Norwid and Edmund Chojecki – the Traveller

The writer Edmund Chojecki (Charles Edmond) was one of Norwid’s most significant acquaintances, already in the Warsaw period, and later in Paris. Their friendship started in Warsaw in the 1840s and lasted a lifetime (or at least until the 1870s), although its preserved epistolary traces are scarce. This article focuses on Chojecki’s reports from his travels and their inspiring influence on Norwid: Edmund’s trip with Count Branicki to the Crimea (Wspomnienia z podróży po Krymie, Warszawa 1845), journey to the North Seas with Prince Napoleon (Voyage dans les mers du Nord, Paris 1857), Chojecki’s sojourn in Egypt at the turn of 1851, and finally his involvement in preparing the Egyptian exhibition (as the commissioner general) at the 1867 World Exhibition in Paris (L’Égypte à l’Exposition universelle de 1867, Paris 1867). The most important outcome of this is Norwid’s drama Kleopatra i Cezar and his collection of Egyptian drawings in the album Orbis (I).