The project consists in the translation of a monograph by dr Zofia A. Brzozowska, entitled “Sofia – upersonifikowana Mądrość Boża. Dzieje wyobrażeń w kręgu kultury bizantyńsko-słowiańskiej" [”Sophia - the Personification of Divine. The History of Imagery in Byzantine-Slavic Culture”].
The three-year grant involves a professional translation of the book, originally published in Polish by the Lodz University Press in 2015.
In the monograph, the author focuses on the images of Sophia - the personification of Divine Wisdom, characteristic of the spiritual culture of Eastern Christianity, especially Byzantium and the area of Slavia Orthodoxa. It is an interdisciplinary study, discussing problems in the field of paleo-Slavic studies, history and the sciences of culture, and religion.
The publication has been awarded by Polish scientific institutions. Moreover, it has received positive reviews published in scientific periodicals of international range, indexed, among others, in the SCOPUS and Web of Science Core Collection databases.
“Considering the subject of my research, focusing on the spiritual culture and literature of the Eastern Orthodox Slavs, the translation into Russian and dissemination of the results of my work in Russia will be particularly valuable,” - says dr Zofia Brzozowska, the grant manager.
The translation of the monograph will be published by the renowned St. Petersburg publishing house “Aletheia” ("Алетейя"), which specialises in scientific publications on ancient, Byzantine and medieval culture. The book by dr Zofia A. Brzozowska will be printed as part of the "Византийская библиотека. Исследования" series, published in close cooperation with researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“It should be noted that books on the Byzantine heritage in Ruthenia are popular in Russia, but the local publishers are rarely interested in works by foreign authors. I am all the more pleased with the fact that the publishing house in St. Petersburg has expressed interest in my book and agreed to publish it as part of its prestigious series,” - adds Brzozowska.
The translation work will be performed by mgr Jan Morawicki, a researcher at the Ceraneum Centre and a doctoral student at the Department of Slavonic Studies of the University of Lodz. Jan Morawicki is a native speaker of Russian and a graduate from the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnic Sociology at St. Petersburg State University; he has experience in research projects. In 2017-2019, Morawicki was a member of the project team of the Ceraneum Centre implementing a grant entitled "The Novgorod First Chronicle – translation into Polish and scientific study of the oldest monument of historiography of Novgorod the Great."
“This grant is special for me because this will be the first monograph of mine that will be translated as a whole into one of the congress languages and, furthermore, it will be published by a recognized foreign publishing house, ensuring the wide distribution of the book," - concludes Brzozowska.
Professor Waldemar Ceran, Research Centre for the History and Culture of the Mediterranean Area and South-East Europe, is an interdisciplinary research institution operating at the University of Lodz since 2011. Ceraneum invariably aims at integration between individual units of the university, broadening the scope of interdisciplinary cooperation in the university and international dimension and thus, making the university’s teaching offer more attractive at all levels and strengthening the position of the University of Lodz in Poland and worldwide through a strong research component.
The grant is the only application from the University of Lodz that received funding in this year's edition of the Universalia 2.1 competition. The financial value of the project is PLN 121398, including indirect costs at the disposal of the authorities of the University of Lodz.
This is the fourth project of the National Programme for the Development of Humanities carried out by a team of researchers affiliated with the Ceraneum Centre. At the moment, the Centre is involved in as many as nine projects, including numerous international ones.
This shows that the research of humanists from Lodz, financed by external grants, is in the mainstream of global science.
University of Lodz is one of the biggest universities in Poland. Its mission is to educate top-class scientists and specialists in numerous fields of humanities, social sciences, natural and exact sciences as well as health sciences. UniLodz cooperates with business, both at the staff level by providing qualified employees as well as at the scientific level, by offering its know-how to enterprises from various areas of economy. University of Lodz is an academic institution open to the world – the number of its international students is constantly growing, while its Polish students, thanks to Exchange programmes, get to know Europe, Asia and travel overseas. The University is a part of Lodz, it operates for and with the community of Lodz by getting involved in many socio-cultural projects.
Source: Centrum Ceraneum
Edit: Promotion Centre, UL