JAN ST. BYSTROŃ (Prof. Jagiellonian University)
HISTORY OF CUSTOMS IN OLD POLAND XVI-XVIII CENTURY
Published by Ksiegarnia Trzaska, Evert and Michalski. pp. 470 + 575, format 19 25.5 cm, numbered copies
In each volume more than 200 illustrations and 30 plates separately
HARDCOVER PUBLISHER'S PERIOD CLOTH BINDING, RICHLY DECORATED SPINES AND FACES, STAINED UPPER PAGE EDGES. CLIPPED PROTECTIVE CASES OF BOTH VOLUMES
"Here is a picture of old Polish life, which the author intended to be colorful and artistic. The reader will judge whether this is indeed the case, whether it is possible to resurrect on paper the vision of the past, its color and its aroma.
This past, so distant and irretrievable, how close and returning it can sometimes seem to us, despite the fact that so many things around have changed. We know a great deal about it; there has always been enough historical fondness among the broad masses of the Polish public and there was no shortage of materials. But the historical news was usually very one-sided; it concerned prominent personalities, more important political and especially wartime events, partly also the history of the political system, farm, church or education. But the gray and colorful mediocrity of the day, the quiet and hustle and bustle of village or city life, the minor sorrows and joys of family and social life, in a word, the everyday, common, immediate life, generated little interest. At first it was too familiar to become an object of curiosity, then it was considered quite secondary to the accidents of the great political chronicle. The imagination was aided by stories and memoirs of those who had still seen the old Republic, then by historical painting and the historical novel, which reproduced past life quite freely; only rarely did studies devoted to Old Polish customs appear, such as the antiquarian, laborious compilations of Lukasz Golębiowski from a hundred years ago, as well as the rich and patterned studies of Lozinski from thirty years ago.
Well, the task of this work is primarily to be an aid to the imagination; the material, from a variety of sources collected, is arranged in such a way as to enable the reader to have an artistic vision of the everyday life of old Poland. Let this past, dignified and lofty in textbooks and historical monographs, appear close to us, closer to our eyes and thoughts.
This volume is devoted to the description of population groups, or the old mental culture. It remains to develop the second part, which will cover social and technical culture.
The text is supplemented by illustrations, which are intended to work together to produce an artistic effect. The illustrative material is authentic, contemporary, partly taken from old engravings and drawings, and partly depicting monuments of the past; there is no reconstruction, no historical painting. Exceptionally, only slightly newer material, from the early 19th century, was used, as long as there was certainty that the subject of the illustration had not changed, and older engravings were missing." From the introduction to Vol. I.
BDB condition/ spines gently faded, NICE piece.
Rare in this state of preservation!
