Jan Kochanowski in Königsberg

Abstract

Bartosz Awianowicz
Jan Kochanowski in Königsberg

Scholars interested in Jan Kochanowski have paid little attention to the impact of German Humanism – as represented in Königsberg – on both the writing and the life of the poet. Indeed, Kochanowski went to Königsberg for the first time in summer or autumn 1551 and
stayed until the following spring. He was there for the second time in spring or summer 1555 and remained at least until mid 1556. Especially the Polish poet’s second stay in the Prussian capital is
well documented thanks to Kochanowski’s autographed letter, written to prince Albert von Hohenzollern on April 6, 1556, and to the prince’s reply dated 15 April. Moreover, important information is recorded in the Prussian court’s expenditure accounts (Ausgabe-Bücher) from 1555 and 1556. These documents give explicit evidence of the Polish poet’s links with the Ducal court. They also give implicit proof of his relations with Königsberg University and its humanists. Of all Kochanowski’s works, the most important source for his feelings towards Prussia is his Proporzec albo Hołd pruski. In it he celebrates the homage paid in 1569 to Sigismund Augustus by Albert Frederic (1553-1618), who was the son of the poet’s protector prince Albert, whom Kochanowski introduces as a model of a good monarch: a virtuous, faithful and wise prince (v. 25-36). Less known is the fact that Kochanowski’s poetry was influenced not only by Italian but also by German humanists, by the authors of handbooks of poetics and rhetoric such as Philipp Melanchthon or Joachim Camerarius, and especially by the first rector of the Albertina, Georg Sabinus (1508-1560).