O współczesnej recepcji najstarszej polskiej pieśni maryjnej — Bogurodzicy

Abstract

The article is an attempt to show how young people understand the content of Bogurodzica, which fragments of the hymn cause the most problems for contemporary audiences and how large a group of respondents it applies to. The study was conducted on a group of more than one hundred second-year students of Polish philology at the University of Gdansk, who were asked to translate the Old Polish text accurately into the modern one. An analysis of the Polish language textbooks used by the respondents during their secondary school education was also carried out. It shows that the work Bogurodzica was translated into contemporary language in the textbooks. The analysis of selected fragments of translations of Bogurodzica allows us to conclude that the text is not properly understood by Poles, even those who have recently learned the work at school. The article is critical of the school’s confining themselves to analysis of the contemporary text of the work, which does not allow the artistry of Bogurodzica to be grasped — the rhymes, the rhythm, as well as learning the linguistic layer of the oldest fatherland song.