More’s Utopia in Poland: Translations and Impact—An Overview

The article traces the development of interest in Thomas More’s Utopia in Polish literature and culture, as well as the influence of utopian ideas on the literary output of Polish authors from the sixteenth century to the present day. The reception of Utopia and its author, as well as the evolution of Polish utopianism, have been the subject of several scholarly studies; suffice it to mention the books and articles of Janusz Tazbir and Roman A. Tokarczyk. While drawing on similar issues in the first two sections, this article sets as its major objective an examination of the Polish translation of More’s seminal work, its reprints, and the included critical material, analyzing the compositional and paratextual elements appearing in Polish editions of Utopia. The article also reviews the critical response that the translations and accompanying introductions elicited at the time, namely, the late 1940s and early 1950s, a period of increased persecution of the Roman Catholic Church and the spread of communist propaganda by the political regime in Poland.