Wacław Aleksander Maciejowski as a Comparatist: His Supplements to Frédéric Gustav Eichhoff’s The Literature of Medieval Peoples: Slavs and Germans

Abstract

The dissertation Obraz literatury średniowiekowych ludów, a mianowicie Słowian i Niemców [The Literature of Medieval Peoples: Slavs and Germans] was published in Warsaw in 1856. It was a translation of a study by the French philologist and comparatist Frédéric Gustave Eichhoff. The original text was signifi cantly modifi ed and supplemented by Wacław Aleksander Maciejowski, a Polish historian of law and specialist on Slavic culture. The article identifi es the parts of the text that Maciejowski added, as this allows for a reconstruction of his general views on Slavic poetry, including the differences between folk ballad traditions of the Slavic nations, as well as between Slavic and Western European folk ballads (primarily Germany). Maciejowski’s views on the development of the literatures of various European nations by the mid-nineteenth century have also been discussed.