Gopło
Gopło

Summary/Abstract: The legends on Piast and King Popiel are related to the lowering of waters of pre-Gopło lake, the locality of Kruszwica then being removed away of local water trade routes. Literature and historiography took up legends on the origins of Polish state during the Partition time (J. U. Niemcewicz, J. Lelewel). Juliusz Słowacki, who had never seen Gopło himself, was the only great Polish romantic author who resumed the theme, trivialised as it was by patriotic didacticism. The Gopło vicinity in Balladyna and Lilla Weneda has a colouring of their author’s readings (Shakespearism, ballad-mania, political topicalities, Słowaczyński’s dictionary of the geography of Poland, historical readings). Overlapping with Gopło was the image of Leman whose imagination-fertilising presence is testified to by the poet’s correspondence and the Dedication Letter in Lilla Weneda. Słowacki points out therein also to another segment of imagination: the ‘Pinsk recollection’. In Król Duch, Gopło-related rhapsodes are dug out of the ‘centuries-old memory’ – and Słowacki’s own memory; the poet added up a personal and romantic(ist) colouring to the Gopło vicinity. In building the entry in question, the author wanted to point to a diversity of visions of this historically important site in Polish culture and to the multi-ingredient poetic image of Gopło and the historic vicinity as depicted in Słowacki’s vision.

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