Celina Szymanowska (16 July 1812 – 5 March 1855) was a daughter of the

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

composer and pianist

Maria Agata Szymanowska Maria Szymanowska (Polish pronunciation: ; born Marianna Agata Wołowska; Warsaw, 14 December 1789 – 25 July 1831, St. Petersburg, Russia) was a Polish composer and one of the first professional virtuoso pianists of the 19th century. She tour ...

and the wife of the Polish Romantic poet

Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Ro ...

Life

Celina Szymanowska, daughter of Mickiewicz's late friend the pianist

, married the 14-years-older

in Paris on 22 July 1834. The couple had six children: daughters Maria and Helena; and four sons, Władysław Mickiewicz (1838–1926), Józef Mickiewicz (1850–1938), Aleksander Mickiewicz and Jan Mickiewicz. Celina roused the dislike of other Polish émigrés, including the Romantic poet

Zygmunt Krasiński Napoleon Stanisław Adam Feliks Zygmunt Krasiński (; 19 February 1812 – 23 February 1859) was a Polish poet traditionally ranked after Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki as one of Poland's Three Bards – the Romantic poets who influence ...

. She was accused of extravagance, poor cooking skills, a desire to dominate her husband, and mental instability. In 1838 Celina declared herself a prophet, an incarnation of the Mother of God, and redeemer of Poland, of Polish émigrés and of the Jews. She also claimed to possess a power to heal, which she said she had successfully applied to the gravely ill Adolf Zaleski. For a time, Adam Mickiewicz cared for his wife himself; but marital discord and Celina's mental illness drove him to attempt suicide on 17 or 18 December 1838 by jumping out a window. When he found that Celina's mental state was getting worse, Mickiewicz had her committed to a mental hospital at

Vanves Vanves () is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is one of the most densely populated municipalities in Europe and the tenth in France History On 1 January 1860, the city of Paris w ...

, where she underwent sleep deprivation, cold-water and mental-shock therapies. Celina was freed from the hospital by

Andrzej Towiański Andrzej Tomasz Towiański (; January 1, 1799 – May 13, 1878) was a Polish philosopher and messianic religious leader. Life Towiański was born in Antoszwińce, a village near Vilnius, which after Partitions of Poland belonged to the Russian ...

, who claimed to have miraculously cured her. She believed his assurances that she had regained her mental health, and to the end of her life she remained under his influence and that of the Circle of God's Cause (''Koło Sprawy Bożej''). Upon her death in 1855, she was interred at Paris' Père-Lachaise Cemetery. Exhumed, her remains were transferred to Les Champeaux Cemetery at Montmorency. The Mickiewicz family tomb exists there to the present day. After Celina's death and the outbreak of the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

in 1855, Adam Mickiewicz left his under-age children in Paris and went to

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

, Turkey, to organize legions to fight for Poland's independence from the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. At Istanbul, he contracted

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

and died.

References

*Jadwiga Maurer, "Celina Szymanowska as a

Frankist Frankism was a heretical Sabbatean Jewish religious movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, centered on the leadership of the Jewish Messiah claimant Jacob Frank, who lived from 1726 to 1791. Frank rejected religious norms and said that his fol ...

," ''

The Polish Review ''The Polish Review'' is an English-language academic journal published quarterly in New York City by the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America. ''The Polish Review'' was established in 1956. Editors-in-chief The following persons hav ...

'', vol. XXXIV, no. 4, 1989, pp. 335–47

*Patrycja Rogacz, "La bande infernale – ''o kobietach w domu Mickiewicza''" ("''La bande infernale'': About the Women in Mickiewicz's House"), ''N-C'', 8 January 201

*Zbigniew Sudolski, ''Panny Szymanowskie i ich losy'' (The Szymanowski Daughters and Their Fates), Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1982, . *Alina Witkowska, ''Celina i Adam Mickiewiczowie'' (Celina and Adam Mickiewicz), Kraków, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1998, . *Alicja Zdziechowicz, ''"Celina - kobieta, która nie mieściła się w legendzie wieszcza"'' ("Celina: the Woman Who Did Not Fit into the Bard's Legend"), in ''O czym nie mówią nam poloniści'' (What the Polish-Literature Scholars Do Not Tell Us), Warsaw, Wydawnictwo Szkolne PWN, 2011, , pp. 162–63. *

Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński Tadeusz Kamil Marcjan Żeleński (better known by his pen name, Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński or simply as Boy; 21 December 1874 – 4 July 1941) was a Polish stage writer, poet, critic and, above all, the translator of over 100 French literature , Frenc ...

, ''Brązownicy i inne szkice o Mickiewiczu'' (The Bardolators, and Other Sketches about Mickiewicz), Warsaw, 1930.

External links

History of the Mickiewicz marriage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Szymanowska, Celina 1812 births 1855 deaths Great Emigration Polish composers Polish classical pianists Polish people of Jewish descent Polish women composers Polish women pianists 19th-century Polish women musicians Adam Mickiewicz 19th-century women pianists