Letter of Szymon Dutkiewicz to Wincenty Pol

The only surviving letter from Szymon Dutkiewicz to Wincenty Pol (we know of at least seven letters written by Pol to Dutkiewicz) was written from Kraków between the 31st of March and the 8th of April 1859, when the addressee was staying near Tyśmienica in Pokucie. It contains a detailed list of the contents of two parcels with manuscripts, correspondence and publications attached to the letter, as well as expressions of appreciation for the poetic work of Wincenty Pol and assurances of his continuing remembrance in Kraków, a few sentences and greetings to his children and name-day wishes. We learn from the letter that four years earlier the poet had given the sender the manuscript of his poem Mohort.

Szymon Dutkiewicz (1802-1877), a pedagogue and collector, studied at the Cistercian school in Koprzywnica and the St Anne's Lyceum in Kraków. After his baccalaureate he took up studies at Jagiellonian University. He was a private teacher and ran a boarding school and a scientific institution for boys (on Kanonicza Street). He collected documents and manuscripts and made documentation of monuments in Kraków churches. He published part of the collected material in Zbiór pomników i napisowych nagrobków w główniejszych kościołach krakowskich [Collection of Monuments and Inscriptions of Gravestones in the Major Churches of Kraków]. He maintained contacts with the Kraków scientific community and remained a cordial friend of Wincenty Pol, to whom the poet dedicated Senatorska zgoda: tradycya szlachecka Jegomości Pana Benedykta Winnickiego [Senatorial Consent: Gentry Tradition of Mr Benedykt Winnicki].

The letter came to the collection of the Museum through one of the antique shops in Kraków. It was part of a collection of documents gathered by Władysław Leon Antoniewicz (1877-1918) – a teacher from Krosno, regionalist, researcher of Wincenty Pol's life and his would-be biographer. Interestingly, Antoniewicz was born in Glinik Mariampolski, i.e., in a village (today a district of Gorlice) where the poet-geographer lived with his family in 1840-1846, in the so-called house under the oaks.