Aleksander Brückner, Polish Mythology: A Comparative Study [1924]

Title: Polish Mythology: A Comparative Study.

Author: Aleksander Brückner (1856–1939) [historian of Polish literature and culture, linguist, and Slavicist; long-time professor at the University of Berlin].

Publisher: Warsaw, “Bibljoteka Polska” Publishing Institute.

Year of publication: 1924.

Format: 18 cm.

Number of pages: 144.

Binding: Paperback.

“Polish Mythology” complements “Slavic Mythology,” which Brückner published in 1918 in Kraków. Both books were written at a time when Polish scholarship on ancient beliefs was still grappling with the legacy of chroniclers’ conjectures and romantic fantasies. For centuries, the deities mentioned by Jan Długosz and his followers were regarded as evidence of indigenous paganism. Brückner relied primarily on linguistic and comparative analysis. Thanks to this approach, he consistently distinguished authentic source material from later additions and scholarly fabrications. His skeptical, often polemical approach sparked lively debates but permanently transformed research on the religion of the ancient Slavs. The book was published by the Warsaw-based “Bibljoteka Polska” Publishing Institute, which had its own printing facilities in Bydgoszcz. Both volumes of *Mitologie* continue to be reprinted to this day, usually together, as classics of Polish Slavic studies.

Aleksander Brückner was born in 1856 in Eastern Galicia. He studied in Lviv, and later in Leipzig, Berlin, and Vienna. After a brief stint as an assistant professor in Lviv, he assumed the chair of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Berlin in 1881, succeeding Vatroslav Jagici. He headed the department until 1924, when this book was published. During research in St. Petersburg in 1890, he discovered the “Kazania świętokrzyskie” (Sermons of Świętokrzysie), the oldest surviving example of Polish prose, and was the first to publish it. He was a member of the Academy of Learning. He left behind over a thousand publications, including *A History of Polish Literature*, *A History of Polish Culture*, *The Old Polish Encyclopedia*, and *An Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language*. He died in Berlin in 1939.

Provenance: a piece free of ownership inscriptions and library stamps.

This is the first edition of a classic study in Polish Slavic studies, in its original publisher’s cover. A must-have for researchers of Slavic religion and folklore, enthusiasts of ancient beliefs, and collectors of “Biblioteka Polska” publications.

The text block is compact and mechanically sound; the original stitching is intact, and the pages are even. The paper has adequate stiffness, is light in color, with a few small foxing spots and slight acid discoloration on the blank margins, without affecting the legibility of the text and with no missing pages. The original paper cover is preserved in clean condition, with no losses on the front or back; the limp spine of the booklet was conservatively reinforced at the time with transparent bookbinding tissue, which stabilized the entire structure.

Catalog ID: 14068-18-A-X