Mochnacki na nowo odkrywany
Mochnacki Newly Rediscovered

Two Unknown Handwritten Letters

Summary/Abstract: The analysis of a volume with Maurycy Mochnacki’s and Kamil Mochnacki’s letters to parents published in the year 1863, the first edition of the correspondence, reveals a number of editorial operations that serve the creation of the senders’ images and discloses the 19th c. characteristic strategies of composing “biographic portraits” in advance. In the volume in question, an important function is played by the numerous non-authorial deviations from the manuscript that deform the style and sense of the original account. They are most clearly visible in Maurycy Mochnacki’s two letters dated July 25th, 1834, and September 2nd, 1834, the manuscripts of which have only recently become the object of a detailed textological analysis. Since the handwritings of the two letters differ from the first edition to such an extent that they should be regarded as non-identical (over 100 differences), the handwritten versions are published here. Until this day, only the deformed letters were known and quoted.

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