“How deeply I feel my weakness…” Correspondence between Tadeusz Miciński and Karol Baykowski in the years 1897–1900

Abstract

The article presents the unpublished correspondence of Tadeusz Miciński with Karol Baykowski, comprising four letters. Two of them, previously unknown, were recently discovered among the archival materials of Walentyna Horoszkiewiczówna (F.98) by the author of this paper during a research in the manuscript collections of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius.

The edited with a commentary correspondence of Young Poland writer with towianist living in Krakow, former secretary of Andrzej Towiański and publisher of his writings, indicates the inspiring role that the views and set of religious ideas represented in the Circle of God’s Cause played in the formation of Miciński’s beliefs and life attitudes. The analyzed epistolary communication is not only an important ego-document, revealing the secrets of the Young Poland artist’s spiritual biography. At the same time, it is an important testimony to the interest of the generation at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries in that part of the Romantic heritage that was treated by their predecessors with suspicion and some reluctance.