Materia biografii jako pamięć kultury. Wilhelmina Zyndram-Kościałkowska o Elizie Orzeszkowej – próba rekonstrukcji archiwalnej

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to reconstruct a variety of memoirs (including diaries, journals, memoirs, notebooks, calendars) by Wilhelmina Zyndram-Kościałkowska relating to Eliza Orzeszkowa. The collection of materials used for analysis is deposited at the Lithuanian State Historical Archives in Vilnius (Lietuvos Valstybės Istorijos Archyvas). The author of the article considers the material of the biography of the Grodno writer as individually transformed by the pen of her Grodno friend - translator, critic and writer - and constructed as a kind of text (voice of the memoirist) typical for intimistics (taking into account the author’s individual perception of people, matters, phenomena). As a consequence, the reconstructed biography of Orzeszkowa emerging from the critical reflection of Kościałkowska, divided into several thousand pages of memoirs devoted to “people and things of her time”, written after the death of the author of “Cham”, is not without meticulous assessments, specific biographical situations, recalled events known only to participants of that reality. However, it also includes malicious and critical evaluation of Orzeszkowa’s personality and other characters who turn from living figures into the textual figures of her intimistic memoir discourse. The text of Kościałkowska’s autobiography reveals the difficulty of this relationship, its complexity, hesitation, differences in the perception of the world, people and literature.