Although Martin Optiz is the best-known figure from Bolesławiec, the average resident of our town knows little about him—indeed, almost nothing. M. Optiz has the same significance for German culture as Mikołaj Rej or Jan Kochanowski do for ours, so I believe it is worth knowing somewhat more about this poet. In this article, I will bring readers closer to the writer’s final days.
The Thirty Years’ War and financial difficulties forced M. Optiz to leave Silesia in 1635. The following year, he settled in Gdańsk, where he lived with the Calvinist theologian Baitholomeus Nigrinus in a house on Chlebownicza Street. During this period, he served first as a royal agent and then as a historiographer whose salary, by a decision of the Sejm, was paid from customs revenue collected in Gdańsk.
In the summer of 1639, the inhabitants of Gdańsk were attacked by the plague. Thanks to letters written by Optiz’s publisher, Andreas Hunefeld, to Robert Robcrtinus, the royal secretary, we can trace the poet’s final days.
Optiz spent the evening of 15 August 1639 at the home of Hunefeld’s housekeeper, and the following day with Nigrinus. On 17 August, he wrote letters to Władysław IV and his friends; on Thursday, 18 August, he felt ill and did not get out of bed again. On Friday, the Hunefelds learned of the poet’s illness and arranged immediate assistance. The efforts of the doctors and friends were to no avail. Optiz died on Saturday, 20 August 1639, at 1:00 p.m. in the house on Chlebownicza Street. His final spiritual counsel was provided by Albert Niclassius, a Calvinist preacher from the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. On 22 August, the deceased’s body was buried without major ceremonies in the northern nave of St. Mary’s Church in Gdańsk. Even in the nineteenth century, it contained a modest epitaph bearing, besides his name and places of birth and death, a coat of arms and a short inscription carved in 1881. Today, it is difficult to find the epitaph, although its approximate location is known.
When news of Optiz’s death reached Leszno, where his family, exiled from Bolesławiec, was staying, the poet’s father immediately set out for Gdańsk to take care of his son’s estate. With some difficulty, Sebastian Optiz managed to recover Martin’s library and movable property from the Gdańsk city council. Not long afterward, he began systematically selling the books and manuscripts from the library. Throughout Europe, Optiz’s death reverberated widely in literary circles. Funeral panegyrics and posthumous memoirs were produced. In Wrocław, the memorial ceremonies were organized by Optiz’s friend, also from Bolesławiec, a professor at Elisabeth Gymnasium and librarian at St. Mary Magdalene’s, Krzysztof Coler. In Bolesławiec, probably in 1739, on the centenary of the poet’s death, a monument was erected, although it is not mentioned in later sources.
Before the war, our town contained many mementos of Martin Optiz. First among them was a monument unveiled on Sunday, 1 July 1877, standing in front of the eastern entrance to today’s District Court, level with the bus stop.
The monument, in the form of a column with a bust, was made from Carrara marble by the Wrocław sculptor Michaelis, with the assistance of the Bolesławiec firm Zeidler & Wimmel (today represented by sandstone). On Lewenbergstrasse (Komuny Paryskiej Street) stood a boulder known to the Germans as Optizstein, on which the poet wrote his first works in his youth. The Municipal Museum held Optiz’s manuscripts, autographs and books, along with a copy of a portrait made by Strebel two years before the writer’s death. The original is held at the Municipal Library in Gdańsk. Essentially, the only living memorial to Optiz today is his birthplace, standing on Prusa Street and now in a deplorable condition. It should be added that after the war, the commemorative plaque bearing a Latin inscription dedicated to the Optiz family was removed from it.