The goal of the project is to prepare an 11-volume critical edition of hagiographic collections (17th-20th centuries) essential to Polish cultural heritage. The planned series aims to incorporate texts that shaped religiosity and informed readers' knowledge from the mid-17th century through the period of national captivity and until Poland regained independence into the living tradition of national culture.

This new project involves a critical edition of sources that reflect, in a cross-sectional yet synthetic manner, the shaping of the religious and historical mindset of Poles from the 17th to the 20th centuries. All compendiums are monuments of Polish literature, representative examples of their times – the Sarmatian mentality, Baroque religiosity and the spirituality of monastic congregations. These collections ground Poland's history in the Christian tradition over the centuries, while simultaneously capturing the image of key figures in shaping Polish history. These texts, and therefore their properly annotated edition, present Poland and its historical significance in the region and Europe. They enable Polish and international researchers to access the texts in modern editions. Making the collections available in digital form will align with the ideas of "open science" and "open access," enabling historians, linguists and representatives of other disciplines interested in Polish hagiography from the 17th to the 20th century to benefit from them

– explains the project manager dr hab. Małgorzata Mieszek, Associate Professor at the University of Lodz.

The project will result in the development, preparation and publication of an 11-volume critical edition of hagiographic works from the 17th to the 20th centuries. This will be a complete textual study of six hagiographic collections (from the 17th to the 20th centuries) and a separate anthology, including eleven smaller works (from the 19th and 20th centuries). The texts will be transcribed and accompanied by historical, literary and linguistic introductions, taking into account the historical and religious contexts and addressing key issues related to the texts' specificity. Each edition will be enriched with philological, linguistic and substantive commentary, a dictionary and indexes.

The project was co-financed with PLN 1,777,291.29 as part of the National Heritage competition financed by the National Programme for the Development of Humanities.