Literary and biographical false start? About Gustaw Waliszewski’s letters to Julian Bartoszewicz from 1853–1855 (in the collection of the State Archives in Łódź)

Abstract

This article discusses several aspects of Gustaw Waliszewski’s letters to Julian Bartoszewicz from 1853–1855, which today are part of the Archive of the Bartoszewicz family maintained by the State Archives in Łódź. The letters, spanning 163 sheets, have been studied from several perspectives: (a) biographical, which offers insight into the personality of the young man only just starting his academic career, who dreamt of becoming the “national Thierry”; (b) genetic, which treats the letters as material documenting the creative process associated with historical studies and writing columns for the Dziennik Warszawski periodical, and which described the beginner scholar’s struggles with censorship limitations; and (c) that of press research – related to the broadly discussed in the letters topics of the development of the Dziennik Warszawski, its rivalry with the Gazeta Warszawska, and the fight for influence in the countryside. A series of memoir articles by Julian Bartoszewicz devoted to Waliszewski offer additional context; they complement the whole in the place of the lost set of Bartoszewicz’ responses to Waliszewski.