EN
This article deals with the extant portion of Zofia Szymanowska's Memoirs, one of the unjustly marginalized texts which deserve a place in the history of the Polish literature. Zofia Lenartowiczowa, née Szymanowska (1825-1870) was a painter and step-sister of Celina Mickiewicz, wife of the celebrated Romantic poet. She wrote her Memoirs in 1854. Its extant part was published by Tadeusz Boy-Zelenski in 'Brazownicy' in 1930. While working on a reconstruction of the complex history of the manuscript he became convinced that the missing parts had been either removed or destroyed by Wladyslaw Mickiewicz. The poet's son, Boy-Zelenski alleges, may have wanted to suppress his aunt's testimony of the atmosphere and personal relations in the Mickiewicz family at the time when it came under the influence of the mystic Andrzej Towianski. In consequence, virtually all critics have been tantalized by the lost portions of the manuscript, while the extant part, which contains the authoress' psychological self-portrait based on her childhood memories, is still waiting for a thorough analysis and interpretation.