About Halina

Abstract

The article is dedicated to Halina Wolman, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis’s piano student. She was one of Čiurlionis’s distinguished students and had a certain influence on the composer and his work: it was to her that Čiurlionis dedicated several piano pieces, the symphonic poem Creation of the World, and the cycle of poetic texts ‘Letters to Devdorakėlis’. However, very little was known about her life until now. Newly discovered archival documents and the account of Halina’s husband, Stefen Stokes, describing their escape from Warsaw at the start of the Second World War made it possible to reconstruct her life story up until her death. At the same time, this research provides answers regarding her archive, which undoubtedly contained musical manuscripts, letters, photographs, and drawings by the gifted Čiurlionis. This archive was scattered piecemeal and abandoned in parts at the locations on the route of Halina’s escape from the war: a house in the suburbs of Warsaw, Plyanta (near Kobryn) and Lyusina (Brest region; both in Belarus), and Vilnius.