Wacław Aleksander Maciejowskias a Comparatist: His Supplements to Frédéric Gustav Eichhoff’sThe Literature of Medieval Peoples: Slavs and Germans

The work Obraz literatury średniowiekowych ludów, a mianowicie Słowian i Niemców (The Literatureof Medieval Peoples: Slavs and Germans) was published in Warsaw in 1856. It was a translationof a study by the French philologist and comparatist Frédéric Gustave Eichhoff. The original textwas signifi cantly modifi ed and supplemented by Wacław Aleksander Maciejowski, a Polish historianof law and specialist on Slavic culture. This article identifi es the parts of the text that Maciejowskiadded, allowing for a reconstruction of his general views on Slavic poetry, including the differencesbetween folk-ballad traditions of the Slavic nations, as well as between Slavic and Western Europeanfolk ballads (primarily German). Maciejowski’s views on the development of the literaturesof various European nations by the mid-nineteenth century are also discussed.