Stefan Javors’kyj's Sermons

This edition presents a selection of 15 sermons by Stefan Javors’kyj (1658–1722), a Ukrainian poet and preacher of the late 17th century. His imagination, knowledge, and rhetorical skills made him one of the leading European writers of his time. For political reasons, his sermons remained in manuscript for over 300 years. The editors have painstakingly transcribed the Ukrainian texts and annotated them in English. The edition makes Javors’kyj’s works available to scholars who wish to broaden their knowledge of an unknown part of early modern European literature.

Edited by Giovanna Brogi, Maksym Yaremenko, Tetiana Kuzyk, Marzanna Kuczyńska, and Jakub Niedźwiedź
with an introduction by Marzanna Kuczyńska
in collaboration with Bartosz B. Awianowicz, Grzegorz Franczak, and Monika Miazek-Męczyńska

Giovanna Brogi, Ph.D. (1969), University of Florence, is Professor Emerita of the University of Milan (Italy). She has published numerous studies focused on the medieval tradition of the Eastern Slavs, Baroque literature in the Slavic countries and in the European tradition, and on the history of Slavic studies, including a co-authored history of Ukrainian literature (in German, forthcoming).

Maksym Yaremenko, Ph.D. (2003), Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv (Ukraine), is Professor of History at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy. He has published monographs and papers on church history, religious culture, and the history of literacy, including Church Feasts and Religious Identity: Ukrainian and Russian Menologia in the Late Eighteenth Century (in Ukrainian, 2023).

Tetiana Kuzyk is a historian and a senior research fellow at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Her publications focus on the history of the Zaporožian Sič, including co-authoring the edition of six volumes of the archive of the New Zaporožian Sič (in Ukrainian, 2000–2024).

Marzanna Kuczyńska, Ph.D. (1994), Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań (Poland), is Professor of Slavic Literature at the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań. She has published books and papers about East Slavic literatures, including a monograph on Ruthenian sermons in the 17th century (in Polish, 2004).

Jakub Niedźwiedź, Ph.D. (2001), Jagiellonian University (Poland), is Professor of Early Modern Literature at the Jagiellonian University. He has published monographs and papers on the history of literature and cartography, including Literacy in Medieval and Early Modern Vilnius (2023). He is co-editor of Stefan Javors’kyj’s Panegyrics (2025).

Bartosz B. Awianowicz, Ph.D. (2007), Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (Poland), is Professor of Classical Literature. He has published monographs and papers on the history of literature and numismatics, including bilingual editions of Cicero’s De oratore (2010) and De inventione (2013). He contributed to Stefan Javors’kyj’s Sermons (2025).

Grzegorz Franczak, Ph.D. (2005), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy), is Professor of Polish Literature at the University of Milan (Italy). His research focuses on early modern literature, cartography, and Holocaust studies. He published, a.o., an edition of a 16th-century account about Ivan IV the Terrible (2016).

Monika Miazek-Męczyńska, Ph.D. (2017), Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland), is a Professor of Classical literature at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and a translator of ancient Latin poetry. Her research focuses on Latin literature and its reception, and on the early modern Jesuit mission in China.