On Vincenz's Armenian roots and their reflection in his Pokuttyan mythology

Na stronie wydawnictwa : Wrocław 2015 (druk 2019)

On each page of his "Na wysokiej połoninie" (On the High Uplands) Stanisław Vincenz argues that thanks to the diversity of peoples, their ethnicities, languages, regions, customs and myths the world has the structure of a polyphonic choir, that the diversity in question is a fundamental cultural value. The commentators of Vincenz's work, focusing on the analysis of his attitude to the Hutsul, Jewish or Antique cultures, seem to be under impression that he was a mere mirror and enthusiast of other ethnic identities, devoid of his own. The author claims that Vincenz was an adamant Pole, a product of Polishness inherited from distant past, including the Hasidim and the Ruthenian highlandders, rooted in indigenous and incoming ethnicities living in the vast territories of old Poland. An important elemet, the third ethnically non-Polish component of the Polish culture which affected the writer's development, was the Pokuttyan Armenians, a specific branch of the Armenians of Poland. Not only were they an eternal, constant and important component of the cultural landscape of Pokuttya, but also the writer's genetic ancestors. This study is devoted to Vincenz's Armenian roots and their mythicised consequences. The author proves that his Armenian roots probably stemmed not from one but from two sources : one on the matrilineal and the other on the patrilineal sides.