A Republic of Letters: The Correspondence of ‘Kultura’

More than a thousand folders, some 150,000 pages of correspondence, and copies of almost every reply. Jerzy Giedroyc had no political party, no army and no money. What he had was a typewriter and the postal service. Through letters, he recruited writers, arranged escapes, reconciled adversaries and conducted politics. Today, this correspondence forms one of the most valuable collections in the Maisons-Laffitte archives, inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. Among those whose letters it preserves are Orwell and Solzhenitsyn, Gombrowicz and Miłosz, General Anders and ordinary readers as far away as Nairobi.

An Archive in Folders

In the Literary Institute’s archive, more than a thousand folders of editorial correspondence line the shelves. Some 150,000 pages are arranged alphabetically by correspondent’s surname. Giedroyc had a habit that has proved invaluable to historians: he preserved not only the letters he received, but also copies of those he sent. As a result, many exchanges have survived in their entirety, with both questions and replies intact. His correspondence with Mikhail Heller alone comprises some 550 items. Zygmunt Hertz wrote hundreds of letters to Czesław Miłosz, which were published as a separate volume after his death.

At the end of the alphabet are four folders labelled ‘NN’ — for unidentified correspondents. They contain copies of the Editor’s letters to recipients whose identities could not be established, either because the letters had been filed in the wrong folder or simply left on his desk. Their subjects reveal the remarkable breadth of Giedroyc’s activities: a petition following the Poznań protests, protest postcards to be sent to Downing Street ahead of Khrushchev’s visit to London, preparations for Czapski’s American tour, and even a recollection of an audience with Hitler.

Part of the collection is now accessible online. The website kulturaparyska.com allows visitors to browse letters by correspondent’s name. Giedroyc himself is listed there as having more than two hundred correspondents, ranging from Bogdan Adamski, who wrote from Oklahoma proposing an article on the futility of rebuilding Warsaw’s Royal Castle, to Józef Żywina.

Letters from Occupied Warsaw

The most personal letters in the archive have nothing to do with ‘Kultura’. They are letters from Franciszka Giedroyć, Jerzy and Henryk’s mother, sent from occupied Warsaw to her sons in exile. In November 1939, she reassured them that the family was still living in their own homes and that all was well. In January 1941, she wrote of the deaths of her own mother and her granddaughter, the daughter of her middle son, Zygmunt, and of the sorrowful life in the occupied city. She described letters from her sons as her only source of joy. She prayed to God ‘that we might see one another again and embrace’.

The last surviving letter dates from March 1944. It had travelled by a circuitous route, through a family friend in Stockholm, and bore postage stamps depicting Hitler. Their mother wrote that her son’s letter from November had been the most precious Christmas gift she could have received, and that the family were all together and in good health. A few months later, she was killed during the Warsaw Uprising. Her sons never saw her again. Henryk recorded in his diary that the day in December 1939 when her first letter arrived in Bucharest had been one of the happiest of his life.

How to Win Over a Writer by Correspondence

Giedroyc’s correspondence with Witold Gombrowicz offers a revealing insight into how he cultivated his circle of contributors. The first letter arrived from Buenos Aires in May 1950. Gombrowicz wrote that he had heard the Editor was seeking his address and offered him ‘Ślub’ (‘The Marriage’) and ‘Trans-Atlantyk’. Giedroyc replied frankly that, owing to the crisis in the émigré publishing market, he had not published any books for some time. Nevertheless, he asked to see an extract and, at the same time, proposed an essay on cultural life in Argentina. In subsequent letters, Gombrowicz complained that those who failed to understand him regarded him as a fool or a madman, and that what mattered to him was for people to know ‘that someone takes me seriously’. Giedroyc did take him seriously. In 1953, ‘Trans-Atlantyk’ and ‘Ślub’ became the inaugural volume of the ‘Kultura’ Library series.

Ten years later, the letters reveal another side of their friendship. In the autumn of 1963, ‘Życie Literackie’, a literary journal published in Poland, printed an unauthorised and manipulated interview with Gombrowicz. The writer, who was then settling into life in Germany, wrote to Maisons-Laffitte almost daily for several weeks. He enquired about reactions to the interview, sent statements for the press and worried about whether the security services of communist Poland were taking an interest in him. In his replies, Giedroyc worked out a strategy for defending the writer. A correction appeared in the December issue of ‘Kultura’ as an addendum to Gombrowicz’s ‘Dziennik’ (‘Diary’).

Many other collaborations began in much the same way. Hłasko arrived at Maisons-Laffitte after months of correspondence, culminating in Giedroyc sending him an airline ticket purchased under another name. For years, Giedroyc sought through his letters to draw Stempowski out of his melancholy and silence. He pursued Piotr Rawicz for contributions with such persistence that he himself joked about having the makings of a prison warder. Rawicz, nevertheless, never submitted the promised piece.

Voices from West and East

The collection includes letters from figures whose names are familiar to readers around the world. Between 1946 and 1947, George Orwell corresponded with Teresa Jeleńska, Konstanty’s mother. Their exchanges touched on the selection of his writings for translation, the word ‘fascism’, which Orwell believed had already lost all meaning, and Graham Greene, whose ‘The Power and the Glory’ he considered the author’s finest novel. The archive also preserves letters exchanged between Józef Czapski and Albert Camus from 1947 to 1949.

A particularly significant place in the collection is occupied by the correspondence with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the 1970s. In draft letters from 1974, Giedroyc outlined the Literary Institute’s aims: combating Soviet totalitarianism, normalising Polish–Russian relations and supporting the aspirations for independence of the peoples of the Soviet Union. He also sent Solzhenitsyn a Polish translation of ‘The Gulag Archipelago’, which he regarded as a literary achievement worthy of the original. Solzhenitsyn replied that if the West were to hear Eastern Europe speaking with one voice, it might finally begin to understand. He declared that he would accept no royalties from publishers in that part of Europe until they were able to pay him in countries that were free. He added: ‘I hope we shall all live to see that happy day.’

Relations were not always harmonious. A dispute over the rights to ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ in connection with Deutsche Welle led to a misunderstanding, with Solzhenitsyn suspecting Giedroyc of seeking financial gain. Yet the letters reveal how both men sought to preserve their relationship. In 1976, Giedroyc wrote to the Russian author about Ukrainian anxieties over Russification and his admiration for Solzhenitsyn’s solitary struggle. He observed that, thanks to Solzhenitsyn, the Polish intelligentsia was beginning to distinguish between the Russian people and the Soviet regime.

The list of correspondents reads like a roll call of the leading figures of the twentieth century: General Anders, Raymond Aron, André Malraux, Artur Rubinstein, Zbigniew Brzeziński, Zbigniew Herbert, Sławomir Mrożek, Agnieszka Osiecka and Tadeusz Różewicz. Alongside them appear dozens of entirely unfamiliar names: librarians, students and readers from provincial towns.

Miłosz and the ‘Friendly Giant’

Miłosz arrived at Maisons-Laffitte in 1951, after breaking with the communist authorities in Poland. It was the most difficult period of his life, and he could be an insufferable guest at the ‘Kultura’ house. In the spring of 1952, as he was leaving, he wrote a letter of apology to Zygmunt Hertz. He thanked him for his friendly ‘tyranny’, which had compelled him to write and wash the dishes. He explained that his egocentric behaviour during those months had been the price of the book he was then writing, ‘Zniewolony umysł’ (‘The Captive Mind’). He asked Hertz to remain his ‘friendly giant’ and to treat him even more sternly than before.

This letter marked the beginning of one of the longest friendships sustained through correspondence in the history of ‘Kultura’. Writing from Berkeley, Miłosz recounted his road trips across America, a journey to Vancouver Island and his impressions of American television. He also reflected on the plight of émigrés whose intellectual ambitions withered after they had severed their ties with their homeland. On one occasion, he sent Henryk Giedroyc a Christmas card, joking that he had intended to send it to Gomułka but was sending it to Henryk instead.

When Hertz died in the autumn of 1979, Giedroyc asked Miłosz to write a tribute to him. The poet replied that he felt an immense sense of loss, for Hertz had been his most faithful correspondent for so many years. A year later, following the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature, new concerns emerged in the Editor’s letters. Giedroyc insisted that editions of Miłosz’s works published in Poland should acknowledge the Literary Institute as their original publisher. He also suggested inviting to the ceremony in Stockholm intellectuals who had been unable to leave Poland for years, reasoning that the authorities would find it difficult to refuse a request from the Swedish Academy.

Bobkowski: Letters from the Other Side of the World

Andrzej Bobkowski had been a friend of the Editor since their early years in Paris. In March 1947, he wrote to Giedroyc about the opening chapters of the book that would become ‘Szkice piórkiem’ (‘Wartime Notebooks’), about Kisielewski, and about those who hoped to make a career for themselves in exile. In May 1948, he drew up a confidential memorandum of a meeting with Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz and Jerzy Borejsza. The document has survived among the Editor’s personal papers.

Soon afterwards, Bobkowski left for Guatemala, and from then on their friendship was sustained entirely through letters. Giedroyc confided in him about matters he discussed with very few others. In the autumn of 1948, he wrote of his loneliness, financial difficulties and life in ‘little Lafitte’, while also exchanging thoughts on aircraft, a shared passion, and new ideas. He also recounted the controversy surrounding a reportage piece published in ‘Kultura’ and the difficult process of restoring the journal’s independence.

Bobkowski was someone with whom Giedroyc felt a deep affinity. When, in 1958, the Editor was planning to send Marek Hłasko across the Atlantic, he wanted him to visit Bobkowski along the way, seeing the two men as kindred spirits. Their correspondence was among those Giedroyc hoped to publish in the ‘Archiwum Kultury’ (‘Kultura Archives’) series.

Mieroszewski: Politics Through Letters

For almost thirty years, ‘Kultura’s’ leading political commentator communicated with the Editor chiefly by letter: Giedroyc in Maisons-Laffitte, Mieroszewski in London. Their correspondence had begun during their military service. In March 1945, Mieroszewski complained to Lieutenant Giedroyc that, in times such as these, ‘it would be better to break stones than to be a Polish journalist’.

In June 1949, he described his attempts to make a living in London without writing: he had worked as a kitchen assistant for a Polish firm on Oxford Street, then completed an upholstery course and taken to making sofas and armchairs. Eventually, he returned to writing and proposed becoming a regular contributor to ‘Kultura’. Giedroyc replied that the journal’s financial situation was disastrous, but that he hoped to keep it going, if only to spite his ill-disposed fellow émigrés in London. A few weeks later, he expressed his delight at having regained the journal’s independence, even though it meant living in poverty. Help came from the pianist Witold Małcużyński, who donated the proceeds of two concerts to the journal.

In his letters to Mieroszewski, Giedroyc shared matters of the utmost confidentiality, including, in 1963, an account of a conversation with an official at the Élysée Palace about an article in ‘Kultura’ that had impressed de Gaulle. When Mieroszewski became seriously ill towards the end of 1975, the Editor wrote to him that he felt utterly alone and had no one with whom he could discuss matters. Six months later, Mieroszewski died.

Christmas Cards

A separate collection consists of Christmas and New Year cards sent to the editorial team from the early post-war years until Zofia Hertz’s death in 2003. They came from friends and contributors alike. Miłosz drew his cards by hand. Stanisław Gliwa, a London-based artist and printer who designed the Literary Institute’s emblem, an Ionic column, sent beautifully printed cards on fine-quality paper. In their greetings for 1999, Andrzej Wajda and Krystyna Zachwatowicz announced that they would bring ‘Pan Tadeusz’ to Maisons-Laffitte to show the film to the Editor and Zofia Hertz. Every year, Juliusz Mieroszewski described his Christmas Eve in London in a letter to Zofia, where the traditional Polish beetroot soup and mushrooms were joined by an English turkey.

Most moving of all, however, are the cards from ordinary readers in France, Poland, Britain, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Kenya. When renewing their subscriptions, they would take the opportunity to thank the editorial team for its work, and some of the envelopes still contain a piece of the traditional Christmas wafer, sent decades ago. Every year, a card also arrived from the children of a Polish school in Paris. As the years passed, the number of signatures on it steadily dwindled.

Some of the cards have their corners missing. This was not the work of mice. Zygmunt Hertz and Norbert Żaba, ‘Kultura’s’ correspondent in Sweden, were avid philatelists and would cut out the more interesting stamps.

The ‘Kultura’ Archive

Giedroyc was well aware that his letters were part of history. In 1993, he announced plans for a publishing series entitled ‘Archiwum Kultury’ (‘The Kultura Archive’), whose first volume was to contain his correspondence with Gombrowicz, followed by collections of letters exchanged with Mieroszewski, Bobkowski and Czapski. He stipulated that the entire undertaking would remain under his supervision. After his death, the volumes appeared in succession, while Zofia Hertz, until the final months of her life, continued to draw up lists of whose correspondence should be published next.

The letters from Maisons-Laffitte are more than a source for historians. They constitute a community of people who often never met, yet continued for decades to exchange ideas about Poland, literature and freedom. Andrzej Stanisław Kowalczyk called it an ‘epistolary commonwealth’. It is an apt description: a state without territory, whose borders were defined by the reach of the postal service.

This essay draws on the rich historical and archival materials made available through the ‘Kultura’ Paris website, which preserve the stories, voices and legacy of the Maisons-Laffitte community.