Emmissary of "Kultura" in spe. Correspondence between Leopold Tyrmand and Jerzy Giedroyc

Abstract

Among the vast collection of archival materials located in Maisons-Laffitte there is an interesting set of letters from Leopold Tyrmand. It is supplemented by the Hoover Institute in Palo Alto at Stanford University. These letters document the development and dramatic end of Jerzy Giedroyc’s friendship with Leopold Tyrmand. There are many indications that they had extremely different ideas about the topics that theoretically were supposed to bring them together: emigration, attitude towards the communist authorities, literary issues. The reality turned out to be more complicated, and neither of them wanted to give up their convictions or compromise. Intense in number and spontaneous in content, the correspondence is also an excellent portrait of an era in which epistolary art, in addition to its utilitarian function, also had an aesthetic value.