Joasaf Krokovskyi’s Oration on the Demise of Inokentii Gizel (1683)

The publication features a funeral oration composed in 1683 by Joasaf Krokovskyi, then a professor of rhetoric, in honor of Inokentii Gizel, the deceased archimandrite of the Kyiv Cave Monastery. The work is included in the rhetoric course «Penarium Tullianae eloquentiae...», which was delivered at the Kyiv-Mohyla College during the 1683/1684 academic year. The introductory article is followed by the original text in Polish and its Ukrainian translation, accompanied by necessary comments.In the rhetoric course, Krokovskyi’s oration is used as an illustrative sample in the theoretical unit on rhetorical figures. In line with the traditions of Baroque literature, the author selects a recurring image that determines the sequence of the presentation: here, this role is played by the clock face as an allegory of human life. Another point shaping the work’s figurative system and serving as a source of rhetorical argumentation is the emblem depicting a crayfish dragging the world on its back. Most likely, it was borrowed from Joachim Camerarius’ emblematic collection «Symbolum et emblematum centuriae quatuor». It is noteworthy that Krokovskyi’s Polish text is not overloaded with Latin inclusions, which reflects his linguistic and stylistic preferences related to the use of Polish.Since the biography of the archimandrite of the Kyiv Cave Monastery and a prominent figure in the Mohylean circle, Inokentii Gizel, remains incomplete and includes hypothetical information, this oratorical piece is also important as a historical source. In particular, it is the first known text to name some of Gizel’s places of study. The work also indirectly confirms the fact of Vilnius origin of the future archimandrite and contains an indication of his two terms as a philosophy lecturer at the Kyiv-Mohyla College.