Pamięć miasta utraconego – misteryjna semantyka Wilna w Dziadach Adama Mickiewicza
Memory of a city lost: the mystery-play semantics of Vilnius in Adam Mickiewicz’s Forefathers’ Eve

Author(s): Maria Kalinowska
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Theoretical Linguistics, Semantics, Rural and urban sociology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: Vilnius; Romantic period; Mieczysław Limanowski; Reduta Theatre; Adam Mickiewicz; Forefathers’ Eve
Summary/Abstract: There is an indissoluble connection between Part III of Forefathers’ Eve and Vilnius where the drama unfolds. Forefathers’ Eve is a text of the city, just as the city is a text of Forefathers’ Eve.These ties between the city and Mickiewicz’s drama pose a hermeneutic and interpretational challenge for scholars studying the Romantic period. The author of the arti- cle invokes various interpretations of Vilnius, including those expressed in terms of the semiotics of the city and geopoetics. Particular inspiration for this research comes from Mieczysław Limanowski’s works in cultural studies. A geology professor and co-founder of the Reduta Theatre, he used the category of “mystery-play spirit” to present an inter- pretation of the text of Vilnius that resonates with the vision of Vilnius presented in Part III of Forefathers’ Eve. As in the historical mystery-play theatre, events unfold simultane- ously here, taking place in different places at the same time, but are bound by the linear development of the main theme: the fate of the prisoners and their martyrdom, and, in a theatrical sense through the participation of the audience/witnesses, who are conscious of events on the city’s stage.

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