Kochanowski the Trendsetter: The First Polish Drama Then & Now
With an origin story as dramatic as some works of fiction, Jan Kochanowski’s drama ‘The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys’ has entertained audiences and influenced Polish theatre for over 400 years. Here we explore the history and legacy of the first drama ever written in the Polish language.
The scenery cost 151 zlotys, the play was directed by a doctor, and the production itself capped a days-long wedding celebration. The script was delivered by a courier on horseback just under three weeks before the production's premiere.
Those were the circumstances of the world premiere of The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys penned by Jan Kochanowski, the Renaissance poet of Czarnolas. It took place nearly four and a half centuries ago, on Sunday, 12 January 1578. Few realise that this was the first theatrical production to take place in Warsaw – and it remained the only such event for a long time, as we find no trace of any other in the chronicles until the end of the 16th century.
What's more, it was the first drama ever written in the Polish language. Is that because Kochanowski met Pierre de Ronsard, the French 'prince of poets' in Paris? The Frenchman was an advocate for using the vernacular for the development of home-grown literature. Kochanowski similarly moved away from Latin, although he chose to append a poem written in the ancient Roman language to his Polish-language drama. Present at the wedding, after all, was the king himself – Stefan Batory – who did not understand Polish.
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Zygmunt Vogel, 'Jazdów', around 1800, photo: commons.wikimedia.org
It was a frigid January in 1578. A few days earlier, Vice-Chancellors Jan Zamoyski and Krystyna Radziwiłłówna were married and then went on to Warsaw to host a lavish wedding. For the sake of accuracy, it should be noted that the days-long celebrations in fact marked two weddings: that of Zamoyski and that of his stepsister Elżbieta, who married at the same time. One celebration flowed seamlessly into the other. It was to be a truly regal festival, and the groom had an idea to commission a work of theatre from an outstanding author that could be staged for the august gathering. Although Kochanowski was ailing at the time, he nevertheless bowed to Zamoyski's request.
He prepared a manuscript which was to serve as the script for the wedding production. In terms of organisation (today we'd say the production), the situation developed very – for those days – dynamically. First, Zamoyski received a manuscript in Latin entitled The Sarmatian Orpheus. A day later, his courier brought to Warsaw from Czarnolas the text of The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys in Polish. The equine postal service between Kochanowski's manor and Jazdów was kept very busy during those days. The author and the bridegroom also exchanged letters between them. In one of them, Kochanowski expressed his regrets that his poor health would prevent him from taking part in the extraordinary festivities:
I would have been delighted to honour Your Highness with my presence and to offer my services, but my health does not permit
And, with that, the author did not witness the historic world premiere of his own work.
Then who was it who oversaw the preparation of the spectacle? Zamoyski suggested entrusting the task to...his court physician. Despite appearances, this wasn't quite as crazy as it may appear. Wojciech Oczko (also known as ‘Ocellus’) was a true example of a Renaissance man; he was a doctor of both medicine and philosophy, the author of various tractates (e.g., the famous Cieplice, a pioneering work on spas and mineral waters), he had visited France and Spain and, most importantly, he studied at the Italian universities in Padua and Bologna, where he witnessed their productions and read the era's most important architectural writings. So, he knew how a stage should look. He opted for a flat stage and a static decoration, the facade of an antique palace painted on an enormous canvas. So Oczko was the 'manager' of the enterprise; he at once took responsibility for the production, the scenery, and the staging. Today, we'd certainly call him the director of the play.
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The title page of Jan Kochanowski's 'Severance of Greek envoys', ed. Lviv: The Polish Bookshop of A. D. Bartoszewicz and M. Biernacki, 1882, photo: National Library Polona
The production in Anna Jagiellonka's court was an 'entirely unique and unforeseen event' as we read in the chronicle of the history of Warsaw in the years 1526 to 1795. In fact, the wedding attraction based on Kochanowski's text was at the time a pioneering event, unique in the context of the theatrical wasteland of the Jagiellonian period. The text itself was an original form, testifying to Kochanowski's experimental approach. A creator of the poetic canon – one could say a trendsetter for poetry – he opted to abandon rhyme and, based on antique inspiration, to create the first Polish political drama and to write it in blank verse (which was an absolute novelty for the poetry of the time). The choice of subject was also atypical; Kochanowski chose as his subject a somewhat obscure incident affecting the Greek diplomatic service on the eve of the Trojan War. The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys, as Michał Hanczakowski has written, was thus an entirely novel and original work of art.
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Feliks Zabłocki, Jan Kochanowski sitting under a linden tree, 1864, photo: National Library Polona
Since the Royal Castle didn't have an appropriate venue, everything took place in the great hall of Queen Anna Jagiellonka's court. The audience was seated at three tables. The banquet took place not after the premiere – as we would be accustomed to today – but rather before the program. The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys thus served as a kind of dessert for the distinguished guests following the lavish feast. There weren't many guests, but those that there were included the cream of society as well as the royal couple. The Latin work that opened the production was dedicated to the king, and it was performed to the accompaniment of a lyre. The elite members of the audience could recognise the historical allusions and revel in the poetry of the Polish Orpheus; the 'common folk' had to make do with a simpler form of entertainment. In the course of the days-long celebration, there was also a public spectacle: horse races and a tournament. The Dismissal... therefore wasn't the crowning moment of the wedding festivities – it was surely only one of several compelling elements.
We don't know much more about the production. No information can be found about the actors; they were presumably members of the royal court or young people from noble families. It's also difficult to speculate as to the costumes. It is known, however, how much the production of The Dismissal... in the royal residence cost. The director Wojciech Oczko received 151 zlotys from Zamoyski. How do we know this? One of the few surviving sources was a detailed accounting of the vice-chancellors' wedding. In bookkeeper's hand, we read:
I gave Dr Oczko 151 zlotys for the tragedy - for the construction, painting etc., - which he passed on to other hands.
Other than enhancing the wedding party, the production of Kochanowski's tragedy also had a political purpose. Dismissal... was not only the first theatrical production in Warsaw, it was also the first printed work published in the city on the banks of the River Wisła. Copies of the work were distributed to all of the members of the highest governing body, the Sejm, which was to be convened a few months later. This was intended to lay the 'mental groundwork' for King Batory's plans for war. As you can see, it is impossible to separate aesthetics from politics, and one can only chuckle when one today hears criticism of the 'political engagement' of the theatre.
The title page of the first Warsaw edition is today a priceless document. Kochanowski wrote it elaborately, not sparing any details:
'The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys' of Ian Kochanowski presented in the theatre before His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen in Jazdów adjoining Warsaw on the twelfth day of January MDLXXVIII at the wedding feast of His Excellency, the Royal Vice-Chancellor.
'Jazdów adjoining Warsaw', then an estate and the royal couple's suburban residence, is today's Ujazdów neighborhood, a central part of the capital city.
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Jan Kochanowski's 'Polish Works', Warsaw, Tow. Akc. S. Orgelbrand S -ów, 1919, photo: National Library Polona
A relatively short tragedy – only 605 verses long, written for 11 roles and a choir – was an exception to Kochanowski's usual work, which was generally dominated by poetry. He returned to writing dramas only once later – also for a particular occasion when he wrote the Latin work Dryas Zamchana to mark the visit of King Batory to the Zamoyskis' estate outside Biłgoraj 'for relaxation and hunting' (as related in the foreword to the Lviv edition of the text). One can therefore conclude that Zamoyski became a kind of sponsor of Kochanowski's dramatic writing. It's hard, though, to call the production written to honour the king at the Zamoyskis' estate a drama per se – it was more of a collection of verses later staged as a public show. For accuracy's sake, then, it should be said that Dismissal... was in fact the only theatrical work written by Kochanowski, the greatest of Polish poets until the times of Adam Mickiewicz.
The Trojan War – with some distance
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A scene from Jan Kochanowski's 'The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys', directed by Michał Zadara, 2007. Pictured: Andrzej Rozmus, Juliusz Chrząstowski, Barbara Wysocka, photo: Ryszard Kornecki / Narodowy Stary Theater in Krakow
Kochanowski's one drama has been staged in Poland just a few dozen times; rather infrequently, given the piece’s age. Though not often performed, there have been interesting stagings by modern producers.
The best-known production in the 21st century was performed in Kraków's Stary Theatre, where director Michał Zadara chose to take on the first Polish-language drama in 2007. In his characteristic style – distanced and formal – Zadara focused his attention on the language of the work. As Paweł Sztarbowski wrote in Dialog, with Zadara, 'language doesn't feature as the speech of the characters, but as an autonomous theatrical entity'. What does that mean? In practice, it means that, in the Kraków production, it wasn't so much about the psychology of the characters and the playing out of a coherent story, but rather about treating Dismissal... as an interesting archival document undergoing a theatrical vivisection (Sztarbowski called the play 'a linguistic performance'). The actors, outfitted in modern garb, moved about amongst extremely minimalist scenery (the field of play was marked by the white rectangle of the floor), and at no point was there an attempt to create in the viewers any illusion of another world or of anything other than the here and now.
Whilst Zadara's staging generated considerable discussion, critical circles generally received his version with admiration, primarily for the fresh, original approach to the somewhat forgotten classic of Polish literature. Agnieszka Rataj, writing for Rzeczpospolita, commented:
It would be easy to accuse Michał Zadara of oversimplification and an anachronistic approach to classical texts. But his production has a peculiar energy that leaves no one unmoved. It is an energy generated by sheer enjoyment of theatre, a different way of looking at the Polish classics, sometimes even a bit insolent. It might irritate at times, but it demands that Zadara be viewed with admiration
Trans. YR
Kochanowski around the world
The Renaissance master has remained vital in the 21st century and even went on tour in 2019. As part of the project The World Reads Kochanowski¸ The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys was performed in simultaneous dramatic readings on 30 June 2019. Artists in Warsaw, London, Madrid, Athens, New York, and Los Angeles brought the 16th-century text to life, creating a grand finale with a multimedia streaming production on Warsaw's Defilad Square. The Warsaw reading took place, significantly, in the location of the original premiere – in Jazdów, which is now the seat of the Theatre Institute. Acclaimed Polish actors Anna Seniuk and Mariusz Benoit participated in the event. Previews for the international event promised it, 'On the one hand will display the timeless universality of the text and, on the other hand, it will reveal the richness of its possible interpretations, quite varied and always interesting in various cultural contexts.' The event did just that, and we can look forward to another century of Poland’s first political drama moving audiences around the world.
Originally written in Polish, translated by YR, Nov 2020
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