LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Andriejus Mlodzianovskis; Juozapatas Kuncevičius; Kankiniai; Unitai; Barokas; Hagiografija; Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė (LDK; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL); Andrzej Mlodzianowski; Jozaphat Kuntsevych; Unitarian church; Martyrs; Baroque; Hagiography.
ENThe subject of research of the book is an extraordinary work illustrating the life of the martyr of the Unitarian church, the Beatified Josaphat Kuntsevych, titled leones symbolicae vitae et mortis B. Iosaphat martyris archiepiscopi Polocensis, expressae et Perillustri Domino, D. Georgio Stanislao SapiehaI,] palatinidae Polocensi[,] capitaneo Borisoviensi oblatae ab Andrea Młodzianowski Societatis lesu. VilnĮae]: Typ. Acad. Soc. lesu, 1675. Written in the form of eulogies, it is considered the most mature work by the professor of rhetoric, Jesuit Andrzej Młodzianowski, in which he impressively demonstrated his skills in the panegyric, hagiographic and poetic genres. The work is dedicated to the first "local" Unitarian beatified martyr, Archbishop of Polotsk Josaphat Kuntsevych (beatified in 1643, canonised in 1867). The saint's relics, which were returned to the Polotsk Archcathedral after Moscow's occupation (the Deluge) in 1667, were set out for public view; an expression of respect paid to the relics was the poetic text by Młodzianowski written at the time when the author was teaching the art of rhetoric at the Polotsk Jesuit College.[...] This work is not a consistent story of the saint's life, but rather a reflection on more or less familiar moments of the holy persons life and their actualisation, conveyed through emblems - an “elite” form of Baroque art, a synthesis of the artistic forms of word and image. The book is also one of the first amply illustrated reflections on the life events of the Beatified Josaphat Kuntsevych consisting of 40 copper-engraved emblems. The present book consists of a foreword, a facsimile of the book, a translation of the Latin text into Lithuanian supplemented by commentaries, and a scholarly study. [...] In the first chapter of the study titled "The Union of Brest and its historical context", the confessional situation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the late 16th century is analysed from the historical viewpoint with a focus on the proclamation of the Union of Brest and its historical context. [...]. In the present book, special attention is given to the ratification of the union and the first conflict in the negotiations, which took place in Lithuanian Brest in 1596, as well as the emerging differences of opinions regarding the new confession. The second part of the study titled “Biographical sources and the tradition of Baroque literature” is devoted to the Jesuit tradition of Baroque literature in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The creative biography of the Jesuit, professor of rhetoric Andrzej Młodzianowski is presented with an emphasis on the Jesuit tradition and the teaching of rhetoric in the Jesuit academies and colleges of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at that time. Occasional publications, whose authors most often were lecturers of Jesuit academies or colleges “hiding” under the names of their students, were addressed and dedicated to patrons and magnates.[...] The third chapter of the study “Harmony of image and text: Emblems of the scenes from the life of the martyr” is devoted to emblems, which have reached our days in the typographic form of a book. The author discusses the features of the facsimile publication and the way of the book to the library, analyses the structure of the book, its panegyrical dedication and a portrait image of the Beatified martyr, and discusses each of the forty emblems included in the publication. [...] The fourth chapter of the study “Baroque poetics of the texts” contains a textual analysis of the poetic sources, an assessment of the “quality” of the text, its stylistics and rhetorical means, as well as stylistic and visual “similarities” (similitudines) and so-called “common places” (loci communes). Various epics characteristic of the Baroque hagiographic tradition are distinguished: the image of the Crucified Christ, the piety to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the epic of martyrdom and other topics. A fundamental interdisciplinary research into a source, which required the combined efforts of an art critic, a historian, a literary scholar and researchers of Latin literature, resulted in an integral explanatory text prepared according to the principle of a collective monograph, whose main object of analysis is a work reflecting the historical issues of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 17th century and synthesising the image and the word. [From the publication]