Józef Wereszczyński, Political Writings: Writings on Moral Issues [1858, 1860]

Title: Political Writings by Rev. Józef Wereszczyński; Moral Writings. Bound together in 1 vol.

Author: Józef Wereszczyński (c. 1530–1598) [Bishop of Kyiv, political writer, polemicist, moralist, and Renaissance-era preacher].

Publisher: Kraków, Wydawnictwo Biblioteki Polskiej. Series: Biblioteka Polska.

Year of publication: 1858; 1860.

Format: 19 cm.

Volume: XVI, 184 pp., 1 folio plate; 117, [1] pp.

Binding: Period half-leather binding.

This volume combines two volumes of Józef Wereszczyński’s writings, published in Kazimierz Józef Turowski’s Kraków-based “Biblioteka Polska.” Since 1855, this series has been reintroducing readers to early Polish literature and is still sometimes referred to as “Turowski’s Library.” The first volume collects Wereszczyński’s political writings, and the second his moral writings. Wereszczyński was one of the most prominent political journalists in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the second half of the 16th century. As bishop of a diocese located on the turbulent borderlands, he witnessed the Tatar and Turkish threats firsthand. In his writings, he called for war against Turkey and for the organization of an effective defense of the Ruthenian lands, while also pointing out the weaknesses of the political system and the customs of the nobility. As a moralist and preacher, he simultaneously admonished his contemporaries and encouraged them to renew their religious and civic lives. His texts, written in a vigorous, vivid Polish, are an important source for the history of political thought and social customs during the era of the last Jagiellonian kings and Sigismund III Vasa. The volume of political writings is supplemented by a fold-out chart.

Turowski’s reprints, published in Kraków during the period of Galician autonomy, made texts—previously known mainly from rare old prints—accessible to a wide readership. In this way, they contributed to a revival of interest in Old Polish literature in the 19th century.

Józef Wereszczyński was born around 1530 in Zbaraż and was educated in Krasnystaw. He was a canon of Chełm, abbot of the Benedictines in Sieciechów from 1581, and Bishop of Kyiv from 1592. In 1587, he supported the candidacy of Sigismund III Vasa for the Polish throne. As a political writer, polemicist, moralist, and preacher, he was one of the most fascinating figures in Polish literature of the late 16th century. He died in 1598.

Provenance: on the title page, a stamp reading “Biblioteka S. Wysockiego” (S. Wysocki’s Library), evidence of a former private collection.

These are two volumes of writings by one of the most original political journalists of the 16th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, bound together in a contemporary half-leather binding with a fold-out plate. A must-have for researchers of early political thought and Old Polish literature, historians of the Eastern Borderlands, and collectors of Turowski’s editions.

“S. Wysocki Library” stamp on the title page; foxing. Period half-leather binding.

Catalog ID: 1325-19-A-X