"Wojna domowa" by Samuel Twardowski. A work in progress

Abstract

The article presents the problems caused by the destruction in 1944 of the manuscript containing the copy of Samuel Twardowski’s entitled Wojna domowa z Kozaki i Tatary prepared under the author’s control. For the first part of the work, the basis for the edition must be the edition of the first part from 1660, published under the author’s control. For the second to the fourth part, the Kalisz edition was corrected by Alojzy Kowalkowski’s notes. The edition of Kalisz, as it was censored by the Jesuits from Kalisz for the needs of education in the colleges of the order, cannot constitute the basis for a new edition on its own. We only have the notes of Aloj­zy Kowalkowski, who compiled the manuscript with the Kalisz edition before World War II. As the individual copies of the Kalisz edition differ, relations between them should be established. Moreover, we do not know whether the burned manuscript was the basis for the Kalisz edition, or whether there is a copy of the work that was directly used by Jesuit printers. In the diocesan archives in Pelplin, the notes of Kowalkowski, which may be a handwritten copy of either a lost manuscript or the Kalisz edition. If they were a copy of the manuscript, could they become the basis for a new edition of parts II–IV of the work?