Karolina Grodziska

Manuscripts and keepsakes after Maria Konopnicka in the Scientific Library of the PAAS and the PAS in Cracow collection

On the occasion of proclaiming Maria Konopnicka one of the patrons of the year 2022, the manuscripts and keepsakes after her gathered in the Scientific Library of PAAS and the PAS in Cracow will be presented. The collection contains the poetess’s 48 hand-written letters addressed to i.a. Teofil Lenartowicz, Stanislaw Tomkowicz and, also to Józef Tretiak and Adolf Pawiński, which until now remained unpublished. Apart from the correspondence, the Library collection includes also 23 shelf marks related to Maria Konopnicka. These are among others some writings regarding her literary activity as well as poems and their copies prepared by i.a. a famous painter, Bronislawa Rychter-Janowska. Worth to pay attention to are also three photographies of the poet included in the collection. The documentation of a monument designed by Janina Reichert-Toth, planned by the Lviv city authorities to commemorate Maria Konopnicka but which failed to be built due to the outbreak of World War II, has been preserved. The vast majority of works related to Konopnicka were donated to the Library, only some were purchased in antiquarian bookshops.

Old prints and manuscripts related to Józef Wybicki in the Scientific Library of the PAAS and the PAS in Cracow collections

In relation to the announcement of the Polish Sejm made on 14 October 2021 that one of the patrons of the year 2022 shall be Józef Wybicki (1747–1822), a politician, poet, play-writer and the author of the Polish national anthem, we decided to make a review of the keepsakes after him gathered in the Special Collections of our Library. As a result of a broad query, one hand-written letter has been found, written by Wybicki to Hugon Kołłątaj on 2 June 1810. The other nine groups of manuscripts contain either copies of Wybicki’s works or notes and texts related to him, gathered by 19th and 20th c. researchers, and finally an interesting motion to set up a monument of Wybicki, funded by private contributors, submitted in 1904 by Stanisław Witkiewicz. These scriptures are not consistent with each other as they are pieces of some greater manuscript legacies. Eight of them come from different donors, two were purchased in 1958–1960 in antiquarian bookshops in Cracow. They are of marginal significance as far as the research of Wybicki’s achievements is concerned.

What was much more interesting, were the results of an old prints query. The Wybicki’s literary legacy is represented by thirteen 18th c. titles and three from the beginning of 19th c., bearing twenty two shelf marks. This vast amount of keepsakes related to Józef Wybicki results from Cyprian Walewski’s testamentary legacy, from which sixteen shelf marks come. Some of the political scriptures assigned to Wybicki have been published anonymously, therefore the question of their authorship remains open. The overview of publications is presented in chronological order. First three works come from 1870s and are related to the beginnings of Wybicki’s political activity to support king Stanisław August, by counsellor Andrzej Zamoyski’s side, and discusses the necessity of social and political changes in Poland. As this project failed, in year to come Wybicki backed out from politics and devoted himself mostly to writing plays, which are represented by one comedy and three operas. The works from the last decade of 18th c. show Józef Wybicki as a person who was active wherever the issues most significant for Poland were decided. These are political scriptures from the period of the Four-Year Sejm, an appeal issued in Warsaw during the Kościuszko uprising and a brochure in French issued in exile in Paris after the Third Partition of Poland. Wybicki’s lesser known interests are represented by a geography textbook published in 1811, containing one of the first descriptions of the geography and economy of the Duchy of Warsaw. The last writing to be discussed includes Wybicki’s views on political systems, which was published three years before his death. Although these sixteen pieces constitute only a part of Wybicki’s work, they seem to well represent its character as well as illustrate the author’s interests and his patriotic engagement.

Key words: The Scientific Library of the PAAS and the PAS in Cracow, Józef Wybicki, manuscripts, old prints, library collections, political scriptures, plays, correspondence

Keepsakes of Wisława Szymborska in the Scientific Library of the PAAS and the PAS in Cracow collection

As the year 2023 was announced the Year of Wisława Szymborska due to the 100th anniversary of her birth, it is a great opportunity to present the Scientific Library of the PAAS and the  PAS in Krakow. They have been gathered in the period from 1953 to 2011 and were not collected in a planned manner: they come from separate donations, legacies or purchases. These are poetry books published during Szymborska’s life (7), Italian issues in Pietro Marchesani’s translation with original collages or watercolours by Alina Kalczyńska, donated by her or a painter Leszek Dutka (5). The manuscripts collection contains 5 letters of the Poet to Witold Zechenter from the period 1970 1976 and her dedications in the books she gave to him in the period from 1953 to 1976 (9); these and numerous other dedications were cut out by Zechenter from books and kept as loose cards. Two dedications have been decorated with cutouts. Also the bookplates collection of the Library Printing Room contains 7 bookplates produced for Wisława Szymborska by respected Polish artists: Zbigniew Osenkowski, Roman Mucha, Czesław Woś, Helena Sawicka and Leszek Frey-Witkowski as well as two etching matrices of Stanisław Dawski’s works. Despite varying provenance and incompleteness, the keepsakes of Wisława Szymborska constitute an interesting collection for researchers and enthusiasts of her work. keepsakes of Wisława Szymborska constitute an interesting collection for researchers and enthusiasts of her work.

“Manusripts of the Cossacks”. The history of the manuscripts collection of the Scientific Library of the PAAS and the PAS in Cracow

The article discusses an unknown episode from the history of our library, related to the donation of several dozen 17th and 18th c. documents on Cossacks done in 1954 by the Polish Academy of Sciences on the request of the Ministry of Culture and Arts of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. These were the proclamations by Bogdan Chmielnicki and his son Jerzy (Jurek) as well as priviliges bestowed to Cossacks by empress Anna and empress Elisabeth. The original documents were included in manuscripts no. 270, 1678 and 1679. The first one was donated in 1866, the other two in the years 1906–1912.

The manuscript no. 270 was donated in 1866 to the then existing Cracow Scientific Society. It was provided by Stanisław Filip Krzyżanowski (1841–1881), the owner of an estate in the former Bracław voivodeship, collector of paintings, old coins, manuscripts and old prints, a historian and publisher of writings, a member of the Cracow Scientific Society. The group of scriptures donated by him contained 49 manuscripts and 20 parchment diplomas. Its valuable and homogeneous part are the so-called Manuscripts of the Cossacks, including among others 17th-19th proclamations issued by subsequent Cossack hetmans, court files and numerous documents on the political, economic, social and church history of eastern Poland – the Podolian, Volhynian and Bracław voivodeships. The entire donation was described in the catalogue of manuscripts issued in 1906 by Jan Czubek, the Academy librarian, and has been present in scientific literature since then. The manuscripts with shelf marks 1678 and 1679 were donated to the Academy after the publication of the catalogue, therefore they were described in the second volume published in 1912. Unfortunately, their descriptions do not contain the provenance or the donor’s name. They include 25 and 34 original ukases of the Russian empresses addressed to the Hetmans of Zaporizhian Cossacks: Danylo Apostol (from the years 1730– 1733) and Kyrylo Razumovsky (from the year 1751–1753). After the second volume of Czubek’s catalogue was published, they also became widely known to the historians.

In 1947, in new political circumstances, the Polish–Soviet Friendship Society on behalf of the Academy of Sciences of the UkrSSR requested the Polish Academy of Art and Science to take photographs of Chmielnicki’s proclamations. The PAAS management gave its consent. A few years later, the PAAS assets and collections were taken over by the newly created Polish Academy of Sciences, which was recognised as a politically correct unit by the Communist authorities. In 1954, the PAS Printing Houses and Libraries Office in Warsaw, on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and Art, took the original documents from the above mentioned manuscripts away from the Library (then the PAS Library in Cracow). They were donated to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

The only trace of this forced “donation to the fraternal nation” to be found in sources is the correspondence related to the handover of the photocopies of taken documents by the PAS Printing Houses and Libraries Office that is included in the Library archives. It took place in December 1954 and the photocopies (of good quality) are still kept in the Library collection. However, the order to hand over the originals is absent. According to the library oral tradition, a message about the order was issued on the phone. The exact date, author of the idea, the names of political principals or Polish implementers of these notorious endeavour remain unknown. A detailed query in the archives of the Ministry of Culture and Art and the chief authorities of the Polish United Workers’ Party may possibly give an answer to these questions.

Literary games of the employees of the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences: 1938 name day greetings for Karol Piotrowicz

The paper is a preliminary study for the biography of Karol Piotrowicz (1901–1940), a respected historian, Jagiellonian University professor, academic activist and a publisher. Since 1931 to 1939, he has also been the Director of the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences; he successfully managed and modernised the Library. In Summer 1939, he was called into the Polish Army, and after the September Campaign was taken into Soviet slavery. In April 1940, in Kharkov, together with hundreds of other Polish prisoners, he was murdered by Russians. He bereaved wife and two daughters who stayed in Krakow.

Among the Karol Piotrowicz’s family documents kept by his grand daughters Teresa Wolska and Elżbieta Wolska, there are still some personal documents of Piotrowicz which will by donated to our Library in the future. Now we present the edition of one of these papers. It is a humorous work by some librarians, Karol Piotrowicz’s employees, given to him for his name day on November 4, 1938. It consists of 10 pages and contains a bibliography of works allegedly written by the library employees which is light-heart and full of allusions, accurately pointing at their professional interests as well as private passions and even weaknesses. The following pages contain short poems, anecdotes, humoresques and riddles. The author is not given but it may be assumed that the text was mainly created by Władysław Ogrodziński, a writer and a culture activist who became famous in the post-war period.

Such literary games practice was known among that time librarians and archivists. Some similar works written in the Jagiellonian Library or Ossolineum have also survived. The small miscellany presented here is not only a moving piece of work and a preliminary study for Karol Piotrowicz’s biography but also an interesting example of a bottom-up culture of our Library in the 1930s.

Anna Treider’s “Kabaret pod Zdechłym Kornikiem

The presented text is the 1963 edition of the work by Anna Treider nee Ogrodzińska (1921–1982), an art historian who had been working in our Library for many years and was also a director of its Special Collections Department. After taking up the job in 1952, she shortly became one of the Polish most acclaimed experts in the field of European Graphics and also a lecturer at the Jagiellonian University and the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, as well as the author of numerous graphic exhibitions.
This forgotten text titled “Kabaret pod Zdechłym Kornikiem”, preserved among her personal documents, is currently included in our Library manuscripts (signature 13 066). It is a humorous piece written under the pen name Akwatinta Kolofon. The characters are both the author’s library colleagues and visitors as well as the principal, Zbigniew Jabłoński. The text contains some elements of the now forgotten work reality of that time, and records the atmosphere of an institution of culture in the times of the Polish People’s Republic. It is also an interesting testimony of the librarians’ intellectual formation, e.g. the passion for K. I. Gałczyński’s poetry or reading the “Przekrój” magazine. It not only proves the author’s learning and sense of humour but also demonstrates her literary skills: Anna Treider’s brother, Władysław Ogrodziński, was a respected essayist and writer.
To recall the profile of Anna Treider at the centenary of her birthday, the text of “Kabaret…” has been excerpted from the manuscript, prepared for print, the biographic introduction written and the footnotes added by Karolina Grodziska.

Key words: Cracow, Scientific Library of PAU and PAN in Krakow, Anna Treider, poems,
literary games

Jan Kazimierz Tetmajer in the light of his manuscript legacy in the Scientific Library of PAU and PAN in Cracow

In 1969 a large assembly of the family papers of Włodzimierz Tetmajer (1861–1923), an eminent Polish painter, but also a poet and politician, was purchased for the collections of the Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow. Among his personal and family papers, articles, autographs, and drafts of poems, as well as sketches, notebooks, and drawings there were also materials concerning his eldest son, Jan Kazimierz Tetmajer, who in 1919 volunteered for the Polish Army then in formation and who was killed in July 1920 fighting against the Bolsheviks at the Battle of Stanisławczyk.
After his grave was found, his body was brought to Cracow and buried in the Bronowicki Cemetery. The monument standing over the grave bears a plaque with a portrait of the young uhlan; it is also engraved with patriotic poems and additionally decorated with an uhlan’s shako.
Preliminary research into the artist’s manuscripts allowed the author to single out and present Włodzimierz Tetmajer’s notes and personal reflections as well as the artist’s poems, ones full of love and pride in his son. His legacy also includes four different sketches of the sepulchral monument.

“The Stories of a Lost Nest – The Year of God”. The Memory by Anna Jałbrzykowska from Ujazd

The paper contains an excerpt of a manuscript by Anna Jałbrzykowska (1908–1990) titled: “The Stories of a Lost Nest – the Year of God”. The text was written in 1972 and soon afterwards it was bought to be added into the manuscript collection of our Library, in which the author used to work for a short time before the outbreak of War. It comprises of a description of pre-war economics, daily life and house practices present in the manor house in Ujazd, located 14 km from Kraków, owned by the Jałbrzykowscy family since 1884 until 1945, when it was taken from them by the Polish communists. After this confiscation, the author, who studied humanities, was for many years working in the Jagiellonian Library, where she was accepted as an employee despite her then improper social background and a close family relationship between her and a prominent priest, archbishop of Vilnius Romuald Jałbrzykowski. The value of the presented source is both its recollective nature and interesting persons who visited the Jałbrzykowscy’s manor (priest professor Tadeusz Kruszyński, Tetmajerowie, Jan Bisanz) as well as the nostalgic, literary nature of the memories: the image of the world and lifestyle typical for the nobility living in a manor house which are gone, not so much due to natural economic development but because of the Polish communists rule.

„GAWĘDY O UTRACONYM GNIEŹDZIE – BOŻY ROK” (РАССКАЗЫ О ПОТЕРЯННОМ ГНЕЗДЕ – БОЖИЙ ГОД). ФРАГМЕНТ РУКОПИСИ АННЫ ЯЛБЖИКОВСКОЙ

Ключевые слова: Анна Ялбжиковска, Уязд, шляхетская усадьба, повседневность, нравы

Представленный текст является изданием фрагмента рукописи Анны Ялбжиковской (1908–1990) под названием «Gawędy o utraconym gnieździe – Boży Rok» («Рассказы о потерянном гнезде – Божий Год»). Текст был написан в 1972 году и вскоре куплен в рукописное собрание нашей библиотеки, где автор работала короткое время перед началом войны. Это описание довоенного хозяйства, повседневной жизни и домашних обычаев шляхетской усадьбы Уязд, расположенной в 14 км от Кракова и принадлежавшей семье Ялбжиковских с 1884 по 1945 год, когда она была отнята у них коммунистическими властями. После конфискации автор, имевшая гуманитарное образование, долгие годы работала в Ягеллонской библи теке, где её приняли на работу, несмотря на неподходящее в то время социальное происхождение и близкое родство с Ромуальдом Ялбжиковским, выдающимся священнослужителем, виленским архиепископом. Ценность представленного здесь источника заключаются как в его характере (воспоминания), так и в интересных людях, проходящих через дом Ялбжиковских (ксёндз профессор Тадеуш Крушиньский, Тетмайеры, Ян Бисанц), а также в ностальгическом, литературном характере воспоминаний: образ потерянного мира и прошлого образа жизни в шляхетской усадьбе, которому в Польше положили конец не столько естественное экономическое развитие, сколько коммунистические власти.

„Zabawki poetyckie niektórych kawalerów (i dam) Akademiey”. Humorous works by some employees of the Scientific Library of PAU and PAN in Krakow from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

Funny poems, humorous pseudo-biographies, cartoons – one may sometimes encounter them among private collections or the library and national archives resources. Written for namesday, farewell, Saint Nicolas Day or Women’s Day, they were of ephemeral nature and were quickly forgotten together with their author or recipient. As time went by, the profiles and situations were getting less and less recognisable. It is a pity, as sometimes these small pieces represented their author’s skill and contained an interesting picture of customs present in particular society.
In this paper we present two such works related to the employees of Library, one written in 1967 and the other – probably – in 1982. The first one is a funny bibliography of academic and literary pieces allegedly written by them, containing references to their works, interests, sometimes real-life problems, looks or personality. In 1967, when the text was read on the occasion of Prima Aprilis, despite the efforts, the author remained unknown. Today, after more than 50 years, professor Jerzy Zdrada, a respected historian, then a dissident and minister, admitted the authorship. At that time, he was a young librarian at the Cataloguing Department.
The author of the second work remains unknown. These are 23 small poems in which 23 female library employees have been described on the occasion of Women’s Day. They are also full of humour and accurate professional allusions, sometimes attempts to catch person’s traits of character.
Both typescripts are currently included in our Library Manuscripts Collection. The texts have been prepared for print, the introduction written and footnotes added by Karolina Grodziska and Jerzy Zdrada. To him, as the author of the Bibliography, shall also be credited the identification of some hidden phrases as well as reminding of numerous interesting events from the history of the Library.

Key words: Krakow, Scientific Library of PAU and PAN in Krakow, customs, literary games, parodies