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34. KRZYŻANOWSKI J.: Romans polski w wieku XVI. (JPolish

Novel$ and Story Books in the SLrteenth Century), Presente

dans la seance du 21 septembre 1931.

The growth of Polish literaturę in the 16-th century led to the production of many narratiyes in verse and prose. The prov-ince of the noyel demanded a special effort, for while in other countries the medieval body of story and romance prepared the way for the development of fiction, the position of Poland in this respect was rather peculiar. Christianity and Western ciyilis-ation penetrated into Poland rather late, so that the country was unable to develop in time the social centres which were the very cradle of the romance, such as the courts of the princes and barons, or the powerful towns. Moreover, the clergy in med-ieval Poland for many long centuries consisted of foreigners who remained an alien and isolated element with no care for the vernacular and its literary products. Of course, a few early chro-niclers (Master Yincent Kadłubek or the anonymous author of the »Chronicie of Great Poland«, who wrote in the 13-th and 14-th centuries), saturated their works with the romance elements, which they inserted into their narration to explain ąuestions con-cerning the origin ot the state or the foundation of the capitals and other places of importance, but these elements were to pooro to encourage anybody to deyelop them into independent stories. So it became the task of the 16-th century writers to make up for the neglect of their predecessors.

To comply with it they adopted the easiest way, that of translation. As time went on, there came into prominence the morę ambitious attempts of professional writers, who turned from mero translation to morę complicated and morę difficult methods of transplanting Western European fiction into Polish soil, such as free renderings, adaptations and imitations. Neyertheless, trans-lations remained the basie feature throughout the whole of the century. Stimulus was giyen to them by the Uglers, Wietors and Scharfenbergers, the pioneers of the Polish book. These early printers of Cracow, who came to Poland from Germany, opened their printing presses and tried to make money. With this in yiew, they tried to get the type of reading which then was in yogue on the German book market, the popular stories. They