Contents

Iwona Puchalska

Not just George. Women writers in the life and correspondence of the young Chopin

Agata Seweryn

Chopin and the aesthetic and anthropological traditions of the Enlightenment

Ewa Hoffmann-Piotrowska

Between words and music… Chopin interpreting literature. A reconnaissance

Karol Samsel

Chopin’s metonymic imagination. An attempted profile based on his correspondence

Elżbieta Nowicka

‘I am always […] in syncopation with others’. Musical images in Chopin’s letters

Agnieszka Markuszewska

Chopin’s epistolary ‘I’: a reconnaissance

Anita Całek

Chopin and epistolary imagined spaces

Alina Borkowska-Rychlewska

‘I made a few turns, and then I returned home.’ Fryderyk Chopin’s thoughts on solitude

Elżbieta Dąbrowicz

An artist in the family: family relations in Chopin’s correspondence

Maria Cieśla-Korytowska

Chopin’s sense of humour

Kamila Stępień-Kutera

Chopin unrestrained

Iwona Burkacka

Foreign-language elements in the letters of Fryderyk Chopin

Ewelina Kwapień

One letter by Fryderyk Chopin – a linguistic analysis

Małgorzata Sokalska

Re-writing, or on using the letters of Fryderyk Chopin

Wiesław Ratajczak

‘Such a beautiful, poor, sad life and such a blessed death’. Kraszewski as a reader of Chopin’s correspondence

Renata Stachura-Lupa

Fryderyk Chopin’s letters as a biographical source in light of nineteenth-century biographical practices. Karasowski, Tarnowski, Szulc

Urszula Kowalczuk

Fryderyk Chopin’s letters on Ferdynand Hoesick’s desk

Mirosław Strzyżewski

The new edition of Chopin’s correspondence from an editorial perspective

Magdalena Dziadek, Radosław Okulicz-Kozaryn

Chopin’s correspondence and the letters of Moniuszko (in connection with existing and planned editions)

Introduction

Fryderyk Chopin left a substantial body of correspondence, which – although perfectly familiar to musicologists and willingly read by literary scholars – has yet to attract either comprehensive academic studies or an adequate number of insightful discussions and interpretations, the like of which have been written on the correspondence of other creative artists of the Romantic era. For a long time, Chopin as a writer remained unappreciated by scholars – even those specialising in the art of words. He was denied any literary ability, and his letters were most often treated merely as biographical or historical documents. While respecting what has been written hitherto about the composer’s correspondence, we considered that it required a new, in-depth reading that took account of both the sensibilities of contemporary readers and also new findings relating to nineteenth-century epistolography.

Employing a range of research strategies, methodologies and approaches characteristic of various academic disciplines – in particular literary studies – we present, in the articles gathered in this book, the wealth of Chopin’s epistolographic writing: not only documental, but above all philosophical, existential and artistic. The authors of these texts, although their research perspectives differ, treat the composer’s letters as an immanent work, worthy of interest in itself, and as such still insufficiently read, calling for its qualities to be recognised.

The volume opens with editorial reflections. Several articles concern psychobiographical aspects of the letters, especially various strategies of self-creation, showing how Chopin wanted to see himself in his epistolary writings, how he diagnosed his own existence and forged – more or less deliberately – his own legend, in the process becoming a source of literary legend himself. The authors write how the composer’s letters have been ‘used’, how they have become a biographical source, a component in monographic studies, how they have been read during times closer or farther from Chopin’s own. From the scholars’ words, we can also – or perhaps primarily – discern the picture of a composer not only sensitive to the written word (contrary to common opinion about his indifference to literature), but also consciously employing language, with a literary gift, using various stylistic or rhetorical strategies, and displaying creative linguistic imagination and great wit. The texts assembled herein demonstrate that Chopin’s epistolary work, read from various perspectives, holds many more secrets, and the volume was conceived as a pretext for further lively reflection on the phenomenon of Chopin’s writing, inspiring study, opening discussion into the composer’s non-musical legacy and prompting new questions about the Polish nineteenth century.

Iwona Puchalska

Uniwersytet Jagielloński

Jagiellonian University of Cracow

ORCID: 0000-0003-0681-7460

Not just George. Women writers in the life and correspondence of the young Chopin

George Sand, although unquestionably the most important of the women – and the writers – in Chopin’s life, was by no means the first literary woman with whom the composer shared his life. While still in Warsaw, he lived under the same roof as three female writers: his sisters – Ludwika, Izabela and Emilia.1

None of them could be called a writer in the full sense of the word, as their work was not abundant or of a professional character (although the money they received for it was no trifling source of satisfaction for the authors). They published anonymously, and their writing displayed a strong didactic profile, essentially intended for groups of readers perceived as intellectually immature: children and the working classes. Hence the artistic qualities they possessed were not their primary asset. What is more, most of their texts were deliberately simplified. Yet one way or another, the Chopin sisters were published authors, and some of their works sold sufficiently well to be reissued several times.2

In the early nineteenth century, literary ambitions among women were not unheard of, yet they could hardly be called widespread. In the Chopins’ home, a conducive atmosphere for such ambitions was formed by numerous contacts with writers. Yet those acquaintances were of varying weight and influence, depending not just on the degree of intimacy with a particular author, but also on the type of work they cultivated. For the development of the literary ambitions of the composer’s sisters, a decisive significance – even bordering, one might say, on patronage – was held by one figure in particular: Klementyna Hoffmanowa, who at that time, during the 1820s, was still writing under her maiden name of Tańska.

Since this writer is not as well known as she deserves, I would like to highlight a few elements of her literary worldview. Although progressive, it was not particularly revolutionary, not just from our present-day point of view, but also from a nineteenth-century perspective, and the next generation of feminising female writers, especially those from the circle of so-called enthusiasts, vigorously criticised Hoffmanowa’s conservativism.3 One of the major issues for her was how to make the best of the prevailing social conditions, and not how to change them. She was convinced that the evolution of human attitudes would bring with it changes in social and moral life, and not the other way round; hence her texts were readily received in conservative milieux.4 While emphasising the qualities of women, she placed human fellowship above categories of gender. That may explain why she had relatively few enemies among her peers, and she was appreciated and supported by such luminaries as Joachim Lelewel, Kazimierz Brodziński and Feliks Bentkowski; what is more, that support was mutual. For example, Lelewel turned to her as a specialist in education with a request that she review his outline of Polish history for youngsters; Tańska treated the task seriously and put forward a few suggested corrections, which Lelewel included.5 Yet the greatest token of the esteem in which she was held as a writer is the fact that in 1826, so when Fryderyk Chopin was in his teens, Bentkowski put her forward as a candidate for membership of the Society for the Friends of Learning. Her application was backed by Fryderyk Skarbek, and the Society’s Deputation considered the matter for four whole months, which means that it was deemed quite important. And although she was eventually turned down, on the grounds that ‘the Society’s statute has no provision for women members’,6 Klementyna took the rejection without any particular grievance. She realised that the main reason for her candidature being turned down was the fear that such a precedence would open the Society up to pressure from other women craving recognition. Seweryna Pruszakowa-Duchińska wrote simply that ‘the learned […] gentlemen would not venture thereby to offend ladies more highly situated in the world, while they could not satisfy the demands of all’.7

Irrespective of that unattained honour, Tańska’s authority was determined by the fact that she linked her literary output closely to journalistic work, running the first Polish periodical for young readers, entitled Rozrywki dla Dzieci [Amusement for children], which she filled mostly with her own texts. Thus she raised faithful and grateful readers, both girls and boys, whose tastes and views she influenced from a very young age. We have a great deal of evidence to that effect, such as this recollection of Seweryna Pruszakowa-Duchińska:

In every home where there was a larger family, both the children and the older members eagerly looked forward to the first day of each month, which brought the appearance of a little book that was welcomed like a pleasant guest with a burst of joy. For Tańska had a special gift for entertaining everyone; her writings, it may be said, provided instruction for children and amusement for older readers.8

The same occurred no doubt in the Chopins’ home, particularly since Miss Klementyna was a personal acquaintance. Evidence of that acquaintance – rather sad, alas, in this particular instance – includes the comment which the writer passed on Fryderyk Skarbek’s posthumous recollections of Emilia Chopin when publishing them in her periodical: ‘So I include the article sent to me all the more readily in that, acquainted with the kind Emilia Chopin and possessed by a personal gratitude towards her, I sincerely share the sorrow of her family and friends at her loss’.9

It is hard to ascertain whether Fryderyk’s adoration of Tańska was as great as that of his sisters, but we do know that he knew and admired her texts. When visiting the Ojców area as a 19-year-old, the description of a journey through the same places which Tańska published in Rozrywki dla Dzieci served as a sort of filter through which he perceived the buildings he saw there. Chopin’s account of his own journey, including the description of the laborious search, beset by misfortune, for the home of Mr Indyk, the peasant ‘who usually accommodates all travellers and where Miss Tańska also stayed’,10 ends in a way that suggests which of Fryderyk’s sisters may be regarded as the writer’s most ardent admirer (although it should be remembered that by then, in 1829, Emilia was no longer alive): ‘He gave us a room beneath the rock, in a cottage purposely built for guests. Izabella! There where Miss Tańska stayed!’11 Chopin evoked Tańska’s text also when writing about that same journey to Tytus Woyciechowski: ‘Ojców is truly pretty, but I won’t write a lot to you about it, because, although you haven’t been there, you know from the very faithful description by Tańska where each thing is and what it is like.’12 This mention attests to the extensive community of that reading experience which formed knowledge and worldviews in a lasting way, given that young adults treated it as an obvious point of reference. Hence immersing ourselves in Tańska’s output (which obviously constitutes a task beyond the scope of this article, since it is really quite a large corpus of various texts) may help us to understand the reality in which Chopin’s personality developed – particularly if we follow the echoes of Tańska’s texts in the writings of his sisters as well.

Fryderyk, who was very close to his siostrylle (‘sisterelles’), as he called them in letters, no doubt kept abreast of their literary plans and works. Although the early revelation of his musical talent quickly turned his interests in a different direction, that does not mean that he remained indifferent to the ambitions of his loved ones, particularly since, as we know, he himself dabbled in poetry in earlier years13 and, as the ‘Szafarnia Courier’ attests, for example, he had an excellent sense of style.

The most abundant literary output was left by the eldest of the sisters, Ludwika, although the greatest ability was attributed to the youngest, Emilia. Unfortunately, her premature death at the age of 14 prevented the development of the latter’s talent and a proper assessment of its scale. But it was Emilia who initiated the first literary work by the Chopin sisters to appear in print, which bore the title Ludwik i Emilka, powieść moralna dla dzieci z pism Salzmana wytłumaczona i do polskich obyczaiów zastosowana [Ludwig and Emily: a moral tale for children translated from the writings of Salzman and adapted to Polish customs]. We know about this thanks to Fryderyk Skarbek’s above-mentioned posthumous article published in Rozrywki dla Dzieci.

In the last year of her life, she had been busy with a larger work, undertaken to refine her Polish style, which besides that also had a very useful purpose. The old German author Salzman, a favourite with children, wrote, among other things, a lengthy novel representing the domestic life and various adventures of a single family, which has the asset of being highly entertaining for the children reading it and at the same time instils in them all the virtues of everyday life. That work needed adapting to our customs, to make it more accessible to Polish children. Emilia Chopin took up that task together with one of her sisters and had already made considerable progress with it. Her literary companion will undoubtedly wish to complete and publish that souvenir of her late lamented sister.14

Skarbek does not relate whether it was Ludwika or Izabella who helped Emilia with that work. The book was published in 1828, so the year after Emilka’s death, anonymously, with the following dedication: ‘To Klementyna Tańska, in token of our great esteem and gratitude, for her example and her encouragement in these labours, two Polish women dedicate this short work’.15

The wording of this dedication may be seen as evidence that the Salzmann paraphrase was prepared mainly by Ludwika and Izabella, as the idea that one of them would sign the late Emilia as co-author seems rather odd. Nota bene scholars have advanced various assumptions regarding this matter; authorship is currently attributed (if we adopt the description from the National Library’s catalogues) to Ludwika and Izabella, although the question could hardly be considered as resolved. One might add that in the original, the child protagonists are Ludwig and Sophie. The change of Sophie to Emily confirms Emilia Chopin’s contribution to translating the text, while the retention of the name Ludwig may indicate that Ludwika was the main co-author.

The novel Ludwig and Emily was based on Christian Gotthilf Salzmann’s Moralisches Elementarbuch – hence its subtitle ‘a moral tale’. As specified in the title, it was ‘translated and adapted to Polish customs’. That adaptation demanded a great deal of work, particularly since the Polish version is enhanced with elements not appearing in the original. That is to say, each of the chapters was preceded by a suitable motto taken from Polish poetry. We naturally have here quotations from Stanisław Jachowicz, but there are also excerpts from Kochanowski, Krasicki, Karpiński, Kniaźnin, Niemcewicz, Bogusławski, Trembecki, Zbylitowski, Opaliński and Witwicki. So the spectrum of Polish poetry presented in these excerpts is really quite broad, and the scope of the search for suitable quotations and the reading that involved would have been even broader. One might say that in introducing these poetical additions into their book, the authors created something like the germ of an anthology of Polish poetry, both past and present.

The Chopin sisters turned to a work that had been written nearly half a century earlier – in 1783 – although the ideas it contains could hardly have been regarded as commonplace in their own times. Salzmann, who died in 1811, was an important figure in the development of European education, and his views and works caused considerable ripples in many countries. He was known as the German Rousseau, with whom he shared the opinion that an improper education was the fundamental cause of evil in the world, and a suitable upbringing the most effective means of gradually improving reality. His convictions must have influenced the seasoned pedagogue Mikołaj Chopin, given that he allowed his daughters to take up work on translating and publishing this text. So we may assume that Fryderyk was also raised in keeping with the values expounded by Salzmann.

The German author’s conceptions are very rich and diverse, and as this text is not widely known in Poland, I will allow myself to select a few of them for discussion here, while stressing that the Moralisches Elementarbuch contains plenty of motifs of interest with regard to the forming of the outlook on life of the young Chopin siblings. As an advocate of equality among people, Salzmann also opened the way to equal entitlements for women. It is not surprising that his book was translated into English by none other than Mary Wollstonecraft, a writer known as a spokesperson for women’s rights and a free thinker, as well as mother to Mary Shelley (she also adapted the original to English cultural conditions).

Could we regard the Chopin sisters – educated, aspiring to realise their literary ambitions, enterprising and boldly voicing their opinions – as marked by the ideas of early feminism? It all depends, of course, on the environment whose perspective we adopt to attempt such an assessment. Yet the Chopin family can certainly be numbered among the more progressive and enlightened. Although Fryderyk’s mother, Justyna, comes across as a woman completely hidden behind her husband and children – to such an extent that we know very little about her – her daughters, even though they certainly did not abandon the traditional model of wife and mother, are distinctive characters with self-awareness and ambition. And although Fryderyk occasionally described them as ‘children’, which may be interpreted as the expression of tenderness and solicitude and also – perhaps – of a certain patriarchalism, there is no doubt that his sisters – Ludwika in particular – were among those individuals closest to him, not just emotionally, but also intellectually.

The issues presented in Salzmann’s novel occasionally possess considerable weight, although each of them is resolved or at least commented on in a positive light. The ‘whiff of didactics’ that opens this work – to use Melchior Wańkowicz’s famous phrase – was something natural in an epoch when edifying and moralising content was by no means smuggled through under a semblance of amusement; on the contrary, efforts were made to formulate it as clearly as possible. For example, the question of anti-Semitism was introduced in this work, deftly woven into an episode from the protagonist’s life: the little Ludwig has toothache, and it so happens that there is no one at home who could recommend any medicine for him. Enter the Jew Ephraim, who gives him effective advice as to how to get rid of the pain. The grateful Ludwig says: ‘I always thought that a Jew couldn’t be good, but now I’ve experienced quite the opposite’.16 The protagonist presents here a widespread prejudice that is confounded by his own experience. Personally – although this is of course a very distant reference – I consider this passage to be interesting for instance in the context of Chopin’s later struggles with publishers at a time when he was unsuccessfully seeking to split with Schlesinger; I have in mind particularly his words from a letter to Julian Fontana: ‘If you have [to deal] with Jews, then make it at least with the Orthodox kind. […] The Jew always paid me, but Probst often made me wait’.17

Salzmann’s novel was tailored to young readers, but it is not infantile. There is no effort to hide from children the dark side of life. One example of a difficult topic that appears in Ludwig and Emily is that of domestic violence. On one journey, the children witness an outburst of anger and aggression on the part of an innkeeper towards his wife:

Overcome with anger, the innkeeper leapt up, took a whip from the wall and began to beat her mercilessly, such that she ran out of the house in tears and called to the neighbours for help.

Her little boy wanted to run after her, caught his foot on the threshold, crashed to the ground and began to cry. The father, instead of rescuing him, gave him a drubbing and threw him into the hallway.18

Quite a powerful episode to include in a book for young readers, as it shocks the novel’s protagonists. Alarmed by the turn of events, Ludwig says: ‘My teacher told me that we should love all people; but I expect such a person must be excluded from that number. One has to hate him and flee from him’.19 But Mr Dobrocki, the embodiment of parental wisdom, gives him the following reply: ‘So you would hate also the cripple who acquired his handicap due to his parents’ neglect?’20 He then develops that thought: ‘A bad upbringing and mixing with ignoble people instilled in him bad inclinations, which with age turned into addictions; and then there is no remedy for them, just like for handicaps’.21 So Mr Dobrocki has no illusions about human nature; crucial, however, is the fact that, while condemning evil, he warns against judging the actual person, whom he considers to be deserving of sympathy. So Salzmann’s novel is clearly far from naive moralising: there is no good solution available to the innkeeper’s family.

In other chapters of his book, Salzmann, and the Chopin sisters after him, not only introduces problems of a social nature, but also opens up cosmogonic, epistemological considerations of people’s contact with nature, as well as many others which I can only signal here; in terms of worldview, this text is very rich.

The ‘moral tale’ that Emilia was not fated to translate to the end concludes with the death of the mother of the children who are the novel’s protagonists. Yet that event, in keeping with the stoic aura of the whole work, does not disrupt the family’s harmony, since the tender father takes suitable care over his children’s upbringing. This rather mawkish ending acquires another dimension when we remember that a gravely ill 14-year-old girl was working on this novel. For the dying Emilia Chopin, and also for her siblings and parents, the words which the novel’s mother utters on her death bed – not very original, like many other literary deaths – could have had a special, personal significance: ‘I’m not dying, dear children! – I’m just leaving my body for the earth, – like the chrysalis in which a butterfly is encased. – My immortal soul is going to God, to whom we all shall go’.22

The death of Emilia, together with the death of Jan Białobłocki a year later, was among the darkest moments in the life of the teenage Chopin, yet we find few traces of those experiences in his letters, and all of them are characteristically succinct. As in the moving letter – albeit couched in an ostensibly joking tone – written to Białobłocki in which, after false news of his friend’s death, he enquires about his health, and at the same time conveys information about Emilka’s illness, which he sums up in a telling way: ‘You can imagine what things have been like here. Just imagine, because I am unable to describe it for you’.23

Fryderyk’s next extant letter was written on holiday, and it contains no news of Emilia’s death, although that silence itself is most eloquent. Then in 1830, dating a letter to Tytus Woyciechowski 10 April, Fryderyk pointed out: ‘The anniversary of Emilia’s death!’24 Memory of his sister also recurs in the despairing entries in his so-called Stuttgart diary. Yet there is relatively little of this. Hence the passages devoted to death in Salzmann’s novel, work on which was evidently treated among the Chopins as a tribute to the late Emilka and remembrance of her, may be treated as a sort of gloss to those experiences – inexpressible and not expressed in the composer’s correspondence.

Another fictional document that in a way complements Chopin’s epistolography, albeit in a different way than Ludwig and Emily, is Ludwika’s own novel, reflecting her impressions from a family trip to Lower Silesia in 1826.25

This work, under the title Podróż Józia z Warszawy do Szląska, przez niego samego opisana [Józio’s journey from Warsaw to Silesia, described by himself], was published in instalments in the children’s weekly Tygodnik dla Dzieci in 1829, and the following year it appeared in book form, in a version with several extra chapters and under the modified title Podróż Józia z Warszawy do wód szląskich przez niego samego opisana [Józio’s journey from Warsaw to the Silesian waters described by himself]; that publication was reissued in 1844 with an added dedication from ‘Józio’ to ‘Henryczek and Władzio’ – Fryderyk Skarbek’s sons from his second marriage, born in 1839 and 1841 respectively. This indicates what a powerful inspiration to work on that book – and then an impulse for its reedition – was for Ludwika her contact with Fryderyk Skarbek, who also kept his own diary of that Silesian expedition.

Józio, the boy protagonist of Ludwika’s novel, describes his journey along the same route taken by the author and, partly, her brother (as we know, the Skarbeks and the Chopins travelled separately). His Christian name refers to the son of Fryderyk and Prakseda Skarbek, whom Ludwika was looking after during the journey – the same Józef Skarbek who later married Maria Wodzińska. Yet during that Silesian journey, he was just seven years old, so the child’s perspective adopted in the novel is no doubt derived from observations of his actual behaviour and reactions.

The detail in Józio’s Journey makes this a useful text for scholars researching Chopin’s biography, although its fictional nature prevents us from treating it as a source in the strict sense. For example, the most famous episode from Chopin’s stay in Duszniki – the two concerts – were not captured in Józio’s Journey, although we do find there a distorted reflection of it. The two children in aid of whom Fryderyk performed were replaced by Ludwika with the figure of the suddenly orphaned Oleś, who is cared for by the parents of the titular Józio. Meanwhile, the parts of the novel concerned with the setting and with manners and mores provide extremely valuable information, as they occur in the same area that Fryderyk visited, as we know from his letter to Wilhelm Kolberg. Chopin, however, characteristically refrained from offering a detailed description of the places he saw (‘it is impossible to describe everything one would wish’).26

The quoted sentence is highly typical of Fryderyk. Fortunately, the places he saw were described in detail – albeit from a child’s perspective – by Ludwika. We learn from the novel, for example, that the hermit living on Einsiedelei, or Góra Kapliczna (Chapel Hill), also known as Góra Rozalii (Rozalia’s Hill), whom Fryderyk visited, was, much to Józio’s surprise, young; he did not have a long beard and generally, as Józio writes, ‘looked different to those hermits I’ve occasionally seen in pictures’.27

This detail has no fundamental significance, but I evoke it here deliberately. Of course, the hermit’s appearance is not a matter of primary importance, and I do not share Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz’s opinion that more important than interpreting the works of artists is ‘the pen and paper they worked with and the desk they wrote at’,28 but I do consider that the setting is equally as significant as social milieu or political context in that museum of the imagination which the body of our research into literary and cultural history de facto represents.

In Ludwika’s novel, the childish way of seeing the world is contrasted on occasion with the observations of adults: for example, Józio likes the music played in the park at the spa despite the opinion of his father: ‘Daddy was angry that they were playing out of tune, but I, who know nothing about that, listened to the lively mazurs and waltzes with pleasure’.29 Nota bene Fryderyk, in the above-cited letter to Kolberg, also mentioned what he described as the ‘awful wind ensemble’, which ‘makes a mess of things’.30

The child’s perspective that is resolutely maintained throughout the whole course of the narrative makes the book tedious for an adult; yet it no doubt appealed to young readers. It was a technique adopted from Tańska, to whom tribute was also paid in this book. In the introduction to his narrative, Józio mentions the writer, known to him as ‘the author of Pamiątki po dobrej matce [Souvenirs of a good mother]’:

[…] my toys remained at home, they allowed me to take only a few books and a couple of exercise books; so I took Powieści moralne [Moral tales] by the author of Pamiątki po dobrej matce. The author… why did she not write her name on the book? I couldn’t understand this for a long time […]. But Daddy explained and said that the lady who wrote that book kept her name secret out of modesty. But she is supposedly a person who loves children very much and always writes beautiful and different novels for them, and I love her too very much even though I don’t know her.31

Chopin probably managed to read the finished Józio’s Journey before leaving the country in 1830. Ultimately, it was a novel which for him too represented an indirect souvenir of a journey. A similar thing probably occurred years later, when he was sharing his life with George Sand: he did not read every page she wrote, but was familiar with her work and followed its creation as successive portions were read out aloud.32

A few years after Fryderyk left Warsaw, his sisters again joined forces as writers: the novel Pan Wojciech, czyli wzór pracy i oszczędności [Wojciech, or a paragon of hard work and thrift], published in 1836, was co-penned by Ludwika, now Mrs Jędrzejewicz, and Izabella, by then Mrs Barcińska. This lengthy work was addressed to ‘craftsmen, workmen, servants and day-labourers’, as it was put in the novel. And in keeping with the title, it contains advice and words of caution woven into the story of the main protagonist – a humble cobbler. It seems that here too the sisters were inspired by Friedrich Salzmann, whose educational writings were addressed not just to children, but also to members of lower social estates. Some of his books aimed at the populace were translated into Polish around the turn of the nineteenth century: Sebastian Kluge’s, in a Polish translation by Jerzy Olech, was first published in 1799 under the title Sebastyan Mądry [Sebastian the wise] and was reissued in 1845, and the novel Constants curiose Lebensgeschichte und sonderbare Fatalitäten was published a year later as Konstantego ciekawa albo wiedzenia godna historia życia i osobliwe jego przypadki – książka dla pospólstwa, osobliwie dla rzemieślniczych towarzystw czy pachołków [Constant’s curious and worth-knowing life story and singular adventures – a book for common folk, particularly for associations of craftsmen or servants]. The Salzmannian context seems to be a quite important, yet poorly researched, strand connected to the education of the Chopin siblings and the forming of their attitudes in life, and also to the development of their social thinking.

Although still inspired by the eighteenth-century tradition, the Chopin sisters’ book adheres to the current of growing interest among novelists during the 1830s in social problems (which, nota bene, applied to George Sand as well). Yet Ludwika and Izabella perceived these issues in a conservative way. Aware of the restrictions and injustices concerning the lower social strata, they propose a way of improving their situation by developing prudence among them, and not through reforms of the social system.

This is also linked to the authors’ attitude, not devoid of criticism, towards the milieu of potential readers of their book, as expressed in the foreword:

There is no doubt that the life of most people of your class is an unbroken sequence of worries […]. But those worries are mostly your own fault. Admittedly there are mishaps – setbacks, so to speak – which, when afflicting people, deprive them, through the loss they incur, of their last means of living […] but we more often encounter examples of people’s misery to which they have driven themselves, depriving them, with their last dress, of their last hope not through fire or water, but through laziness, drunkenness, debauchery, a desire for a life better than is possible, vanity, disorder, games and gambling!33

Such blunt assertions could have been dictated by the experiences which Fryderyk’s sisters gained as active members of various charitable institutions.

The sisters sent their novel to Fryderyk in Paris; Ludwika announced it in a letter not as a book worth his reading, but as a sign of their closeness and mutual interest in their work:

If it were a work like yours, dearest, there would be no regrets, since nothing but praise would ring in our ears; but as it is, we can only wait until someone fires off some criticism. But never mind! As long as [that criticism] is of some use, that some benefit might be derived from it; just as we would like some benefit to accrue from what we have written, for that aim was the sole reason for undertaking it. You won’t be reading it, we know very well, but in picking it up you’ll better understand when we take up an unfamiliar composition of yours to play through; nonetheless it is pleasant for us to at least look at the music that encloses a soul among the dearest for your family.34

It seems that at most Fryderyk may have glanced through the book, which after all was intended for a completely different sort of reader than him. In any case, this was his sisters’ last work on such a scale, as duties assumed through marriage curbed their literary work: Izabella essentially stopped writing, while Ludwika thereafter wrote only short texts, until the unhappy years after Fryderyk’s death, when she and her husband parted for good. A famous letter written to her husband during that sad period includes the following accusation: ‘I wanted to write, in order to earn money for a nurse maid […] but I had not the time, because I was lacking the ordinary assistance at home as before’.35

Meanwhile, Chopin was full of understanding and admiration for women pursuing creative work, as we learn from letters in which he praises Sand’s industriousness and appreciates her endurance and her ability to combine various duties. And it seems that the example of his own sisters, especially Ludwika, prepared him for that. It was Ludwika who for many years represented a crucial point of literary reference: she oversaw the development of his friendship with the poet Witwicki; he sent her books as gifts from Paris; and it is in passages from his letters to Ludwika that we find some of his relatively few remarks on Sand’s novels. In my opinion, had he been raised in a different family environment, among sisters brought up in a different way, Chopin would have retained a good deal of reserve towards George Sand, the relationship with whom was impossible to comprehend for many observers. What is more, their shared literary interests and creative disposition no doubt contributed to the mutual liking that arose between Ludwika and her brother’s lover, who in many respects were so unlike one another.

And although there is a fundamental difference between the Europe-wide fame of the scandalising writer whose novels ended up on the list of banned books and the modest, god-fearing Chopin sisters, focussing on didactic novels, it was through the writing of women close to his heart – from an early age – that Fryderyk struck up the most intimate, most homely, one might say, contact with the world of literature, and the works they produced constitute valuable paratexts to the fundamental source of knowledge about the composer that is his correspondence.

Summary

This article is devoted to the literary activities of Chopin’s sisters: Ludwika, Emilia and Izabella. The author analyses the biographical circumstances behind their literary output, its character, its links to values espoused in the Chopin family, particularly concerning education, its artistic and intellectual models (including the writing of Klementyna Hoffmanowa (née Tańska) and Christian Gotthilf Salzmann) and also its reception by Fryderyk Chopin.

Keywords

Ludwika Jędrzejewicz, Emilia Chopin, Izabella Barcińska, Klementyna Hoffmanowa (née Tańska), Christian Gotthilf Salzmann, the writings of women in the nineteenth century, didactic literature

Bibliography

·[Barcińska, Izabella, and Ludwika Jędrzejewicz], Pan Wojciech czyli wzór pracy i oszczędności [Wojciech, or a paragon of hard work and thrift] (Warsaw, 1836).

·[Chopin, Ludwika, and Izabella Chopin], Ludwik i Emilka, powieść moralna dla dzieci z pism Salzmana wytłumaczona i do polskich obyczaiów zastosowana [Ludwig and Emily, a moral novel for children translated from the writings of Salzmann and adapted to Polish customs] (Warsaw, 1828).

·[Chopin, Ludwika], Podróż Józia z Warszawy do wód szlązkich przez niego samego opisana [Józio’s journey from Warsaw to the Silesian waters as described by himself], 2nd edn (Warsaw, 1844).

·Clavier, André, Dans l’entourage de Chopin (Lens, 1984).

·——, Dusznicki epizod rodziny Chopinów i postaci z ich kręgu [The Duszniki episode of Chopin family and figures from their circle] (Liège, 1993).

·——, Emilia Chopin (Lens, 1975).

·CPL = Chopin’s Polish Letters, tr. David Frick (Warsaw, 2015)

·Dąbrowska, Joanna E., Klementyna. Rzecz o Klementynie z Tańskich Hoffmanowej [Klementyna: on Klementyna Hoffmanowa, née Tańska] (Białystok, 2008).

·——, ‘Universal values of Klementyna Tańska-Hoffmanowa’s pedagogy’, Rocznik Teologii Katolickiej, 1/14 (2015), 271–284.

·KorCh = Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin], vols 1 and 2, ed. Zofia Helman, Zbigniew Skowron and Hanna Wróblewska-Straus (Warsaw, 2009, 2017).

·Nowaczyk, Henryk F., ‘Podróż Ludwiki Chopinówny do wód Szlązkich w 1826 roku’ [Ludwika Chopin’s journey to the Silesian waters in 1826], in Chopin w podróży. Glosy do biografii [Chopin’s travels: glosses to a biography], ed. and introd. Piotr Mysłakowski (Warsaw, 2013).

·Pruszakowa, Seweryna, ‘Klementyna z Tańskich Hoffmannowa’ [Klementyna Hoffmanowa, née Tańska], Rozrywki dla Młodocianego Wieku, 1 (1857).

·Rozrywki dla Dzieci, 41 (1827).

·Rymkiewicz, Jarosław Marek, and Piotr Szewc (in conversation), ‘O Sarmatach, motłochu i ciemnościach poezji’ [On Sarmatians, riff-raff and the darkness of poetry], Nowe Książki, 2008/8.

·Siwkowska, Janina, Nokturn, czyli rodzina Fryderyka Chopina i Warszawa w latach 1832–1881 [Nocturne, or Fryderyk Chopin’s family and Warsaw between 1832 and 1881] (Warsaw, 1988).

·Stankiewicz-Kopeć, Monika, ‘Poglądy Klementyny z Tańskich Hoffmanowej 1798–1845 w refleksji uczennic. Zarys zagadnienia’ [The views of Klementyna Hoffmanowa, née Tańska (1798–1845) in the reflections of her female pupils. An outline of issues], Studia Paedagogica Ignatiana, 3/19 (2016), 99–121.

Footnotes

1 The life and work of Chopin’s sisters has been researched primarily by André Clavier. See Emilia Chopin; Dans l’entourage de Chopin; Dusznicki epizod.

2 In this case, however, publishing success should not be automatically equated with success among readers, since works addressed to people of lower social standing were not usually bought by those people themselves, but by people better off and better educated, not infrequently their employers, who would present them with this literature for moral betterment on various occasions.

3 See e.g. Stankiewicz-Kopeć, ‘Poglądy’.

4 Indeed, that remains the case. See e.g. Dąbrowska, ‘Universal values’.

5 Dąbrowska, Klementyna, 61.

6 Quoted after ibidem, 63.

7 Pruszakowa, ‘Klementyna z Tańskich Hofmanowa’, 316.

8 Ibidem, 315.

9 Rozrywki dla Dzieci, 41 (1827).

10 Letter to his family of 1 August 1829, Albán Juárez and Sławińska-Dahlig, Chopin’s Poland, 187.

11 Ibidem, 188.

12 Letter to Tytus Woyciechowski, 12 September 1829, CPL, 125.

13 I write more extensively on this subject in the article ‘Fryderyk Chopin w kręgu poezji’.

14 ‘Emilia Chopin’, 240.

15 Ludwik i Emilka, vol. 1 (unnumbered page).

16 Ibidem, ii:102.

17 Letter of [12 March 1839], CPL, 295–296.

18 Ludwik i Emilka, ii:114.

19 Ibidem, 115.

20 Ibidem.

21 Ibidem, 116.

22 Ibidem, 213–214.

23 Letter of [12] March [1827], CPL, 87.

24 CPL, 150.

25 This novel is discussed in detail by Henryk F. Nowaczyk in the article ‘Podróż’.

26 Letter of 18 August 1826, CPL, 80.

27 [Ludwika Chopin], Podróż, 114.

28 Rymkiewicz and Szewc, ‘O Sarmatach’, 5.

29 [Ludwika Chopin], Podróż, 93.

30 CPL, 79–80.

31 [Ludwika Chopin], Podróż 5–6.

32 See e.g. Chopin’s letter to his family begun a week before Easter [28 March] and finished on 19 April 1847, in CPL, 408.

33 [Izabella Barcińska and Ludwika Jędrzejewicz], Pan Wojciech, i:3–4.

34 Letter of 15 December 1835 (the novel, although the edition is dated 1836, was actually issued towards the end of the previous year), KorCh, ii, pt 1, p. 511.

35 Quoted after Siwkowska, Nokturn, ii:152.

Projekt dofinansowano ze środków budżetu państwa, przyznanych

przez Ministra Edukacji i Nauki w ramach Programu „Doskonała Nauka II”

Translated and revised by John Comber

Editors Ewa Hoffmann-Piotrowska,

Urszula Kowalczuk, Kamila Stępień-Kutera

Academic reviews

Prof. Andrzej Fabianowski

Prof. Ewa Szczeglacka-Pawłowska

Index Lidia Nowicka-Comber

Graphic design, layout and typesetting

laventura Maciej Sawicki

Printed by ZAPOL Sobczyk Spółka Komandytowa

ISBN 978-83-68058-29-1

© Copyright by Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina 2024

Publisher The Fryderyk Chopin Institute

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Preparation of the e-book

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