Voor de website Maritiem Portal schreef ik een blog getiteld De echte vliegende Hollander: Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam in gedichten uit 17e-eeuws Gdańsk. Ik bespreek daarin de wijze waarop de Nederlandse admiraal Van Wassenaer Obdam (1610-1665), die in eigen land een twijfelachtige reputatie genoot, besproken wordt in Latijnse gedichten uit Gdańsk/Danzig, de Baltische havenstad die eeuwenlang bij het Pools-Litouwse Gemenebest hoorde.
Abraham Evertsz. van Westerveld, Portret van Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam, ca. 1660.
Van Wassenaer Obdam maakte zich meermaals verdienstelijk voor Gdańsk, hetgeen tot uiting komt in meerdere lofdichten die ik gevonden heb tijdens archiefonderzoek ter plaatse. De dichters benadrukken de banden tussen de admiraal (en de Nederlandse Republiek als geheel) en hun stad, alsook de spectaculaire dood van de vlootvoogd, die in 1665 omkwam tijdens de Slag bij Lowestoft. De gedichten vormen een van de vele culturele sporen van de ‘moedernegotie’ en getuigen van de verwevenheid van de belangen van de Republiek en Gdańsk in de zeventiende eeuw.
Santa gave me a particularly lovely Christmas present this year: a freshly published peer-reviewed publication! It is entitled ‘Better than Pindar? The Ode by Sidronius Hosschius to Sarbievius and Its Two Versions’ and is published in Terminus, a journal for Neolatin studies, in an issue devoted to “the Sarmatian (i.e. Polish) Horace”, Mathias Casimirus Sarbievius (Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, 1595–1640). My paper contributes to our knowledge of the international fame Sarbievius’s poetry enjoyed in the Early Modern age.
Mathias Casimirus Sarbievius
The main aim of the paper is to present and analyse an ode by the Flemish Jesuit Sidronius Hosschius (Sidronius [or Syderoen] de Hossche, 1596–1653) to Sarbievius. This eulogy has often been viewed as a masterpiece. In addition, it has two distinct versions: one published in a collection of poems in honour of Sarbievius (the so-called Epicitharisma), first printed in an edition of his oeuvre in 1632, and one in the collective volume of Hosschius’s own works issued posthumously in 1656. Both versions were first published by the famous Plantin-Moretus printing house in Antwerp. I have previously written two other papers, also dealing with poems to Sarbievius, composed by the Frenchman Gilbertus Joninus and the Fleming Jacobus Wallius.
Sidronius Hosschius
The paper consists of three sections. The first one focuses on the relationship between Hosschius and Sarbievius and on the Nachleben of Hosschius’s ode. The second section offers a general analysis of the poem. Tracing the contents of Hosschius’s ode and its sources of inspiration, it argues that Hor. Carm. IV 2 is central to the poem’s understanding. The third section discusses the differences between the two versions, in an attempt to disclose why the poem was altered and how the changes influence the ode’s meaning. A number of larger changes affect the poem’s central message: while in the earlier version Sarbievius is said to outdo Pindar and even Horace, the later version is more cautious. All it does is admit that Sarbievius could perhaps equal Pindar and Orpheus.
Hosschius’s eulogy and the reception of Sarbievius through his composition have two different traditions: 1) the one found in most editions of Sarbievius’s works, where the poem basically proclaims him to be the best Latin lyricist of all time, thereby tying in with other laudatory contributions and promoting both Sarbievius’s oeuvre and the editions themselves, and 2) the one added to Hosschius’s own poetry, where the adjusted version—which contains more references to ancient literature and which could be called more personal, as well as, perhaps, more realistic—became a fan favourite.
In both instances, however, the reinterpretation of the psychological effect of poetry—the translation of furor poeticus from the author to the reader—and the re-evaluation of the concept of aemulatio could be the main reason why Hosschius’s ode was so highly valued.
Christmas in 1645 was extra special in the Dutch Republic: Marie-Louise de Gonzague, the new queen of Poland, travelled from Paris to Warsaw via the Netherlands. She arrived in Utrecht on Christmas Day, where she was welcomed by an ice skating crowd. On Boxing Day, she set forth to Amsterdam. She was greeted by one thousand soldiers and a salvo of cannon fire. A few days later, Marie-Louise met Prince Willem, son of stadtholder Frederik Hendrik, and admired the Schouwburg theatre. Having returned to Utrecht, she there spent New Year’s Eve. Find out more here.
*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 6.
Freedom is central to Dutch and Polish history. Ever since the Dutch rebelled against the Spanish king, in the sixteenth century, their love for freedom has often been labelled typically Dutch. At the same time, Polish nobles developed their idea of Aurea Libertas, Golden Liberty, which stood for the privileges of the nobility. Both the Dutch and Poles, therefore, idolized a state system in which power was shared, not held by one monarch. Still, there were notable differences as well: while the Polish idea of Golden Liberty concerned the nobles, power in the Dutch Republic mostly lay with rich and powerful burghers and merchants. Moreover, the Dutch increasingly disapproved of the Polish love for freedom, which they thought was exaggerated and led to anarchy. In the eighteenth century, several Dutch authors argued that this was the cause of Poland’s eventual downfall.
The picture shows a statue from the tomb of William of Orange, in Delft. The figure holds a so-called freedom hat, which was a symbol of freedom. It is inscribed with the words Aurea Libertas: Golden Liberty.
*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 5. Also see my previous post (in Dutch), on early modern Dutch responses to Polish Golden Liberty.
On this day in 1627, the Polish fleet defeated the Swedes at the Battle of Oliwa, near Gdańsk. The battle was part of the Polish-Swedish War of 1626-1629. The Polish fleet was commanded by admiral Arend Dickmann, who is said to have been of Dutch descent. Dickmann won the day, but was hit by a cannonball and died. He was buried in St. Mary’s Church in Gdańsk, along with the Swedish admiral Nils Stiernsköld and Jan Storch, captain of the Polish fleet. The battle and funeral were witnessed and described by a delegation of Dutch diplomats. Find out more here.
*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 4.
The most influential portrait of King Jan III Sobieski was made in 1674 by the Dutch artist Romeyn de Hooghe. It shows Sobieski at Chocim/Khotyn (in modern-day Ukraine), where he defeated the Ottoman armies on 11 November 1673. It was copied by various artists and helped spread Sobieski’s fame all over Europe. De Hooghe was granted the title Servitor Regis (servant of the king) and went on to produce several other engravings showing the Polish monarch. Following Sobieski’s victory at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, he was glorified by numerous Dutch artists and authors. More information about Sobieski and De Hooghe can be found in this recent Dutch article (which includes a summary in English).
Romeyn de Hooghe, Jan Sobieski at the Battle of Khotyn, 1674.
*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 3.
Deze maand verscheen bij de Primavera Pers in Leiden het boek Bezem & Kruis: De Hollandse schoonmaakcultuur of de geschiedenis van een obsessie, mijn vertaling van Miotła i krzyż: Kultura sprzątania w dawnej Holandii, albo historia pewnej obsesji. Het boek is geschreven door de Poolse letterkundige en kunsthistoricus Piotr Oczko, die is verbonden aan de Uniwersytet Jagielloński in Krakau.
Het rijk geïllustreerde werk vormt een studie van de Hollandse schoonmaak- cultuur door de eeuwen heen. Aan de hand van talrijke voorbeelden laat Oczko zien hoe het schoonmaken vanaf de zeventiende eeuw een belangrijke rol ging spelen in de kunst en literatuur van de Noordelijke Nederlanden, met name Holland. In binnen- en buitenland begon men schoonmaken en properheid te associëren met de Nederlandse cultuur en identiteit. Deze ‘obsessie’ met schoonmaken duurde voort tot in de twintigste eeuw.
Some of the best-loved Poles in the Netherlands are without doubt General Stanisław Maczek and his 1st Armoured Division. In October 1944, they liberated large parts of Noord-Brabant. Maczek and his men are mainly remembered for the liberation of Breda on 29 October, during which no serious damage was done to the city. The inhabitants welcomed their Polish liberators with open arms, and Maczek was awarded the honorary citizenship of Breda. Following the war, many of Maczek’s soldiers remained in Breda and other parts of the Netherlands, where their descendants live to this day. This year, on 3 June, the Maczek Memorial Breda was opened to the public. An online Dutch exhibition on Maczek and the 1st Armoured Division – the texts for which I translated – can be visited here.
*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 2.
On 13 October, I presented a paper at the yearly Huizinga conference for PhD candidates. Due to the pandemic, the conference was held entirely online. My paper was entitled Familiar Foreigners. Poles through Dutch Eyes in the Seventeenth Century.
Pieter Serwouters, Frontispiece for ‘Respublica, Sive Status Regni Poloniae…’, 1627.
I discussed work in progress on the different ways in which the Dutch during the seventeenth century imagined the Polish people. Firstly, I analysed a variety of Dutch visualisations of ‘Poles’ and ‘Polishness’, ranging from engravings to gable stones and from paintings to ‘Polish’ stage costumes. While such representations were partly based on reality, a comparison with Dutch portraits of real Poles shows how these could break the mould. For whereas a Pole’s appearance was typically associated with the exoticism of the orient, and hardly differed from his Hungarian, Russian, or even Turkish counterparts, depictions of individuals could deviate from this pattern, as Poles navigated between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ guises.
Secondly, I used several poems, travel accounts, and other sources to reconstruct the ways in which Dutch authors imagined Polish characters and customs. Typical Poles were identified as Sarmatians, a bellicose, brutal, and barbaric people, whose backward nature was shaped by the cold climate and severe living conditions of their homeland. However, these negative notions are challenged by several other sources, mainly Latin poems by Dutch authors in honour of their Polish friends. These compositions reveal that, despite the stereotypes, Dutch poets maintained and celebrated warm relations with Polish individuals in a variety of contexts, from scholarship to warfare to religion. Together, the visual and textual source material demonstrates that, through seventeenth-century Dutch eyes, Poles were familiar foreigners.
Starting today, I will write regular posts about Dutch-Polish historic relations for the Dutch Embassy in Poland. The posts will appear on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, but I will copy them here as well.
We begin with the oldest known town in Poland with Dutch roots. It was founded in 1297 in Prussian lands governed by the Teutonic Knights, and named after the settlers’ homeland: Holland/t (later known as ‘Preussisch Holland’). Some have argued that the founders may have been exiles and refugees, who had escaped their homeland following the murder of Count Floris V, in 1296. It is possible that Joost van den Vondel in 1637 referred to the founding of the town in his famous Gysbreght van Aemstel, when the play’s hero is advised to escape from Amsterdam to Prussia, and to build a ‘New Holland’ there. The settlement came under Polish rule in 1466 and was later part of the Duchy of Prussia, which remained a fief of Poland until 1657. A view of the town was included in a book printed in Amsterdam in 1632. In 1945, ‘Holland’ became part of Poland once more. Its modern name is Pasłęk, near Elbląg.
*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 1.
Deze maand verscheen bij de Primavera Pers in Leiden het boek Bezem & Kruis: De Hollandse schoonmaakcultuur of de geschiedenis van een obsessie, mijn vertaling van Miotła i krzyż: Kultura sprzątania w dawnej Holandii, albo historia pewnej obsesji. Het boek is geschreven door de Poolse letterkundige en kunsthistoricus Piotr Oczko, die is verbonden aan de Uniwersytet Jagielloński in Krakau.
