Alicja Szałagan
“THE BURDEN OF PRESENCE”. COMPLEMENTS TO AUTHOBIOGRAPHICAL MOTIVES OF WRITING OF MARIA KUNCEWICZOWA IN HER LETTERS TO HUSBAND (1944–1958)
Maria Kuncewiczowa’s letters to her husband analysed in the paper constitute an interesting source to penetrate a difficult from many reasons period of her emigration life in England and in the first months of her stay in the USA. The letters in question also facilitate a better comprehension of her tests such as The Conspiracy of the Absent, The Forester (to a smaller extent), Thank you for the Rose, The Olive Grove. They are also a contribution to the understanding of a writer’s situation, who – when emigrated – does not want to stop her literary activities. The last postcards from this collection come from the year 1958 and refer to Kuncewiczowa’s first after 1939 stay in Poland. The letters constitute an interesting counterpoint to her autobiographical relations as seen in for example Phantoms or Nature, since they show Kuncewiczowa not only as an artist living mostly in a phantom dimension, but a person struggling with a burden of everyday life imposed by a necessity of political choice to live abroad.