Ornitologia, ornitomancja. Sokołowski i (inne) ptaki Jerzego Ficowskiego

Abstract

The starting point for my article was Jerzy Ficowski’s poem Do autora “Ptaków ziem polskich”. The poem, found in the poet’s penultimate volume – Zawczas z poniewczasem (2004) is commemorating Jan Sokołowski (1899–1982). He was a prominent ornithologist, one of the contemporary forerunners of the field, a pioneer of bird protection in Poland, and, above all, a visionary who in his work exhibited an innovatively personal approach to animals. The language he used was commonly regarded as anthropomorphic, since he attributed animals with emotions. In the article, I deal with poetic traces of both deliberate and accidental relations between Ficowski’s work and the ornithological work of Sokołowki. At the same time I attempt at a reconstruction of the advice that the author of Pantarei gained from the so to speak indirect consultations with the scholar. This allowed him to set the birds free in terms of cultural code of symbolic meaning. By referring to fairly numerous poems of Ficowski in which animals are present as main characters I prove that in both his and Sokołowski’s representation they are in fact quite similar. This, naturally, is done in different registers, however they both paid special attention to both ornithological faithfulness and what is beyond the reach of science, i.e. attempting to reflect the inner life of birds.