Literacka legenda Zygmuntowskiego dzwonu. Zygmunt w poezji

Abstract

The Sigismund Bell as a masterpiece of Renaissance bell-founding with its vastness and sound qualities already inspired poets contemporary to its creation. In the 16th century, the Bell was the theme of the works of the Polish-Latin poet Andrzej Krzycki and Mikołaj Rej. In the Old Polish era there were other men of letters who wrote about the Sigismund Bell, although not necessarily in verse. In the era of partitions, slavery and Poland’s non-existence – in the 19th century – the enormous Wawel bell funded by the great king in the times of the power of the Polish-Lithuanian state grew to the role of a link between the great past and the present. It rose to the level of a symbol raising hopes for the rebirth of the state. Especially the tolling of the Sigismund Bell for the Resurrection on Easter raised hopes for the resurrection of Poland. The poets such as Edmund Wasilewski – a romantic eulogist of the beauty of Krakow’s historical monuments, with Wawel at the forefront, Wincenty Pol, Teofil Lenartowicz, Maria Konopnicka, and Lucjan Rydel expressed this role of the sound of the Sigismund Bell. However, it was only Stanisław Wyspiański who most clearly and fully expressed in his dramas (Wesele, Wyzwolenie, Akropolis) the symbolism of the bell born in the 19th century, the evolution of the meanings of its sound – from the sound of mourning to the sound of calling to act and the sound of heralding the rebirth of the state. Echoes of the Sigismund Bell are also present in the poetry of Józef Piłsudski, a soldier of the Legions. Finally, there is a well-known patriotic poem-song: Jak długo na Wawelu Zygmunta bije dzwon, tak długo w sercach naszych rozbrzmiewa polski ton, [As long as the bell on Zygmunt’s Wawel tolls, the Polish tone resounds in our hearts,] announcing victory and existence.