"Istotne rozmowy": Elsie Rosaline Masson i Bronisław Malinowski

Abstract

The article concerns correspondence between Bronisław Malinowski and his first wife, Elsie Rosaline Masson. The letters that initially the acquaintances, later on the engaged and finally spouses wrote to each other for many years, constitute exciting reading for both anthropologists and literary experts. Basing on them, one can make an attempt to not only reconstruct a development of the relationship between two people emotionally and intellectually close to each other, but also find out a lot on the functioning of the environment of ethnologists (especially the English ones) at that time. A separate issue can be short reports and self‑reflections by Malinowski concerning the field studies he conducted. A “literary nature” of these letters is as important as their referential layer. Published recently in Polish will certainly become an inspiring material for further research, not necessarily in the “centre” of a contemporary humanistic reflection.