Vitalis the Fox: Remarks on the Early Reading Experience of a Future Historian of Antiquity in Poland (1950S–1960S)

chapter 13 Vitalis the Fox: Remarks on the Early Reading Experience of a Future Historian of Antiquity in Poland (1950s–1960s) Adam Łukaszewicz Ce que l’on voit dans cet écrit Est moins un conte en l’air que la vérité même. Tout est beau dans ce que l’on aime; Tout ce qu’on aime a de l’esprit. charles perrault, Riquet à la houppe (Moralité) ∵ The following random selection from my early readings dealing either directly or indirectly with the ancient world begins with a Romanian novel for young readers Toate pinzele sus! [All sails up!] (1954) by Radu Tudoran (1910–1992). It is a modern version of the story of the Argonauts, retold in a nineteenth- century setting. The friendship between Orestes and Pylades, and a search for a missing friend, which becomes an original motivation for a sea expedition (a distant echo of the Great Greek Colonisation?), can both be found in Tudo- ran’s novel. It also includes an anecdote about the name of Istanbul, allegedly a distortion of the post-ancient Greek phrase is tin polin, “to the city.” (That charming etymology is in my opinion incorrect. Istanbul is a Turkish version of Stanpoli, an abbreviation of Konstantinoupolis.) The Polish prewar novel Ostatni faraon [The last pharaoh] (1929) by Jerzy Mariusz Taylor (1887–1941) (the actual family name of a Polish author, journalist, and novelist, who was perhaps a descendant of seventeenth-century foreign settlers) contains a degree of knowledge of the ancient world. The idea of a remnant of ancient Egyptian civilisation surviving somewhere in Africa is very attractive. The novel’s main character is a Polish archaeologist. Another protagonist is the last pharaoh. The story was written at a time of increasing interest in ancient Egypt after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922. In Poland a second factor that stimulated general interest in the country on the Nile was Marshal Józef Piłsudski’s sojourn in Egypt in 1932, the year in which the novel under discussion was reedited. © Adam Łukaszewicz, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004335370_015 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.Adam Łukaszewicz - 9789004335370 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 10:14:23PM via free access 202 Łukaszewicz Władysław Zambrzycki’s (1891–1962) Nasza Pani Radosna, czyli dziwne przygody pułkownika Armji Belgijskiej Gastona Bodineau [Our Lady of Joy, or strange adventures of Gaston Bodineau, a colonel in the Belgian Army] (1931) contains an explicit description of the ancient world. It is not a book for children, but I read it when I was no more than twelve years old. The protagonists, two Bel- gians and two Poles, after some difficult years in Greece and Italy, decide to escape from the modern world. The use of some alkaloids allows the party to be transported in time to Vespasian’s Italy. At Pompeii they produce strong alcoholic drinks under the obvious name of aqua vitae. They also introduce and fabricate playing cards. One of the Belgians, who was a football coach, forms two teams—the Pompeian fullones and gladiators. Life in Pompeii is described as joyful. Zambrzycki’s novel contains, among other inventions of the author, an apocryphal letter of Saint Luke to Theophilus, with a somewhat unconventional version of Christian theology. After the volcanic eruption of 79 ad, which casts a shadow over the humorous narrative, the story ends with the return of the protagonists to modern times, together with a pagan priest and a statue of Juno, which they set up near the village church in the Ardennes and which soon becomes a miraculous Notre Dame de Liesse (“Our Lady of Joy”). The most fascinating book, however, which I read as a child was Bolesław Leśmian’s (1877–1937) variant of The Arabian Nights in two volumes: Klechdy sezamowe [Sesame tales] and Przygody Sindbada Żeglarza [The adventures of Sinbad the sailor] of 1913. The genius of the great Polish poet (a relative of Jan Brzechwa, see below) transformed these Oriental stories into jewels of Polish literature. Incidentally, Leśmian’s adaptation contains fewer violent episodes than the original stories. An excellent Polish novel for children about Classical Antiquity is Witold Makowiecki’s (1902–1946) Diossos (ed. 1950). Like Halina Rudnicka’s (1909– 1982) Uczniowie Spartakusa [The disciples of Spartacus] (1951), Makowiecki’s novel was also influenced to a certain extent by the ideology of the time. The book concerns, among other topics, the fate of slaves, in accordance with the then endorsed version of Antiquity. The ancient past was at that time often interpreted as a world of slaves and their masters. This view was not entirely off the mark, although it cannot be applied to all countries and periods of ancient history. In my childhood I enjoyed translations of Hugh Lofting’s masterpieces on Doctor Dolittle and the excellent books by Edith Nesbit, in which a reminis- cence of Antiquity is also present. Reading the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling was fascinating, especially the first part, since it creates a mysterious and ex- otic world in which humans and animals are equal. Kipling’s Just So Stories also belonged to the canon of children’s literature in Poland at that time. Adam Łukaszewicz - 9789004335370 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 10:14:23PM via free access Vitalis the Fox 203 I will never forget the moment when, at the age of four, I realised that I had just read my first entire book. The book was entitled Szelmostwa lisa Witalisa [The tricks of Vitalis the fox] by Jan Brzechwa (1898 or, as he later claimed, 1900–1966). The poem was first published in 1948 as a separate booklet, mas- terly illustrated by a great artist, Jan Marcin Szancer (1902–1973).1 The story, which Brzechwa tells in verse, is as follows: 1. History knows a number of famous foxes (a list follows). The most excellent fox, however, was Vitalis. There follows the description of the fox, with a particular focus on his splendid tail and unusual intellectual capacities. 2. Vitalis’s den was located in a forest, somewhere beyond Łomża, a town in the northeastern part of Poland. The den contained intricate devices—a mirror which had the property of signalling plots against Vitalis, a box with a glass which enabled him to see to a distance, a silver plate which was always full, and a golden comb to take care of his splendid tail. 3. A story of the fox and some bears exemplifies Vitalis’s typical behaviour: Vitalis led five hungry bears to a farm, promising them young piglets as easy prey. Just as he expected, the bears were attacked by the dogs of the farm and had to escape. During the confusion Vitalis managed to steal some poultry for himself. 4. The fox urged the hungry animals of the wood to bring him lard in addi- tion to a large quantity of snow, from which excellent pancakes would be baked in his miraculous oven. The raw material was brought, but the re- sult was only water. The fox accused the animals of having brought snow of bad quality. Naturally, he took the lard for himself. 5. The animals of the wood elected their president. The presidential cam- paign of Vitalis was full of promises. His alazoneia (braggadocio) resulted in a unanimous election. 6. Vitalis’s authoritarian government levied disastrous taxes and exploited the animals ruthlessly. Vitalis behaved more and more like an absolute monarch. 7. In these unbearable circumstances a conspiracy arose. The wolf plotted a revolution. Vitalis was captured, his splendid tail was shaven bald, and he was expelled from the wood amid the laughter of all the animals. Nobody saw him again. 1 Jan Brzechwa, Szelmostwa lisa Witalisa (Warszawa—Kraków: Wydawnictwo E. Kuthana, 1948), reprinted in his Wiersze wybrane [Selected poems] (Warszawa: piw, 1955), 62–83. Adam Łukaszewicz - 9789004335370 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 10:14:23PM via free access 204 Łukaszewicz Stories of animals are an important part of the ancient literary heritage from Mesopotamia and Egypt through Aesop to Phaedrus and Avianus. Animal tales are also present in other cultures. Suffice it to mention the animal stories of the Indian Pañchatantra. The fox plays a special role in the post-ancient versions of Aesop. This is particularly evident in the French Le Roman de Renart of the twelfth century, which under cover of a story about animals refers to mediaeval society. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe used the German version of the story in his Reinecke Fuchs of 1793. Among the fanciful stories of the Gesta Romanorum, there is also a story of Sardanapalus “king of Greece” in which the fox appears as a negative symbol. In the same collection of tales, there is an example of one Tiberius, who was transformed into a wicked man, Liberius, by his assumption of impe- rial power: not exactly a parallel to Vitalis, but certainly a warning to rulers who become bad after assuming supreme power.2 The fox as a symbol is also present in the Bible (foxes in a vineyard, an allegory often used in European literature, e.g., by Lion Feuchtwanger as the title of a novel).3 The later Latin usage of vulpes includes sayings which confirm the topos of the smart fox, such as “intravit ut vulpes, regnavit ut leo, mortuus est ut canis,” or the exclamation “o vulpes astuta!,” well known to the readers of the Polish Nobel Prize–winner Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916), etc. The story of Vitalis is a story of hubris.

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