Tadeusz Bobrowski

Tadeusz Bobrowski (1829–1894) was a Polish memoirist and social activist, best known outside Poland as the maternal uncle, guardian and mentor of English novelist Joseph Conrad.

Life

Early life

Born March 19, 1829, in Terechów, a village in Berdychiv County, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), he was the son of Józef and Teofilia, "née" Pilchowska, and brother of Stefan Bobrowski, a leader of the Polish January 1863 Uprising. Tadeusz attended secondary school till 1839 in Żytomierz, then in Kyiv. [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.]

In 1844 he matriculated in law at Kyiv; two years later, he transferred to St. Petersburg. Very gifted, in his 22nd year (1850) he left university with a master's degree in international law. He declined an offer to assume the chair in that subject at Kazan University, as he intended instead to devote himself to an administrative career. [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.]

These plans were upset by his father's death in 1850. Bobrowski had to return to the family estate at Oratów and look after his mother, his siblings and the running of the estate. As his portion of the family legacy he received the estate known as "Kazimierówka". [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.]

Politician

Taciturn and plain-spoken, a rationalist and an opponent of insurgencies, Bobrowski found little sympathy among the "szlachta" (nobility), though he was capable of earning their respect; and so he did not play that social role to which he might otherwise have been entitled by his legal education and intellect. [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.]

Elected in 1858 as the delegate of Lipowiec County to the nobility's Committee for granting farmland to the peasants ("uwłaszczenie"), he became that Committee's delegate to a general Commission of three Ukrainian provinces: Kyiv, Volyn and Podole. He was among the most active members of the Commission, the leader of a moderately progressive group that supported the outright granting of farmland to the peasants following a transitional rental ("oczynszowanie") period. [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.] [Addison Bross, pp. 393-94.]

In later years, Bobrowski became an unpaid judge in Lipowiec County. [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.]

He died on January 1, 1894, at "Kazimierówka". [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.]

Bobrowski left a "Memoir" of no small literary value, a wide-ranging, richly-detailed picture of Ukrainian life in the mid-19th century, whose caustic character and numerous indiscretions evoked violent protests upon its publication in 1900. The "Memoirs"' second volume, drawn from the Commission's minutes, is a valuable source on the history of the granting of farmland to Ukraine's peasants. [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.]

Conrad's mentor

A recluse, early bereft of his family (his wife died in childbirth in 1858, and his daughter in her 15th year), Bobrowski became deeply devoted to his nephew, the son of Ewelina Korzeniowska, "née" Bobrowska—Konrad Korzeniowski, the future English novelist Joseph Conrad. Before Conrad's father died in 1869, the boy was under Bobrowski's care in 1866-67, and later Bobrowski became his guardian. At first opposed to the boy's desire to become a sailor, he ultimately relented. [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.]

Over the next twenty years after Konrad went abroad in 1874, they saw each other all of four times: [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.] at news of Conrad's having been wounded in a duel in Marseille, [Such is Conrad's version in "The Arrow of Gold" (1919). Statements left by Bobrowski suggest that the wound had been the result of a foolhardy suicide attempt by Conrad. Morton Dauwen Zabel, p. 606.] Bobrowski went to him in March 1878; in the summer of 1883 they met in the Czech spa towns of Marienbad and Teplice; in 1890 and 1893 Conrad spent two months, on each occasion, at his uncle's "Kazimierówka". But, via ongoing correspondence, the uncle systematically influenced his nephew, admonished him—in particular, taught him constancy and fidelity to obligations once undertaken—and aided him financially. [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.]

Bobrowski was Conrad's constant link with Poland, and exerted no little influence on him. Whatever positive aspects his character possessed, the novelist would later write, he owed to his uncle's devotion, solicitude and influence. "There is," writes Wiktor Weintraub, "naturally much exaggeration in this assertion of Conrad's, but it is a very characteristic exaggeration." [Wiktor Weintraub, p. 163.] Both of Conrad's autobiographical books, "The Mirror of the Sea" and especially "A Personal Record", contain heartfelt reminiscences of Bobrowski. Conrad dedicated his first novel, "Almayer's Folly", to his memory. [Wiktor Weintraub, pp. 163-64]

ee also

* Land reform

Notes

References

* Addison Bross (Lehigh University), review of Zdzisław Najder, "Joseph Conrad: A Life", Rochester, New York, Camden House, 2007, ISBN 157113347X, in "The Polish Review", vol. LII, no. 3, 2007, pp. 390-95.
* Wiktor Weintraub, "Bobrowski, Tadeusz," "Polski słownik biograficzny", vol. II, Kraków, Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1936, pp. 163–64.
* Morton Dauwen Zabel, "Conrad, Joseph," "Encyclopedia Americana", vol. 7, 1986, pp. 606-07.