Quo Vadis

The aim of the article is to show whether and to what extent literary fiction in Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz contains historical truth. The analysis of historical sources will allow, among others, learning about the historical context or rejecting the stereotypes about Nero as the only person responsible for the fire of rome or the slaughter of Christians. The carried out comparative literary and historical studies may be utilised while working with students, and selected fragments of historical texts may be suggested to them for studying. The student playing the role of a researcher will certainly become an active and empathic reader of Quo Vadis.
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Celem artykułu jest pokazanie, czy iw jakim stopniu literacka fikcja w Quo vadis Henryka Sienkiewicza zawiera prawdę historyczną. Analiza źródeł historycznych pozwoli m.in.na poznanie kontekstu historycznego czy odrzucenie stereotypów o Neronie jako jedynej osobie odpowiedzialnej za pożar Rzymu czy rzeź chrześcijan. Przeprowadzone komparatystyczne studia literackie i historyczne mogą być wykorzystane w pracy ze studentami, a wybrane fragmenty tekstów historycznych mogą być im zaproponowane do przestudiowania. Student w roli badacza z pewnością stanie się aktywnym i empatycznym czytelnikiem Quo Vadis.

Seperti yang kita ketahui, Ilmu Hubungan Internasional telah mengalami berbagai perkembangan sejak awal kemunculannya. Pada awal dan saat ini pun yang menjadi fokus dalam  Ilmu Hubungan Internasional juga berubah. Ilmu Hubungan Internasional memfokuskan pada penyebab-penyebab terjadinya perang di dunia ini, karena memang ilmu hubungan internasional ini muncul setelah melihat fenomena peperangan terus-menerus terjadi. Selain itu, ilmu hubungan internasional ini juga membicarakan bagaimana cara mengakhiri perang tersebut. Namun pada saat ini, fokus dari ilmu hubungan internasional menjadi semakin kompleks.

The paper examines the comic versions - spanning from the second half of XX century to our days - of Sienkiewicz' Quo vadis?, a novel that has enormously contributed to popularize ancient Rome with the general public. Although they compress, change or even distort the literary work, such re-mediations may succeed in conveying a new meaning.

The dialogue in the historical films is often the weakest component of the
presumed ‘authenticity’ in the recreating the vision of the past they usually
aspire to. However, its artificiality is particularly evident in the productions
about ancient worlds, because the historical characters typically speak
in a language which has nothing to do with the reality presented on the
screen. Such is a situation of Quo Vadis (1951), where the Ancient Romans
communicate using modern English. This paper analyses several stylistic
strategies used by the screenwriters of Quo Vadis in order to create a dialogue
compatible with the Imperial Rome in the time of Nero, but at the same time
functional to the film’s ideological message. Special attention is paid, above
all, to the way the script deals with the forms of address and with military/
honorific titles, as these are usually the most important and evident signals
of the ‘historicity’ in the film dialogues. Another important point examined
in the paper is the relation between the cinematographic dialogue and the
dialogue in Sienkiewicz’s novel, from which Quo Vadis has been adapted.
While the original literary work has been written in Polish, there are evident
traces of Sienkiewicz’s style in the film dialogue, filtred through Jeremiah
Curtin’s translation as they may be. Curiously such influence regards only
some characters, most notably Petronius and the emperor Nero.

>>> "Sienkiewicz - postcards from trips" - scientific exhibition prepared with Lidia Gerc (PAN, Scientific Center in Vienna) presented at the Scientific Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Paris and Vienna and at the library Germaine-Tillion (Saint-Maur-des-Fossés) in November 2016.

>>> 12 display boards in Polish and French with almost 100 illustrations (postcards, photographies, press articles).

Quo vadis? directed by Enrico Guazzoni in 1913 is still one of the most faithful film adaptations of the novel by Sienkiewicz. When the silent feature came to cinemas around the world, the story was already familiar to the majority of the audience, due to the popular success of the book and proliferation of many derivative works, especially theatrical. In various ways, these adaptations developed audiences’ previous knowledge of the plot and the characters. Some of them were set in an openly illustrative relationship; others focus on a single narrative thread of the novel. The most complex examples, especially the 1909 opera by Jean Nougues, offered a skilled concentration of the plot in a few scenes that were complex both in terms of narrative and staging.
The director Guazzoni was quite familiar with the ‘horizons of expectation’ that adaptations of such a popular novel created, but he decided to use them differently. In his film, faithfulness to the original text became the most important trait of a new, ambitious staging strategy: the protection of the plot’s complexity and its spatial fragmentation. Performing a comparative analysis of the narrative spaces in Guazzoni’s film and in a few theatrical adaptations, this chapter delves into two different examples of interaction between the original novel, the adaptation and viewer expectations: the centripetal model, in which the most important quality is the ability to synthesize, and the centrifugal one, based precisely on fidelity to the original text and to historical accuracy.

Felieton opowiada o procesie pisania (a zwłaszcza kończenia) przez Henryka Sienkiewicza powieści "Quo Vadis", o modzie, jaka zapanowała po wydaniu książki w wielu krajach, o adaptacjach teatralnych i filmowych - a także o Nagrodzie Nobla, jaką zdobył autor głównie za tę powieść. Jednak felieton opowiada także o tym, że książka nie wytrzymała próby czasu. Współcześnie młodzież się nią nie zachwyca, a nawet adaptacja filmowa nakręcona w 2001 roku przez Jerzego Kawalerowicza - nie zyskał oczekiwanego powodzenia.

The article discusses the adaptations of Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo
vadis and their key role in long term success of the novel in Italy.
Three historical phases of the work's reception are analyzed. The
earliest one, up to the First World War, when “purified” versions of
the work appeared, censored from content considered too bold
or exciting for young minds. The interwar period, when the adaptations of Quo vadis became books intended for reading as school
reading material. Finally, the post ww2 context, when adaptations
of the novels aimed at students of junior high school, aged 11–14,
dominated the publishing market and became the primary form
in which readers got acquainted with the text. Of the dozens of
different versions for young readers that were created in Italy over
the decades, the most ambitious attempt at adaptation, Quo vadis
for 10–year-olds, published in the 1930s in the famous La Scala
d’oro publishing series, is discussed in detail.