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AUTOBIOGRAFIA P. PAULÍNA BAJANA OFM (1721–1792)

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Kačic L., Zavarský S.

Slavica Slovaca

2016

vol. 51

issue 3

3 - 93

The preacher and musician P. Paulinus Bajan OFM (1721–1792) was a prominent figure of eighteenth-century Slovakia. Having received his primary and secondary education from the Jesuits in his native town of Skalica, Bajan decided to join the Franciscan Order in 1740. He did his novitiate in Pruské, than he studied philosophy in Eger and moral theology in Vác, following which he was ordained priest in 1746. Father Paulinus spent his life in various convents of the Salvatorian province. After a few initial years spent in present-day Hungary (Eger, Széchény, Vác), he was, upon his own request, transferred to Slovakia where he remained permanently, being active as an organ player, instructing young friars in singing and organ-playing , and finally becoming an eminent preacher. The places of his abode in Slovakia included Prešov, Hlohovec, Beckov, and Skalica. His extant works consist of fourteen music collections, which contain also his own compositions, as well as four thick volumes of sermons written in Slovak. It is at the end of the fourth volume of the said sermons that Bajan inserted his Latin autobiography which he wrote in the period 1772–1775, that is, after he had finished his preaching career. This autobiography is now being presented to scholars in our critical edition together with a Slovak translation, with the hope that it will serve as a basis for further research. Father Paulinus’s autobiography is quite special in that it contains a great number of his childhood memories, partly reported to him by his relatives, as well as memories of hi school years, including his musical education, and a lively account of his time spent in Hungarian convents where he among other things experienced repeated bullying from his superiors on account of his being Slovak. These are all authentic memories, though sometimes they may not precisely match the actual facts due to Father Paulinus’s expressive way of putting things and occasional mistakes in dates. He recorded his life as he remembered it, in an enthralling style, using the kind of informal, conversational Latin he spoke with his co-brethren. Like the Slovak language of his sermons, the Latin of his autobiography is charged with emotion, which makes him a typical product of the Baroque era. Symbolically enough, Father Bajan ended his autobiography in the middle of a sentence when referring to the ascension to the throne of Joseph II whose church reforms had a most distressing impact on his religious congregation.

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AUTOBIOGRAFIA P. PAULÍNA BAJANA OFM (1721–1792)