Biblical motives and images in the polish-speaking poetry of Belarus in the 19th century

Abstract

This article is devoted to the development of spiritual poetry in Polish-language literature of Belarus in the 19th century. Focus is brought to the interpretation of biblical motifs and images in the works of T. Lada-Zablotsky, Y. Chachot, G.Puzynya and V. Syrokomlya, with reference to the influence of romanticism on these writers. The poem Iyeremia’s cry by T. Lada-Zablotsky is presented as a literary paraphrase of Psalm 137 (136 in Eastern Christian tradition). Special attention is paid to the series of religious poems by Y. Chachot from the volume Songs of the Landlord, never studied before by Belarusian researchers. His works, modelled after the Epistles of Paul, have been received as a poetic interpretation of the Commandments and Christian Virtues, which in turn brought the concept of poetic “catechism” in Y. Chachot’s oeuvre. The comparison of the Biblical motifs in the works of G. Puzynya and V. Syrokomlya proves the associative closeness of the authors, seeking original metaphors and striving to give new meanings to Christian symbols, such as the bell, the cross, the church, or the cleric. The author comes to the conclusion that the interest in psalms as a genre and the biblical symbolism contained therein increased greatly in romantic literature, especially in poetry. References to biblical motifs allowed the poets to express patriotic feelings, to sacralize them, and to emphasize the ideals of freedom. Religious poetry of the period studied served didactic purposes, taking the form of a certain “secular apostleship”. We can therefore speak of poetic Christian pedagogy, whose principles of exegesis and catechesis were based on moral examples drawnfrom national history.