Nagrobek Wandy Gałczyńskiej-Razesbergerowej w Pradze, photo Bartłomiej Gutowski, 2023
Licencja: CC BY-SA 4.0, Źródło: Instytut Polonika, Warunki licencji
Fotografia przedstawiająca Tombstone of Wanda Galczynska-Razesbergerowa
Nagrobek Wandy Gałczyńskiej-Razesbergerowej w Pradze, photo Bartłomiej Gutowski, 2023
Licencja: CC BY-SA 4.0, Źródło: Instytut Polonika, Warunki licencji
Fotografia przedstawiająca Tombstone of Wanda Galczynska-Razesbergerowa
Nagrobek Wandy Gałczyńskiej-Razesbergerowej w Pradze, photo Bartłomiej Gutowski, 2023
Licencja: CC BY-SA 4.0, Źródło: Instytut Polonika, Warunki licencji
Fotografia przedstawiająca Tombstone of Wanda Galczynska-Razesbergerowa
Signature on the tombstone of Wanda Gałczyńska-Razesbergerowa in Olšany cemetery in Prague, photo Bartłomiej Gutowski, 2023
Licencja: CC BY-SA 4.0, Źródło: Instytut Polonika, Warunki licencji
Fotografia przedstawiająca Tombstone of Wanda Galczynska-Razesbergerowa
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ID: POL-001843-P

Tombstone of Wanda Galczynska-Razesbergerowa

ID: POL-001843-P

Tombstone of Wanda Galczynska-Razesbergerowa

The gravestone of Wanda Gałczyńska-Razesbergerowa, née Łopuszańska, rests in the Olszanski cemetery in Prague. The short inscription on it contains an error in the Łopuszańskis' surname ("a" changed into "e") and a reference to the surname Razesbergerowa, also appearing in the abbreviated form - Bergerowa. Wanda, after her marriage to her second husband, bore the longer version of this surname. The abbreviated form, "Berger", belonged to Augustin Berger, the well-known choreographer and ballet master of the National Theatre in Prague, who decided to make this change to make it easier for the public to remember his name.

Wanda Gałczyńska-Razesbergerowa went down in history as the mother of the poet Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński, who honoured her in one of his poems:

Meeting with Mother (excerpt)

She was the first to show me the moon
and the first snow on the spruces,
and the first rain.

I was as small as a seashell then,
and my mother's black dress hummed like the Black Sea.

Night.

The paraffin in the lamp burns out.
A mosquito laments over my ear.
Perhaps you, mother, in the sky
are you the few stars?

The family relations of the Gałczyńskis, as well as the relations of the adult Gałczyński with his mother, were complicated. Wanda came from a wealthy Warsaw family. Her father owned several tenement houses and a prosperous restaurant called "U Wróbla". The archives have preserved her birth certificate (23 November 1882) and her marriage certificate to Konstanty Gałczyński (1904). A year later, their child, Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński, was born. Between 1914 and 1918, the Gałczyński family stayed in Moscow, then returned to Warsaw. After the death of her husband in 1927, Wanda decided to leave Warsaw in 1930 and go to Prague, where her sister Stanisława, the wife of Augustyn Razesberger, known as Berger, was living. Stanisława married Wanda to his brother Antoni, who was by then already 70 years old. The marriage was not a happy one. It is also interesting to note that a third sister, Józefa, moved to Prague. Wanda Gałczyńska-Razesberger died on 25 December 1938. Her son, Konstanty Ildefons, only visited his mother's grave in 1949 during his short stay in Prague.


The gravestone is in the form of a stepped stele on a low pedestal, covered by a wider slab, with a candle lantern attached on the left side. The stele is polished, at the top front with an engraved cross and the inscription:
. RODINA BERGEROVA / Wanda z Lopuszeńskich Gałczyńska-Razesbergerova / *23.XI. 1887 + 25.XII.1938. //. On the pedestal in the upper right corner, engraved signature R. SANDTNER //. The whole made of dark magmatic rock, possibly monzonite.

Related persons:
Time of origin:
ca. 1939
Creator:
R. Sandtner (kamieniarz; Praga)
Supplementary bibliography:

Ostroch Aleksandra J., 'Mothers of extraordinary children', vol. 2, Czerwionka-Leszczyny 2023.

Publikacja:
19.09.2024
Ostatnia aktualizacja:
24.09.2024
Author:
Bartłomiej Gutowski
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