2025 marks the 550th anniversary of publishing the Latin-language book Statuta synodalia Wratislaviensia [Synodal Statutes of the Bishops of Wrocław, page 19]. The book, which was published in Wrocław by Caspar Elyean, contains the first ever printed text in the Polish language, namely the most important Christian prayers – Our Father, Hail Mary and the Creed. Elyan's prints are a unique symbol of the inclusion of the Polish language in the system of innovative communication technologies in Europe and the world at that time. They are also undeniably of great importance for diachronic linguistics, the history of printing, theology and the history of Poland, Silesia and the Polish-Czech-German borderland. The aforementioned anniversary and the conference related to it are therefore an opportunity for scholarly reflection on the history of the printed word in Silesia and Poland, considered in a broad historical, linguistic and theological context.
The conference organisers – the University of Wrocław, the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Wrocław, Wrocław University Library and Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich – invite you to submit proposals for papers and/or posters. The scope of the conference includes source-based research on Elyan's prints and their content from historical, linguistic, bibliological and theological perspectives. Additionally, we are interested in topics related to the multi-ethnicity and multilingualism of Silesia and the history of the printed word in Silesia and Poland.
