Brill Research Perspectives in Early Modern Cultures of the Younger Europe – serie

This book is available in open access thanks to the generous support of the Adam Mickiewicz University, PoznańDefining the Identity of the Younger Europe gathers studies that shed new light on the rich tapestry of early modern “Younger Europe” — Byzantine-Slavic and Scandinavian territories. It unearths the multi-dimensional aspects of the period, revealing the formation and transformation of nations that shared common threads, the establishment of political systems, and the enduring legacies of religious movements. Immersive, enlightening, and thought-provoking, the book promises to be an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the complexities of early modernEurope. This collection does not just retell history; it provokes readers to rethink it.Contributors: Giovanna Brogi, Piotr Chmiel,Karin Friedrich, Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Mirosława Hanusiewicz-Lavallee, Robert Aleksander Maryks, Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, Maciej Ptaszyński, Paul Shore, and Frank E. Sysyn.

This book is available in open access thanks to the generous support of the Adam Mickiewicz University, PoznańThis is the first monographic study of the reception of Herman Hugo's emblem book Pia desideria (1624) in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It discusses ten different translations and adaptations, showing how the engravings, elegies and exegetical extracts of the original edition were used by Polish-speaking authors. Attention is also given to the reception of the engravings in paintings. Furthermore, the author examines the reasons for the book's popularity, proving that it was determined by the interest of women who did not know Latin, yet constituted the most important target group for the numerous and varied Polish adaptations.

After the Fall examines the Polish reception of Greco-Roman antiquity. Set against the backdrop of the loss of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth’s independence after 1795, which prompted a rethinking of Polish intellectual traditions related to antiquity, it explores how this process was influenced by a vision of antiquity emerging in Britain, France, and other European countries from the mid-eighteenth century. The book shows how this interpretation, linked to the development of philology, ancient history, and the history of philosophy, involved constructing the past anew to better serve the contemporary needs of the Polish intellectual elite.

Music in the Writings and Imagination of Silesian Humanists explores the sound-world of early modern Silesia via the writings of humanists active there in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who both observed musical culture and actively participated in it: a poet, a publisher, a pedagogue, a physician, a historian, and a regionalist. Such an approach makes it possible to reconstruct their perceptions and understandings of music—a constitutive element of this community. As these authors concentrated more on the representation of music than the art itself, the book reflects the collective memory of the republic of scholars: their individual and common imaginarium.

Supported by the legal ideas of Hugo Grotius, the Swedish armies exploited opportunities to seize books as spoils of war from conquered enemies to an unparalleled degree in the seventeenth century. They took books from countries such as today’s Latvia, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Denmark, distributing the goods to recently founded institutions and private manors in their native country. In Looted Libraries, Looted Books – The Swedish Case, Peter Sjökvist gives a summarizing overview of these plunders: from which regions and owners full libraries or selected books were taken during the conflicts, where they subsequently tended to end up when arriving in Sweden, and how they have been received and curated over the years. It is argued that it can be questioned whether large portions of the spoils have served any proper user needs in their new contexts.

The Reformation in Lithuania: Origins and Developments up to 1570 by Dainora Pociūtė explores the dynamics of the Reformation in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, focusing on its early evolution and highlighting its autonomous character and the impact of Italian Protestantism. Abraomas Kulvietis, an alumnus of the university of Siena, was among the first to call for Church reforms in Vilnius. The tradition of Lithuanian printing, initiated by reformers who were forced to flee to Lutheran Prussia, was one of the early results of the movement. The progress of the Reformation accelerated rapidly in the 1550s when Mikalojus Radvila the Black, the most powerful magnate in Lithuania, announced his break with Rome and established an autonomous Evangelical Church in Lithuania. It matured by interweaving not only Lutheran and Swiss doctrines but also Antitrinitarianism and Anabaptism. This led to a gradual schism between radical communities and sympathizers of magisterial Protestantism during the 1560s.