Language Ways of Christianization of Poland

Abstract

On the occasion of the 1050th anniversary of the baptism of Poland, a number of new works appeared on the subject of this event and of the beginnings of the Polish state in the European context, just as it did half a century ago (Początki państwa polskiego, 1966). They bring new scientific syntheses (Chrystianizacja Europy, 2014; Chrystianizacja „Młodszej Europy”, 2016) and textbook perspectives (Nowak, 2014; Ożóg, 2015, Walkowski, 2015-2016), as well as important detailed arrangements on the oldest contacts between the Slavs and the Franks over the central Danube (Polek, 2007), connections between southern Poland and Avars and Great Morawa (Třeštík, 2009; Poleski, 2013), with the Czechs of the first Przemyślids (Matla-Kozłowska, 2008). Some historians refer to linguistics, questioning, among others, Czech provenance of the oldest Polish Christian terminology (Sikorski, 2011, 2012), or suggesting their own explanations of Polish tribal names and names of the oldest rulers of Poland (Urbańczyk, 2008; 2012), which is difficult to agree with, however.
 As regards the works of Polish linguists in this field, upon the great works of A. Brückner (1915; 1974) and E. Klich (1927) on Polish Christian terminology and discussions on the Old Church Slavonic language in medieval Poland of K. Lanckorońska (1961), T. Lehr-Spławiński (1962), T. Milewski (1965), only at the end of the 20th century there appeared analytic studies of L. Moszyński (1994), J. Siatkowski (1996), and M. Kucała (2000) and discovery publications of M. Karpluk (collected in 2010), especially her «Dictionary of Old Polish Christian Terminology" (Karpluk, 2001), based on which we will try to discuss the ways in which it reached Poland. The starting point for the authors' considerations will be the phases of the process of Christianisation and its course in Europe and in Slavdom, and then sources of Old Polish religious terminology on selected examples and other testimonies of the Christianization of Poland. The summary will cover some arguable issues and the results of the work.