Wilhelmina Zyndram-Kościałkowska aphoristic writing as a mode of autobiography

Abstract

The article discusses the manuscripts of Wilhelmina Zyndram-Kościałkowska (1844–1926) – a writer, literary critic, translator, publicist, one of the most important fi gures in the literary circles of Grodno and Warsaw in the second half of the nineteenth century. Her manuscripts (private calendars, diaries, memoirs and notebooks) are kept in the Offi ce of the Chief Archivist of Lithuania (Lietuvos Valstybės Istorijos Archyvas). Kościałkowska 98 aphorisms, analyzed in his article, were dedicated to Henryk Nusbaum (1849–1937), a Warsaw neurologist, publicist, medical philosopher, and included in her diaries and memoirs titled Kajet z notatkami, urywkami poezji, fragmentami wspomnień. Her aphoristic writing can be interpreted as a particular mode of autobiography. Kościałkowska’s aphorisms illuminate the microdimensions of her autobiographical position, her critical style, her understanding of loneliness and of other people’s behavior, and fi nally her intertextual dialogues with culture, literature and art. Kościałkowska thus establishes a perspective on a range of cultural phenomena as well as on the process of her own identity construction.