Joseph Conrad - Early Life

Early Life

Joseph Conrad was born on 3 December 1857 in the Ukrainian town of Berdychiv, the only child of Apollo Korzeniowski, gentleman farmer, writer, translator and would-be political reformer and revolutionary, and Ewa (Polish for "Eve") née Bobrowska. The child was named Józef Teodor Konrad for his grandfathers Józef (maternal) and Teodor (paternal) and for Konrad, the hero of Adam Mickiewicz's dramatic poem Dziady (Forefathers' Eve, 1832). "Thus," writes Najder, "three traditions were united...: those of the two families, so different from each other, and the great tradition of Polish Romantic poetry

The great majority of the area's inhabitants were Ukrainians, but most of the land was owned by a Polish upper class of szlachta (nobility) to which Conrad's parents belonged; Conrad's father bore the Polish Nałęcz coat of arms. In the virtual absence of a higher bourgeoisie, that nobility was the sole repository of polite culture. Literature, particularly patriotic literature, was held in high esteem.

Due to the father's agricultural endeavors and political activism, young Konrad (as he was known to family and friends—rather than Józef, "Joseph", his actual first name) experienced several moves early in life. In May 1861 the family transferred to Warsaw, where Apollo participated in the resistance movement against the Russian Empire. This led to his imprisonment in the infamous Pavilion X ("Ten") of the Warsaw Citadel. Conrad would later write: "in the courtyard of this Citadel — characteristically for our nation — my childhood memories begin". On 9 May 1862 Apollo (and Ewa) were exiled to Vologda (500 kilometers north of Moscow), known for its unhealthy climate. In January 1863 the sentence was commuted and the family was transferred to Chernihiv in northeast Ukraine, where the conditions and climate were much better. However, on 18 April 1865, amid the privations of their life in exile, Ewa died of tuberculosis.

Apollo did his best to home-school Conrad. The boy's early reading introduced him to the two elements that later dominated his life: in Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea he encountered the sphere of activity to which he would devote his youth; Shakespeare brought him into the orbit of English literature. Most of all, though, he read Polish Romantic poetry. Half a century later he explained that "The Polishness in my works comes from Mickiewicz and Słowacki. My father read Pan Tadeusz aloud to me and made me read it aloud.... I used to prefer Konrad Wallenrod Grażyna. Later I preferred Słowacki. You know why Słowacki?... ".

In December 1867, Apollo took his son to the Austrian-held part of Poland, which for two years had been enjoying considerable internal freedom and a degree of self-government. After sojourns in Lwów and several smaller localities, on 20 February 1869 they moved to Kraków (till 1596 the capital of Poland), likewise in Austrian Poland. A few months later, on 23 May 1869, Apollo Korzeniowski died, leaving Conrad orphaned at the age of eleven. Like Conrad's mother, Apollo had been gravely ill with tuberculosis.

The young Conrad was placed in the care of Ewa's brother, Tadeusz Bobrowski. Conrad's poor health and his unsatisfactory schoolwork caused his uncle constant problems and no end of financial outlays. Conrad was not a good student; despite tutoring, he excelled only in geography. Since the boy's illness was clearly of nervous origin, the physicians supposed that fresh air and physical work would harden him; his uncle hoped that well-defined duties and the rigors of work would teach him discipline. Since he showed little inclination to study, it was essential that he learn a trade; his uncle saw him as a sailor-cum-businessman who would combine his maritime skills with commercial activities. In fact, in the autumn of 1871, thirteen-year-old Conrad announced his intention to become a sailor. He later recalled that as a child he had read (apparently in French translation) Leopold McClintock's book about his 1857-59 expeditions in the Fox, in search of Sir John Franklin's lost ships Erebus and Terror. He also recalled having read books by the American James Fenimore Cooper and the English Captain Frederick Marryat. A playmate of his adolescence recalled that Conrad spun fantastic yarns, always set at sea, presented so realistically that listeners thought the action was happening before their eyes.

In August 1873 Bobrowski sent fifteen-year-old Conrad to Lwów to a cousin who ran a small boarding house for boys orphaned by the 1863 Uprising; group conversation there was in French. The owner's daughter recalled:

He stayed with us ten months... Intellectually he was extremely advanced but disliked school routine, which he found tiring and dull; he used to say... he... planned to become a great writer.... He disliked all restrictions. At home, at school, or in the living room he would sprawl unceremoniously. He... suffer from severe headaches and nervous attacks...

Conrad had been at the establishment for just over a year when in September 1874, for uncertain reasons, Bobrowski removed him from school in Lwów and took him back to Kraków.

On 13 October 1874, the sixteen-year-old set off for Marseilles, France, and a planned career at sea. Bobrowski saw him as a sailor-cum-businessman who would combine his maritime skills with commercial activities. Though Konrad had not completed secondary school, his accomplishments included fluency in French (with a correct accent), some knowledge of Latin, German and Greek, probably a good knowledge of history, some geography, and probably already an interest in physics. He was well read, particularly in Polish Romantic literature. He belonged to only the second generation in his family that had to earn a living outside the family estates: he was a member of the second generation of the intelligentsia, a social class that was starting to play an important role in Central and Eastern Europe. He had absorbed enough of the history, culture and literature of his native land to be able eventually to develop a distinctive world view and make unique contributions to the literature of his adoptive Britain. It was tensions that originated in his childhood in Poland and grew in his adulthood abroad that would give rise to Conrad's greatest literary achievements. Najder, himself an emigrant from Poland, observes:

Living away from one's natural environment — family, friends, social group, language — even if it results from a conscious decision, usually gives rise to... internal tensions, because it tends to make people less sure of themselves, more vulnerable, less certain of their... position and... value... The Polish szlachta and... intelligentsia were social strata in which reputation... was felt... very important... for a feeling of self-worth. Men strove... to find confirmation of their... self-regard... in the eyes of others... Such a psychological heritage forms both a spur to ambition and a source of constant stress, especially if the idea of 's public duty...