Slavic Comparative Metrics (SCM): The Research Program and the Circumstances of Its Implementation

One of the most important achievements of Polish research on verse forms of poetry in the final decades of the 20th century was the organization of an international group implementing a program called Slavic Comparative Metrics, dealing with the comparative analysis of verse forms in Slavic literatures. The group’s formation coincided with a time when the field of literary studies sought to clarify its methods, defining its place between linguistics and cultural studies. The program carried out by versologists was based on the concepts of language and poetry contained in the works of the Russian formalists and the Prague structuralists, and its formulation was directly influenced by the writings of Roman Jakobson as well as personal contacts with this scholar. The article presents the circumstances in which the SCM group was set up at the Institute of Literary Research, describes its methods of work as well as subsequent goals and results. Research on a pan-Slavic scale revealed the influence of the different prosodic structures of individual languages on the possibility of implementing specific rhythmic patterns. This research shed light on the value of different forms in linguistically related literatures and on the choice of metrical equivalents in translation. The researchers also examined the functioning of verse structures in intercultural contacts within the Slavic area and metrical poetry as testimony to Slavic literatures belonging to the wider European community. The team was active for 35 years despite the difficulties to which international cooperation was exposed in the political conditions of the time. The results of its work were published in nine volumes of the Slavic Comparative Metrics series.