„Tak trudno być matką umarłego”. Tadeusz Konopnicki w korespondencji i twórczości swojej matki

The article seeks to reconstruct the portrait of Maria Konopnicka’s first-born son, Tadeusz that emerges from the poet’s letters. According to the author, owing to his gentle nature and predisposition for ill health, out of her six children, he was his mother’s favourite. Tadeusz’s premature death was Konopnicka’s greatest loss. She expressed her despair in the lyric Tu się droga załamała [Here the road has broken], and her premonitions in the novella Dym [Smoke], written a year earlier. Konopnicka’s troubled single motherhood was repeatedly subjected to negative judgement that stemmed from anachronistic worldview. However, it would be worthwhile to look at the poet’s uneasy situation without criticism but with compassion, trying to understand her constant worry about her sons’ and daughters’ moral standing.