In this article I will try to show to what extent the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli influenced the literary work of Andrzej Maksymilian Fredro. It is worth mentioning that the political thought of the author of The Prince was widely known among the Polish intellectual elite in the 17th century. However, in the old Poland, the Florentine was increasingly criticized, as he was believed to promote a type of politics full of falsehood and cynicism. In his works, Fredro did not perceive Machiavelli in this way. He was referring to the ideas contained in two works – different in content – by the Florentine secretary: The Prince and Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius.
PL
W niniejszym artykule postaram się ukazać, w jakim stopniu pisma Niccolò Machiavellego oddziaływały na twórczość literacką Andrzeja Maksymiliana Fredry. Warto wspomnieć, że myśl polityczna autora Księcia była w XVII w. rozpowszechniona wśród polskiej elity umysłowej. Jednak w dawnej Polsce coraz częściej krytykowano Florentczyka, uważając, iż propaguje typ polityki przepełnionej fałszem i cynizmem. Fredro w swoich dziełach nie postrzegał w ten sposób Machiavellego. Odnosił się bowiem do idei zawartych w dwóch – różnych pod względem treści – dziełach florenckiego sekretarza: Księciu oraz Rozważaniach nad pierwszym dziesięcioksięgiem historii Rzymu Liwiusza.
Noc świętojańska (Midsummer night) is associated with the very distant times when the sun and water were worshipped. At that time the Slavs paid special attention to astronomical phenomena resulting from the Earth’s rotation around the Sun. The time of the summer solstice appeared to be a time of great celebration, as evidenced by the wide range of nomenclature defining the entirety of these rites: Kupalnocka, Kupala, noc swietojanska or Sobótka. It is also very likely that this celebration has become a Christian equivalent of the pre-existing cult of a pagan deity, as evidenced by, for example, numerous Midsummer rites: clapping, playing, singing, dancing, jumping around the fire, girding oneself with mugwort. Performing night dances, singing and pairing up became the basis not only for accusations by preachers that pagan idols were being glorified, but it even began to arouse anxiety among moralists, who considered the above-mentioned acts debauched. Although Catholics and Protestants tried to combat the customs related to the Sobótka, Jan Kochanowski decided to maintain these folk traditions.
The subject matter of my research is the black legend of Niccolò Machiavelli in Polish baroque poetry. This legend spread in the 17th-century Commonwealth on such a large scale that the name of this secretary of the Florentine republicbegan to be used to describe even kings or pretenders to the throne who were political opponents. For this reason, I described in this scientific article the literary works of poets such as Wacław Potocki, Wespazjan Kochowski and Stanisław Orzelski. The second of these authors acted in a similar way in The Stone of Testimony of the Innocence of the Great Senator in the Polish Crown, comparing the actions of the royal court to an infernal council, in which such characters as Machiavelli, Richelieu and Mazarini take part. In my scientific article, I will emphasize that this Polish Baroque poet also showed the secretary of the Florentine republic in his other literary works as a perverse and demonic person. I will also note that Wacław Potocki in his work negatively refers to those people who defame John III Sobieski in lampoons and accuse him of using “Machiavellian arts”. I will not ignore Stanisław Orzelski’s Macaronica carmina Marfordii Mądzikovii poetae approbatihere.
A short comedy in two versions, Latin and Polish, developing the myth, popularised by Euripides' Helen. Its relations to that tragedy and to other ancient sources are discussed in the introduction.