Private letters – official letters. Problems with edition of correspondence by the chairman of “Czytelnik” Jerzy Borejsza from his home archive

Abstract

The article characterizes the specificity of editing the correspondence of a cultural activist and the chairman of the largest publishing office in Poland, “Czytelnik” Cooperative – Jerzy Borejsza. It points to characteristic features of such collections, majority of which have either not survived (in other publishing offices), or can still remain in private hands. The author emphasizes those elements of political and cultural situation which played the key role in the destruction of documents by party members, and years later also by writers. Those elements also had an impact on the formal features of the mentioned letters (possible censorship by the authorities), as well as their content. However, even despite the fragmentary nature of such archives, their edition is undisputable, as they serve as a supplement for diarist writing of major creators of culture, such as Maria Dąbrowska and Zofia Nałkowska. A separate problem, which was touched upon, was emphasis on the role of detailed descriptions of the edition’s base, which should be provided by an editor, especially in relation to documents from 1944–1946. In many cases, war damages caused messages to be sent in a form which was at below today’s standards, and factors which significantly affect the contents might also be all types of stamps (field post, military censorship, etc.), as well as official annotations. Messages were written on anything and with anything which was available, which makes it immensely difficult to read the sent texts. In such cases, it seems reasonable to include photographs of those documents.