„Nie śpi szataństwo [...], a najbardziej w drodze”—About the Prayer Book for Travelers "Dystrakcyje podróżnych pobożne, uczone i ucieszne" by Jan Drews SI (selected issues)

Abstract

The article is devoted to selected issues concerning Jan Drews’ work Dystrakcyje podróżnych pobożne, uczeń i ucieszne. Drews was a Jesuit, professor at the Vilnius Academy and author of numerous widely read works. The work discussed in the article was originally published in Latin as Distractiones itinerantium piae, iucundae, eruditae […] (1701). It was also translated into Polish by the Jesuit Józef Brzozowski. Distractions had a non-standard form. They were a combination of a geographical and tourist guide with a reflective and religious part (meditations, prayers), and to some extent also entertainment (secular songs). The text examines the structure of Drews’s work and also searches for the sources of songs that the translator of the work into Polish placed in the part devoted to singing while traveling. It turned out that the source of several songs was Dominik Rudnicki’s popular songbook Głos wolny w wiąznej mowie […]. The reflective parts in Drew’s work were taken from De imitatione Christi by Tomasz à Kempis. Its translation into Polish was made by Brzozowski himself. Thanks to this, it was possible to identify new, previously unknown translations of fragments of the German mystic’s work. The article’s author also looked at the specificity of geographical and cultural descriptions and wondered for whom Drews’ text in Brzozowski’s translation was intended.