this is aimed at finding common ground and describing the relationship between humans and animals.
Reflection on ancient culture focuses in particular on periods of tension and upheaval. The secrets of Renaissance reinterpretations of antiquity are illuminated by editions of sources such as Aratus and Kochanowski’s Phenomena. Religious conflicts caused by the Reformation and their impact on culture are examined through an analysis of Wujek’s Bible using modern philological methods and by looking at the consequences of the multidimensional activity of the Jesuits. An important area of reflection is also the changes in the understanding of the body and subjectivity, as well as other phenomena accompanying the birth of modern science.
Research into the past is not considered a reconstruction – like an open-air museum – of past forms of life and experience. As Renaissance humanists noted, human aspirations, conflicts and mechanisms of power recur in different eras. Therefore, knowledge of past solutions studied in their historical variability allows us to see more. The past does not provide ready-made recipes, but teaches us to recognise structures, tensions, and the outcomes of actions. It becomes a resource of experience for future generations, in which they can find paths to solving their own crises of identity, knowledge and community.
Conveying meaning, not words
The craftsmen of ancient Ephesus made their living by selling miniatures of one of the wonders of the world, the temple of the goddess Diana. Christian missionaries, as proponents of monotheism, threatened their livelihood (Acts 19:21-40). But why did the angry crowd drag Gaius and Aristarchus to… the theatre? Not to watch performances – spacious theatres were also places of public gatherings. In 16th-century Polish cities, there were no such facilities, but market squares served the same function. Therefore, in order to make the meaning of the event clear to Polish readers, in their translations of the Acts of the Apostles Marcin Czechowic and Jakub Wujek took the characters to the market square. Today, this method of translation — dynamic or functional — is considered an innovative solution to the problem of old translations, which are supposedly too literal and therefore incomprehensible. As we can see, innovations have a centuries-old tradition.
↑ Cepheus, illustration from the manuscript of Aratus’ astronomical poem kept in Leiden (source: Wikimedia Commons)
↓ FROM THE TOP. 1 The sign of Sagittarius, miniature from Cicero’s Aratea manuscript, mid-11th century, British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius B V, folio 37 (source: Wikimedia Commons) 2 Title page of Jakub Wujek’s Bible, one of the most important Polish translations of the Holy Scriptures, published in its entirety in 1599 (source: Wikimedia Commons)