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Celina Szymanowska
Born	Celina Szymanowska 16 July 1812 Congress Kingdom of Poland (now Poland)
Died	5 March 1855
Burial place	Père Lachaise Cemetery, reinterred to Les Champeaux Cemetery at Montmorency
Other names	Celina Mickiewiczowa, Celina Mickiewicz
Spouse	Adam Mickiewicz (m. 1834–1855; her death)
Children	6
Mother	Maria Szymanowska

Celina Szymanowska (16 July 1812 – 5 March 1855) was a daughter of the Polish composer and pianist Maria Agata Szymanowska and the wife of the Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz. She also went by the name Celina Mickiewicz.

Biography

Celina Szymanowska, was the daughter pianist and composer Maria Szymanowska and Józef Szymanowski. She was the half sister of painter Zofia Szymanowska-Lenartowicz, who lived with Celina and painted many portraits of the Mickiewicz family in her later life.

Szymanowska married poet Adam Mickiewicz in Paris on 22 July 1834, he was fourteen years older than her. 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. 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, where she underwent sleep deprivation, cold-water and mental-shock therapies.

Celina was freed from the hospital by Andrzej Towiański, 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).

Death

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 in 1855, Adam Mickiewicz left his under-age children in Paris and went to Istanbul, Turkey, to organize legions to fight for Poland's independence from the Russian Empire. At Istanbul, he contracted cholera and died.

References

1. Polonsky, Antony (1986). Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies. Basil Blackwell for the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies. p. 190. ISBN 978-0-631-17624-4 – via Google Books.
2. ^ Sokol, Stanley S.; Kissane, Sharon F. Mrotek; Abramowicz, Alfred L. (1992). The Polish Biographical Dictionary: Profiles of Nearly 900 Poles who Have Made Lasting Contributions to World Civilization. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-86516-245-7 – via Google Books.
3. Maurer, Jadwiga (1989). "Celina Szymanowska as a Frankist". The Polish Review. 34 (4): 335–347. ISSN 0032-2970. JSTOR 25778456.

• Patrycja Rogacz, "La bande infernale – o kobietach w domu Mickiewicza" ("La bande infernale: About the Women in Mickiewicz's House"), N-C, 8 January 2011
• Zbigniew Sudolski, Panny Szymanowskie i ich losy (The Szymanowski Daughters and Their Fates), Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1982, ISBN 8320533937.
• Alina Witkowska, Celina i Adam Mickiewiczowie (Celina and Adam Mickiewicz), Kraków, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1998, ISBN 8308029000.
• 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, ISBN 978-83-262-1014-3, pp. 162–163.
• Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Brązownicy i inne szkice o Mickiewiczu (The Bardolators, and Other Sketches about Mickiewicz), Warsaw, 1930.

External links

• History of the Mickiewicz marriage (in Polish)

• 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
• Immigrants to France
• Emigrants from Congress Poland to France