[O bogach i wierzeniach dawnych Żmudzinów, Litwinów i Prusów. Jan Łasicki, Jan Sandecki-Maleck] : recenzija

EN'De diis Samagitarum caeterorumque Sarmatarum et falsorum Christianorum' by Jan Łasicki was published in Basel in 1615 by Jan Jakub Grasser. In 1823, Łasicki’s work was translated into Polish by Adam Rogalski and published in the first volume of 'Dziennik Wileński' (Vilnius Daily). Rogalski gave it the title ‘The Mythology of Jan Łasicki the Pole, On the Gods of the Samogitians and other Sarmatians’. Magdalena Wolf believes it would be better to call the work a Polish ‘adaptation’ rather than a ‘translation’. She justifies her position convincingly: ‘The term translation or interpretation is somewhat dubious, since the part of the original work containing a description of the cult of the Christian saints has been completely omitted. In many places, the translator has paraphrased rather than translated the text. There are also parts of the work that completely change the meaning of the original text. For example, Łasicki said that women were involved in raising cattle and men in cultivating fields and all activities related to flax processing (from carding to making clothes), while in Rogalski’s example the reader finds that this activity is attributed to women. There are more such mistakes, which makes the translation far from ideal’ (p. 11). These insights are important not only to translators, but to anyone interested in the ethnographic value of Łasicki’s work. A German edition of the work was published a little later, in the 19th century, by Wilhelm Mannhard: 'De diis Samagitarum libellus' (Lasicii Poloni 1868). [...]. [Extract, p. 170]