THE ISSUE OF THE STUDY OF SOURCE TEXTS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CHURCH SONGBOOK BY REV. FR. JAN SIEDLECKI

The Church Songbook by Rev. Fr. Jan Siedlecki is not a homogenous publication in terms of its 41 editions over 140 years. From the beginning, it contained both the old and the new songs. The author did not pay too much attention to the documentation of their origins and neither did Rev. Fr. Michał Marcin Mioduszewski CM from whose collection Rev. Fr. Siedlecki borrowed the old songs. The situation changed along with the new editor-in-chief, Rev. Fr. Wendelin Świerczek CM. It was him who raised the bar to a new high in the 1928 anniversary edition of the critical edition of the songbook, which he oversaw until the end of his life (he passed away in 1974). The shape of various editions was influenced by changing editors. In the 41st edition of Rev. Fr. Siedlecki’s songbook from 2015, there are 243 songs for which the source are the previous editions. In addition, for 170 songs, the source are Fr. Rev. Mioduszewski’s songbooks. 102 songs in this edition of the songbook have been printed for the first time. The other ones originate from other sources. From this simple analysis, it follows that for 515 songs out of 840 in the 41st edition, the source is the songbook of Fr. Rev. Siedlecki or the songbook of his predecessor, Fr. Rev. Mioduszewski. Many church songs sung in Poland owe their functioning to the songbook of Fr. Rev. Jan Siedlecki (his individual editions). Thus, the decision of the Conference of the Polish Episcopate, by which the 41st edition was approved as the Polish national liturgical songbook, has to be recognised as historical justice or, if you will, a natural consequence