2.2: Ancient Culture without Borders
Modern science developed in the 19th century as a system of precisely delineated disciplines. Yet, ancient culture did not recognise such divisions: text, image, philosophical thought, religious practice, and everyday experience coexisted in a single order of meaning. Research into ancient culture naturally requires crossing the boundaries between disciplines and allows us to view the past as an organic whole of life, experience, and thought.
The complexity of ancient culture means that its various manifestations are closely interrelated. Therefore, our research covers both manuscript and printed sources – treatises, letters, chronicles, sermons, and calendars – originating from various geographical areas, including what is now Spain, as well as visual and spatial forms, such as emblems, sculptures and architectural plans for gardens. The reflection focuses on phenomena at the intersection of literature and the visual arts, but also on evidence of rituals and bodily practices – liturgical forms, spectacles, and even fencing. An analysis of these different orders allows us to trace how cultural phenomena arose, spread and changed meaning in different social and institutional contexts.
Interdisciplinarity and a comparative perspective allow us to capture both the pan-European and local dimensions of the processes we study. In this approach, Polish culture appears as part of a broader cultural space, rooted in Latin and Byzantine traditions, to study it we take into account what is common and distinctive in relation to other cultures.
The study of ancient culture – polyphonic, heterogeneous, and full of internal tensions – requires knowledge and application of interdisciplinary research methods, allowing us to transcend stereotypes, anachronisms, and prejudices in the interpretation of past problems. This approach encourages viewing problems in a broad context, identifying their historical determinants, and reflecting on the language, concepts, and assumptions that organise interpretation. These skillstranslate into the practice of thinking about the contemporary world: they allow us to navigate diverse cultural, linguistic, and social contexts, as well as to move within our own culture, which is increasingly divided into separate, uncommunicative segments.
Was the culture of the First Polish Commonwealth merely a peripheral recipient of Western ideas?
Research on the circulation of ideas in the early modern era shows the opposite: the Polish Commonwealth was an active participant in European cultural exchange. An analysis of literary, aesthetic, political and religious values, conducted as part of the project The Culture of the First Commonwealth in Dialogue with Europe. Hermeneutics of Values, reveals two-way relationships in which cultural borderlands function not as peripheries, but as spaces for creative dialogue and reinterpretation. It was there that the forms of thinking that co-created the intellectual landscape of modern Europe took shape.
↑ Monographs, result of the project The Culture of the First Commonwealth in Dialogue with Europe. Hermeneutics of Values coordinated by the Faculty of “Artes Liberales”. The project was financed by the National Programme for the Development of Humanities.
↓ FROM THE TOP. 1 Duel with Swords, Jacques Callot, c. 1622, National Gallery of Art (NGA) 2 Engraving depicting the geographical state of the Iberian Peninsula at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries 3 Gardens of the Villa d’Este in the 16th century – aerial view, Étienne Dupérac, 1560–1575 (source: Wikimedia Commons) 4 Manuscripts – hand-copied and decorated books that formed a common space of ancient culture, connecting scriptoria, universities and courts in a supra-regional circulation of knowledge (source: pexels.com)