Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I The Reception of Luther's Ideas and their Influence for the Development of Written Languages
- Part II Effects of Bible Translations on the Evolution of Written Language
- Part III Reuse of (Catholic) Texts after the Reformation
- Part IV Language Contacts and Loanwords
- Index
3 - The Impact of Lutheran Thought on the Polish Literary Language in the 16th Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I The Reception of Luther's Ideas and their Influence for the Development of Written Languages
- Part II Effects of Bible Translations on the Evolution of Written Language
- Part III Reuse of (Catholic) Texts after the Reformation
- Part IV Language Contacts and Loanwords
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This study sheds light on the influence of the Lutheran Reformation on the history of written Polish. The focus is, above all, on the 16th century, when the ideas of the Lutheranism also reached Prussia and Poland. The study discusses how Lutheranism was reflected both in the standard language and in religious discourse. The cultural context differs from that prevailing in many of the other areas of the Baltic Sea region, among other reasons because Catholicism never lost its predominant position in the area. Naturally, political factors and changes in administrative areas, as well as the local and marginal nature of Lutheranism, affected the importance of Lutheran literature as a channel of influence. In spite of this, Lutheran literature can be seen as, above all, having promoted the development of the written language and literature of the region during the Reformation period.
Keywords: Duchy of Prussia, secularization, Lutherans in Poland, New Testament translations, formative genres of religious writing, Polish literary language, Middle Polish normative polemics
Introduction and purpose of the chapter
This essay examines sociolinguistic aspects of Lutheran thought in Poland in the 16th century. Based on the analysis of texts recognized by historians of the Polish language as representative for the epoch, it concentrates on the influences of the Lutheran discourse on the Polish literary language in its standard and religious registers. The considerations are contextualized in the problem of whether or not Lutheranism, as a denomination of a minority (often using German as the main language of parishes’ life), stimulated the Polish literary (i.e., standard) language of the Golden Age.1 A positive response seems almost self-evident, as the inception of the Polish literary language coincided with the spread of humanist and reformative ideas in Poland. However, it can also be easily answered in the negative when we recall the words of Janusz Tazbir, a Polish historian, to whom we owe the concept of Poland as a ‘state without stakes’. He argued that:
[The] outbreak of the Lutheran Reformation in Germany, however, had only a limited effect in Poland. Indeed, the Lutherans’ greatest impact was on the moribund Teutonic Order which, in agreement with the Polish king, secularized its lands and accepted the reformed faith in 1525. Königsberg, the capital of Ducal Prussia, became an important centre for Lutheran teaching. (Tazbir 1973 [1967]: 198)
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Languages in the Lutheran ReformationTextual Networks and the Spread of Ideas, pp. 79 - 102Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019