Jan Parandowski's Letters to Józef Mirski from the Years 1922-1938

Abstract

The Materials Department contains the edition of Jan Parandowski's hitherto unknown letters to Józef Mirski written in the years 1922-1928. The correspondence consisting of 22 letters was found in the manuscripts belonging to the National Library. The addressee is one of Jan Parandowski's friends from Lvov, a philosophy doctor of the Lvov University, a secondary school teacher, pedagogue, writer and theatrologist. Born in 1895, Parandowski was 13years younger than Mirski, who at that time was already a philosophy doctor and a teacher. He worked as a literary director in H. Altenberg's Publishers in Lvov. Mirski also came from Lvov, from a family of assimilated Jews. In 1919 he formally changed his name from Kretz to Mirski, and in May 1921 he and his wife, Maria Mirska, were baptized in the Roman-Catholic St Nicolas Church in Lvov. In 1927 Mirski moved from Lvov to Warsaw where he worked in the Ministry for Denominations and Public Education and under the auspices of this Ministry he took part in international pedagogic congresses, representing Polish education and culture. He conducted his own research connected with the beginnings of Polish theatrology, and especially with Wyspiański's dramas. The correspondence stops in the middle of 1930 when Parandowski and his family also moved to Warsaw.

In the letters, the age gap as well as the differences in the life experiences between the twomen cannot be felt. They were first of all united by their fascination with Polish literature and with ancient culture. The letters have the atmosphere of close friendship and this is why they supply a lot of precious information about the cultural life of Lvov before World War II, as well as they reveal new details about Jan Parandowski's literary activities.