History Trivia / SienkiewiczTrilogy

** Polish-American novelist W.S. Kuniczak wrote another translation in the 1990s, with the intent of creating a "modern, more accessible" version. However, unlike Curtin's overly literal translation, his translation suffers from the opposite problem: [[DubInducedPlotlineChange he freely deleted passages and added many of his own]]. Kuniczak is himself an award-winning writer, so his changes do fit seamlessly into the rest of the text, but they ''are'' changes and the result is a [[TranslationWithAnAgenda slightly different story]] than the one Sienkiewicz actually wrote. Kuniczak's translation is currently out of print, and used copies can be expensive.

** Polish-American novelist W.S. Kuniczak wrote another translation in the 1990s, with the intent of creating a "modern, more accessible" version. However, unlike Curtin's overly literal translation, his translation suffers from the opposite problem: [[CutAndPasteTranslation he freely deleted passages and added many of his own]]. Kuniczak is himself an award-winning writer, so his changes do fit seamlessly into the rest of the text, but they ''are'' changes and the result is a [[TranslationWithAnAgenda slightly different story]] than the one Sienkiewicz actually wrote. Kuniczak's translation is currently out of print, and used copies can be expensive.

** Polish-American novelist W.S. Kuniczak wrote another translation in the 1990s, with the intent of creating a "modern, more accessible" version. However, unlike Curtin's overly literal translation, his translation suffers from the opposite problem: [[CutAndPasteTranslation he freely deleted passages and added many of his own]]. Kuniczak is himself an award-winning writer, so his changes do fit seamlessly into the rest of the text, but they ''are'' changes. Kuniczak's translation is currently out of print, and used copies can be expensive.
** The English-dubbed version of the ''With Fire and Sword'' movie is decent... until someone speaks in Ukrainian. Then it happens to still have the original VoiceoverTranslation from the Polish TV version that was used for DVD transfer, with all ''three'' voices played at once, being very distracting even to people used to voiceover translations. To make matters worse, nothing was altered in a Blu Ray release, keeping the bad audio.

* MoneyDearBoy: Despite the famous and memetic "to uplift the hearts" declaration Sienkiewicz often made in public, his actual motivation, evident from his diaries and letters, was in cold cash. This is also why the books were published first as serialized pieces in newspapers - he got more money from such deal than by sending finished manuscripts to a publisher. And ironically, the least [[TastesLikeDiabetes diabetobus]] and sappy ''Pan Wołodyjowski'' was only written thanks to the financial success the previous two books ended up being, rather than any patriotic or artistic statement - and it shows in its plot, too.

* MoneyDearBoy: Despite the famous and memetic "to uplift the hearts" declaration Sienkiewicz often made in public, his actual motivation, evident from his diaries and letters, was in cold cash. This is also why the books were published first as serialised pieces in newspapers - he got more money from such deal than by sending finished manuscripts to a publisher. And ironically, the least [[TastesLikeDiabetes diabetobus]] and sappy ''Pan Wołodyjowski'' was only written thanks to the financial success the previous two books ended up being, rather than any patriotic or artistic statement - and it shows in its plot, too.

* OutOfOrder: The adaptations were filmed in reverse order, [[SerendipityWritesThePlot for political and financial reasons]].

* YouLookFamiliar: Daniel Olbrychski was cast in all three movie adaptations: as Azja in ''Pan Wołodyjowski'', Kmicic in ''The Deluge'' and Tuhaj-Bej (Azja's father) in ''With Fire and Sword''.

** Film adaptation of ''With Fire and Sword'' lead to [[FollowTheLeader emergence of a period-specific fiction literature]], with the so-called "sarmatian adventure" becoming a cottage industry of sorts for few befriended writters ever since.

* MoneyDearBoy: Despite the famous and memetic "to uplift the hearts" declaration Sienkiewicz often made in public, his actual motivation, evident from his diaries and letters, was in cold cash. This is also why the books were published first as serialised pieces in newspapers - he got more money from such deal than by sending finished manuscripts to a publisher. And ironically, the least [[TastesLikeDiabetes diabetobus]] and sappy ''Pan Wołodyjowski'' was only written due to how big financial success the previous two books ended up being, rather than any patriotic or artistic statement - and it shows in its plot, too.

* WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants: Sienkiewicz reportedly sent letters to his editor asking "Whom did I kill so far?", as the novels were originally serialized in newspapers. Pay particular attention to ''With Fire and Sword'' and you'll notice that a minor character who is beheaded fairly early on is later sent to deliver some important letters.

* YouLookFamiliar: Daniel Olbrychski was cast in all three movie adaptations: as Azja in ''Pan Wołodyjowski'', Kmicic in ''The Deluge'' and Tuhaj-Bej in ''With Fire and Sword''.

** The English-dubbed version of the ''With Fire and Sword'' movie is decent... until someone speaks in Ukrainian. For some reason, the Ukrainian lines are dubbed in Polish, but both the Polish and Ukrainian lines are spoken at once! What's worse is that the Polish dubbing is done by the same male voice, even for female characters. It's extremely distracting to someone who cannot understand either language to begin with.
*** Such voice-overs (also known as Gavrilov translation) are actually the standard in Polish translated movies. See VoiceoverTranslation.

*** Such voice-overs (also known as Gavrilov translation) are actually the standard in Polish translated movies. See VoiceoverTranslation.

** The English-subbed version of the ''With Fire and Sword'' movie is decent... until someone speaks in Ukrainian. For some reason, the Ukrainian lines are dubbed in Polish, but both the Polish and Ukrainian lines are spoken at once! What's worse is that the Polish dubbing is done by the same male voice, even for female characters. It's extremely distracting to someone who cannot understand either language to begin with.