6533b859fe1ef96bd12b8444

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Pierwsze lata benedyktynów w Polsce odrodzonej. Kronika - pamiętnik 21 V 1919 - 23 IX 1929

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The chronicie of Father Klemens Dąbrowski, who in 1919 was a monk at the Prague Emaus Monastery, presents the author’s efforts to revive the Benedictines’ monastic life in Poland after the country regained its independence. Together with Father Jozafat Ostrowski from the Maredsous Abbey in Belgium he tried to take over the Holy Cross Abbey, dissolved one hundred years earlier (which sińce 1880s had functioned as a prison), and after 1923 - to manage the recovered monastery in Lubiń. It is a story about monks struggling against the prison authorities and representatives of the public authorities (also Church authorities) and trying to restore the Holy Cross to its former glory. Father Dąbrowski’s chronicie is an important source o f Information about the circumstances of the return of monastic communities dissolved in the 19th century. Particularly striking is the clash between the expectations of the monks and the reality of the Second Polish Republic, with which they had to grapple. The author - longing for years for his homeland, surrounded by confreres of German origin during his stay in Prague and forced to suppress his patriotic feelings - does not hide the disappointment he felt in Poland after it regained its independence. Unreliable politicians, incompetent officials, landowners not really involved in community life - this was a picture that ran counter to the myth o f the liberated homeland. An important value of the memoir lies in the author’s interesting and original account of the relations in the toughest Polish prison. The author’s efforts to recover the Holy Cross Abbey failed, but his chronicie testifies to his determination to recover the former monastic property, to his love of the Benedictine heritage and commitment to collecting accounts and memorabilia documenting the history of the regions in which he lived - Kielce and southem part of Wielkopolska.