“When the Pen is Guided by the Longing”... Custom and Faith in “Rok Polski” [“The Polish Year”] by Zofia Kossak

Grzegorz GŁĄB

Katedra Literatury Współczesnej, Instytut Literaturoznawstwa, Wydział Nauk Humanistycznych, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland , Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7155-0972

Abstract

Rok Polski [The Polish Year] is most often regarded as a treasury of Polish customs, culture and religious tradition – a poetic calendar arranged according to the periodical order of months and changes occurring in nature. The author, however, claims that the extraordinary nature of Kossak’s work is due not only to its being an emotional and sensual record, a picture of rituals, stories, and beliefs characteristic of a given season, or a chronicle of the past, with a built-in memory of the Polish native experience of time; according to the author, Rok polski is above all a ‘literary pilgrimage’ to the heart and essence of life inherent in the Christian liturgical tradition. For Zofia Kossak, the Polish year is the liturgical year which, in the writer’s literary vision, appears not only as a collection of customs and celebrations, but also as a theme of theological reflection or even of spiritual contemplation. Hence, multiple and varied readings of the work are admissible, while its contents may be interpreted both in the context of a calendar year and in a deeper, Christian, theological perspective.

Keywords:

Zofia Kossak, liturgical year, Christianity, folk customs, tradition