Jan Kazimir Pashkevich's Poem Poland prospers with Latin... as a Literary Mystification

Abstract

The article offers a new interpretation of the famous Belarusian poem of the 17^th century Польска квитнет лациною... (Poland prospers with Latin), the author of which is considered to be Jan Kazimir Pashkevich, and the date of writing is August 22, 1621. The poem is canonized in Belarusian literature as a sample of civil and patriotic lyrics and a hymn to the native Belarusian language, but the article questions the authenticity of the work as a monument of the literature of the 17^th century; the circumstances that make the poem mysterious and anachronistic in the context of its era are also revealed. The author of the article suggests a hermeneutic reconstruction of an alternative history of the poem by Jan Kazimir Pashkevich Польска квитнет лациною...: namely, substantiates the hypothesis that the poem is a successful literary mystification created in the 40`s of the 19^th century by Vilnius Governor-General and lover of antiquities and A. V. Semenov to reinforce the ideology of ‘panrusism’ and to legitimize, with the help of cultural projects, the domination of the Russian Empire on the occupied after the partitions of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth lands of historical Lithuania-Belarus. Semenov had the opportunity and reason to realize such an ideological project by getting acquainted with the ancient documents of the subordinate region, especially with the handwritten Slutsk manuscript of the First Lithuanian Statute of 1529, which was created in old Belarusian and which contained many documents unrelated to the main text, various records, as well as empty pages. The practical conditions for making copies and the necessary changes on the corresponding page of the manuscript were created by an easy-to-use lithography technology.