Wawrzyniec Bojer – szwedzki nauczyciel w polskich szkołach doby kontrreformacji

Abstract

Many historians believe that the educational work of the Jesuits was one of the essential factors behind the failure of the Reformation movement in 16th century Poland. The article aims to depict and discuss Laurentius Bojer, a Swede who taught in Polish Jesuit schools and also garnered a considerable reputation as a Latin poet. Bojer graduated from and subsequently taught at Pontifical Seminaries which trained young people to engage in counter-reformatory work. He was also a professor at the Translators’ Seminary (Seminarium Interpretum) in Dorpat, a unique school that educated interpreters and translators who assisted Catholic missionaries and translated religious literature into Baltic languages. The portrayal of Bojer will include facts as yet unexamined in the Polish literature which the author has gleaned from archives and international studies (chiefly by the Norwegian historian Oskar Garstein). Bojer, a humanist and a writer relevant to Polish culture, will be addressed against the backdrop of the educational work of the schools he was involved with.