Listy Konstancji i Magdaleny Czapskich – między konwencją panegiryczno-retoryczną a językiem familijnym
Letters of Konstancja and Magdalena Czapski – between the panegyric-rhetorical convention and the familial language

Summary/Abstract: The article aims at analysing selected letters of the Pomeranian Voivode Piotr JanCzapski’s wife and daughter – Konstancja Czapska, née Gnińska, and Magdalena Radziwiłł. The letters, written in the 1740s and 1750s, are analysed as regards the changesof the genre in the course of the 18th century. The presented conclusions are based onthe research undertaken within a project which was part of the National Programmefor the Development of the Humanities. The project dealt with egodocuments writtenby members of the Czapski family. Considering the source material under examination,the article describes the role of women (educated outside of the system of colleges) in theevolution of Polish epistolography. In the 18th century, it gradually (later than in WesternEuropean countries) broke free from the patterns imposed by rhetoric and the formulasfrom Old-Polish letter writing guidebooks, and started following the patterns of everydayconversation. This tendency, however, is best observed in letters exchanged within a family,in which features of familial language can be discerned. It is there that the panegyricaltone, so common in earlier correspondence, is less conspicuous and the strategy to winfavour with the addressee of a higher social status, for instance by using rhetorical topoi,recedes into the background.

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