“Give Me a Kiss” - Chopin’s Gay (?) Letters

[@viktoriabazyk8193]

"i'm disgusted with you forever. you're a hellish monster. i embrace you." ddjkdjdkd

[@jacinthberyl5817]

And they were roomates...

[@Elise-si2tn]

Oh my gawd, they were roommates

[@asiam8087]

😂😂😂

[@lulubeukes2296]

the switch between the old-timey language and Karolina going "Be for real!" was so funny every time.

[@panqueque445]

Chopin: "When I say I love you I mean it like for real, like actually, like LOVE love" Historians: "Hmmm I dunno guys we can't be sure he was gay, they were just friends"

[@josephineantoinette5245]

The letters are reading very "Good Luck, Babe!" Especially the later ones.

[@ludwigvanbeethoven5176]

Chopin Roan

[@tyalangand]

Not Chopin literally calling Wojciechowski his "Abelard", as in, referring to the love story of Abelard and Heloise. He could have as well called him his Romeo. Also, I need to add that as someone who wrote a BA thesis on a person from the same era (Norwid) and read tons of letters written by the prominent figures of Polish Romanticism (Norwid, Krasiński, Słowacki, Mickiewicz, etc.): while yes, the expressions of love between male platonic friends were much tender back then ("I love you" between friends was normal), nobody else would write things such as "you can kiss me because I have already washed myself" and about rubbing one's body with Byzantine oils. Well, maybe except Słowacki. But Słowacki was almost definitely gay. Plus, worth noting that Chopin's famous (female) companion, George Sand, would literally dress in male clothing which shocked people at the time. I am aware that in older scholarship, this was often referred to as a feminist move, but I could never shake a feeling that some sort of gender non-conforming was going on (it could have been both! it was a different time!). If Chopin was somewhere on the pan/bi spectrum, this could also fit.

[@ellaisplotting]

Oh that's some fascinating context, thank you!

[@le__romantisme]

ijbol you can literally tell from słowacki's appearance he was gay

[@annafirnen4815]

If you think about it, Chopin being a music prodigy, chaoting & likely depressed Polish dude AND a bisexual on top would honestly track.

[@sundayatseven4652]

Bro Chopin's style/wording reminds me of so many love letters I've studied in archive work lmao

[@oliviab4799]

We should make ctps (condemned to perpetual sighing) a text abbreviation, it's such a mood.

[@Sophie_Cleverly]

I love this. It's so great to see important historical figures being as chaotic as the rest of us!

[@annabellerowan8180]

also Tytus named his son after Chopin, a full decade after they've last seen eachother 👀

[@acidsuzanne4049]

Przeczytałam je wszystkie i chyba najbardziej podejrzany był ten, w którym Chopin wspominał doświadczenie, które przyprawia go o wypieki. I nie mówię, że Chopin obciągnął facetowi ale... Chopin obciągnął facetowi. 💁

[@sinimeg]

I laughed so loud with this comment that I woke up my neighbors xD

[@Dahlia866]

Mógłbyś podać datę tego listu? I czy był do Tytusa czy kogoś innego? Próbuję znaleźć go na stronie instytutu Chopina, chyba że tam go nie ma

[@acidsuzanne4049]

@ Jest na pewno na stronie instytutu; nie pamiętam dokładnie który to był ale na pewno do Tytusa i prawdopodobnie, czytając chronologicznie, będzie to list z pierwszych paru lat. W wolnej chwili poszukam

[@wherefancytakesme]

As someone who's been in a queer-platonic relationship, there were a couple things in those letters even I wouldn't have written to my partner. 👀

[@kathrinat9824]

What's queer platonic?

[@wherefancytakesme]

@@kathrinat9824 It's when you're aromantic and have a relationship with someone that's beyond friendship but not full-on dating. Think of it like "platonic couple."

[@itssteph263]

The first letter reminds me of what my mom texts me when she is being passive-aggressive about me not contacting her for a week lol

[@eloisafroes]

look. he's full on signing off like "love you passionately" and we're still here like "frends maybe???" genuinely because can you IMAGINE BEING CHOPIN and writing words? if normal everyday people were dramatic in their normal everyday letter-sign-off messages back then, with their "yours truly", "sincerely yours" and such, maybe he was just being dramatic on a diva level. pride-of-the-nation diva level. thank you for textory, Karolina! i listen to it at the gym.

[@happytofu5]

I can relate to having strong non sexual love for friends and being insecure about not being loved back, but the later letters definetly are something else.

[@mon4711]

Ye, as a dramatic bi who has a deep platonic love for my friend... These has a different flair 🫢

[@eddominates]

"Oh, he's just being dramatic, he'll grow out of it" - His Mom, Probably

[@Etude2510]

I've loved Chopin's music my entire life, for no other reason than my autistic attachment to him. His music always felt personal to me, like I was feeling it or experiencing it mentally and bodily, rather than just hearing a pretty song. I have always suspected Chopin to be on the gay spectrum as well, just based purely on my feelings and intuition and overthinking about things (I'm a gay man myself, and just felt an intuitive feeling about the connection I already made with him. Hard to explain.) Feel free to bash my perceived rambling, but I remain anecdotally convinced lol.

[@jamestolson2804]

Thanks! Happy Poland Independence Day

Thank you! 🇵🇱

[@jcasillas78]

This was great! I had no idea Chopin's correspondence was so entertaining!

[@Lunareon]

The way he writes with great passion, but in a vague enough way that could be interpreted in many ways, is very telling, I think. There is always the risk of an outsider reading the letter, and it would have been incriminating evidence back then. The art of saying everything without revealing anything.

[@jcasillas78]

So does this mean Chopin was a manic pixie dreamboy?

[@jinny82]

Me * opens video witout reading the title* Conservatoire graduate me * sees the title and starts fangirling*

[@kitkat108]

What I'm learning from this video is that apparently I'm really insecure, because I do in fact think about weather or not my friends actually like me fairly often 🤣

[@happytofu5]

Same 🫠

[@OmaOmanyte]

In the words of that one dog meme, those letters were definitely......a bit fruity.

[@silent_day]

WOW, what a tumultuous friendship

[@michelles9897]

love your channel. I am 50% polish through my mother's side. thanks for your work.

[@borealmarinda4337]

If only I had a someone who writes to me like Chopin wrote Tytus.

[@gelenamurena]

I love reading Kafka's letters to his best friend Max Brod. Franz also is very humorous (esp for a guy who wrote Process and Metamorphosis) and playful in his letters.

[@WerewolfStyleGuide]

This was so informative and interesting! Also listening to you read these was very calming!

[@zainab58]

Crystal ball says “crossbow” was an 1830s Polish slang term for ... well, *something*. Some body part, or some action.

[@Sara-rb2dg]

Pierwszy raz o tym słyszę, bardzo ciekawy odcinek!

[@Artur_M.]

About what Sejm was and how was it still around during the Partitions (23:43). The old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) was completely obliterated in 1795, but it wasn't a complete end of Polish statehood until the full independence in 1918. After the whole gigantic Napoleonic mess (during which the Duchy of Warsaw popped up) the Kingdom of Poland was established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 (hence known as the Congress Kingdom, or "Kongresówka" in Polish). On paper, it had all freedoms, the Sejm, its own army and a supper liberal (for the time) constitution. It just happened to be in union with the authoritarian Russian Empire (with the tsar being simultaneously the "king of Poland"). And it was a punny small state, with much of the old Polish territories outside of its borders, including Kraków - the old capital and Karolina's home city (which was a city-state at the time, but that's another story). So, you can imagine there were problems and tensions, leading to the November Uprising of 1830. There's an excellent video about this topic on the Sir Manatee channel. I recommend checking it out to better understand the reality in which Chopin grew up (and was writing these letters).

[@faireduchemin]

Tytus just keeps him hanging on.

[@acidsuzanne4049]

It made me super furious when I first read the letters, because I learned about them from english comments under some pin on freaking Pinterest and I went to music school!! We spent HOURS on hours, reading about Chopin's life! They actually BELIEVED he was happy with his women. TRIggerS me EVERY TIME

[@wwadisanda]

I left a mildly popular comment on Pinterest about chopins letters

[@fikanera838]

Thankyou so much for this episode. I have studied a lot of Chopin, & it's always good to focus on the upbringing of significant people. It's so much more eye-opening than rehashing the famous parts of their lives. Greetings from Czechia.

[@philurbaniak1811]

👍👍 very gay undertones, great report!

[@oxanathijssen]

Thank you for this episode, as a classical musician I'm always fond of these things. As I see it, a lot of things happened in the early Romantic era musically. Paris and Vienna especially had something very mysterious and sentimental for my feeling, shows very well in the music. I'm quite sure his relationships heavily influenced his music, as it is written purely from the heart. In Germany, things were written more traditionally and with both feet on the ground. I think it was his German contemporary Felix Mendelssohn who met Chopin one day and mentioned that he was "too much with his head in the spheres of Paris, so sentimental...". A lot of people think Chopin is 100% French, whenever I play something my Chopin in my concerts I remind people of the fact that he was born and raised in Poland. 🇵🇱

[@AemiliaJacobus]

I've honestly considered doing a deep dive on Fryc and his sexuality since it's a hot topic in pop musicology and, to a lesser extent, academia. I remember reading about how he'd like to kiss his male friend Tytus, but wasn't evidence of a homosexual relationship (they're just bros, promise). There's also a slightly infamous case back in the 40s when a Polish woman claimed to own sexually explicit correspondences between Fryc and a friend called Delfina Potocka, but the "originals" were never produced by the woman, Paulina Czernicka, and those letters are almost certainly forgeries. Czernicka later committed suicide. I just wish I had the resources to create a video about it!

[@annajelinkova9581]

Dobré video, Karolina 😁 nevěděla jsem to o něm 👀

[@fikanera838]

Vy jste Češka? Pozdrav z Brně.

[@annajelinkova9581]

@@fikanera838 jo :D Pozdrav z městečka na vysočině :D

[@fikanera838]

@@annajelinkova9581 Krasné!

[@sarahwatts7152]

This feels a lot like Emily Dickinson's letters - vague but telling

[@lithia4483]

30:56 oh they knew, you'd have to be very naive or terrible at reading to not realize. They're liarsss

[@obliviouscandybar]

Karolina, this was such a fun one to hear with all your commentary. Thank you, I needed this today!

[@juliagarapich3831]

niceeee o Chopinie!

[@loveinfinity8884]

😂

[@briannaesslinger8628]

I'm listening on 11 November, so Happy Independence Day, Karolina!! ❤

[@prometheustv6558]

Same day as Armistice Day

[@bety6009]

Omg wow such a good episode! I really like Chopin's work, but I haven't known about this at all!! It's so lovely and sometimes also relatable af 😄😄 such a diva. 💅

[@MyrnaBarton]

All this makes me think of someone I care about. I don't know if I'll see her again but at least she looked happy. I told her I thought about her a lot so I don't know if I gave anything away!

[@sutraroongkrajarng6895]

Meme mom doing a Chopin episode, what a crossover

[@le__romantisme]

he is so real

[@faireduchemin]

Upon reviewing Chopin's latest piece: "it's OK, but it needs more bass." ~a semi-important person for the time and place.

[@frankharr9466]

I don't know how he was thinking, but I wish She would write to me like that.

[@antoniobroccoliporto4774]

George's Sands loved to dress in Men's clothing...hmmm

[@terev.]

Something not straight was going on I think

[@madnessqueen]

Oooh, the sass! 💃

[@lisavandenhoven5672]

Hey, hello, I hope you see this! I would love it if you watched and gave your take on the new movie, A Real Pain. No, sorry, no historical clothing, but it is set in Poland and is about a Holocaust tour. I just would love to hear about it from someone Polish!

[@johnnzboy]

Lots of 'this is pure speculation' in there ;) I like your musing about whether writings from the Romantic era depict genuine large emotions or an exaggeration of normal emotions - it's tempting to interpret these melodramatic and sentimental writings according to our modern sensibilities but to quote LP Hartley, "the past is another country, they do things differently there." I feel that it wasn't just a binary of Platonic vs erotic between well-bred young males back then, I think there were also romantic friendships that involved strong feelings (we all know how overblown one's feelings are in one's youth) and no doubt these sometimes spilled into erotic exploration but these connections generally cooled off once the young men had access to marriageable women - after all, no respectable family would allow a 20-year-old male of uncertain prospects to hang around their daughters. Having said all of this, these letters contain some pretty suggestive passages... ;) Great video!

[@juliastrzyga2274]

That made me somewhat sad. I've never knew of this side of him and that podcast was fascinating! :)

[@freyjathecat549]

"You are my life. I dream of you every night. I care about you most and want to spend all my time with you. I love you" Historians: Clearly he was deeply in love with this woman... wait nvm it was written to a man, clearly they were great friends!

[@_Rohan]

When I heard about Chopin in the context of the love quadrangle involving Liszt in Vienna, I thought Chopin was a shy introvert. 😳

[@LS-um3zq]

I don't think he was just messing with his friend with these letters. I mean, every time? That would be tiresome if it was just a friendship, but as a flirtation or love affair, very on point.

[@Amira_Phoenix]

You mean: *_diminutive_* version of the name...

[@icyboi13]

As a gay living thru the post 2024 election… this made me laugh, & I find it hard to laugh lately 💜

[@mollywhingo5186]

It's my cats birthday as well so I'll never forget Polish independence day! Also, as an (admitedly undereducated American), I actually thought Chopin was french 😅I will ceritainly be pronouning it differently from now on (like I always thought it should!) Thanks so much for bringing some queer histotry to the platform🏹

[@Ksencynt]

Actually, Chopin's surname can be read in two ways. In Polish, it’s pronounced as "Szopen" (Karolina pronounced it this way in the video), and for example, Chopin's teacher wrote it this way in school documents. However, "Chopin" is a French surname due to his French father, so it can also be pronounced in the French way.

[@valeriyav2149]

the dude just wanted to make out with his besite who's also "his life and his soul" 😔

[@SingBlueSilver-m7t]

Oh, they were in LOVE love. ❤

[@tishie42]

Sounds like someone had a male muse. 😊

[@darthbee18]

Meemaw doesn't lie when she said Chopin is a _sassy_ writer! 😆 The first one I think can still be thought as just friendly, but his letters to Tytus? Well there sure is _something_ going there 👀👀. IMO it's possible that Chopin and Wojciechowski remained only close friends, even if their relationship were _truly queer_ by today's queerness standards (as in, not wholly lovers but very close friends, with tinges of romance?? Sorry if I don't make sense 😅). Being just close friends shouldn't have erased the queerness that may have been there, but that makes it super easy to miss, especially for the uninitiated 😅🙈 (Also I didn't know that bit of Chopin fighting in the November uprising, now that makes him being the first cousin of Wlodzimierz Krzyzanowski (who later fought in American Civil War, on the Union's side) more sense somehow 🙈) Didn't know that Poland's Independence Day is in November, and right on Armistice day too! (I mean yeah, no wonder 😅😆🙈). Happy Polish month to Meemaw and other Polish people here! Cheeriest greetings from Indonesia (lol)

[@imcnagpc2]

What about George Sand?

[@yellowflowerorangeflower5706]

cool

[@elatbg6445]

❤❤❤

[@gillian2325]

a "medical" things... huh

[@lloydbradshaw6485]

Happy Polish independence day most beautiful and intelligent lady I have ever seen ❤️

[@snehapradhan5591]

❤

[@magorzatasanchez736]

Więc te listy były pisane po angielsku?? Wolałabym usłyszeć je w języku ojczystym. Pozdrawiam i dziękuję 🦜

[@artpai7665]

Karolina od zawsze robi filmy dla anglojęzycznych odbiorców. Możesz sama je przeczytać PO POLSKU, jeśli tak bardzo chcesz

[@Heothbremel]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@faireduchemin]

🎹🎩👢💅

[@TakTylkoJa]

I my eyes this is all about lack of toxic masculinity back then. Is is not weird to speak like that to female friend so why would it be weird to do it like that? I'm not saying he wasn't interested in men in general, only that if he was passionate with his male friends like l am with my female friends, does it make me gay? I don't think so 😂

[@carolesmall-diop2333]

Actually, I have always loved Chopin and was fully prepared to discover he was gay. But as an older person who has studied literature (I did a Masters) and read a lot of 19th-century literature, to me the rhetoric about having a friend in one's heart and kisses between men, and talking about loving a friend desperately seems to be pretty much par for the course. To me, it all sounds very much like the period, be it English, French or German authors. I am sadly unfamiliar with Polish literature.

[@littlecr3atur3]

❤🧡💛💚💙💜

[@abitofpaprika]

Crazy how dating back then and dating today are similar still. Men today are on the fence between friendship and romance all the time. Chopin sounded confused and intrigued, just how it is now 😂😂

[@kattheracoon]

It's a common knowledge he was gay. Mickiewicz was his lover

[@Jhud69]

Are you serious? Bullshit. Mickiewicz was loyal to Słowacki!

[@kattheracoon]

Polyamorous kings 😌

[@RagDollCookie]

I dunno, sounds pretty gay to me

[@heffe_]

The thing is - sure those letters sound like it but we can never be sure unless a definitive proof is found. There is plenty of evidence that he was into women but we cannot assume he was gay based on ambiguous letters. And even if he was (I'm not saying he wasn't) - what of it? He was one of the best musicians to ever exist and his sexuality should stay his own concern if he did not wish to explicitly share it.

[@hello_there_bees]

I understand this sentiment, but after all, history mostly consists of putting one's nose into dead people's personal lives anyway. His sexuality really doesn't matter in regard to his work, which is not affected by it, as you have said, but it can be good to explore these kinds of topics. It can be very important to queer people to see ourselves in history and its people - obviously we usually cannot tell for certain, but I'd say that doesn't matter as much as the exploration of the topic. Opening up these conversations can be very beneficial, if simply because they shut down the insinuation that queerness is a strictly modern thing:)

[@andromeda_lw]

First of all, bi people exist. Second of all, it's not "what of it" in the context of Poland. Poland is the most homophobic country in the EU. It has extreme anti-lgbt laws (like if you're a same-sex couple from let's say France and come to Poland with your kid, Poland CANNOT legally recognize you as a parent of this child if it's yours by marriage and not genetics). What largely fuels this state of things is the right-wing movement pushing towards "traditional polish values", big time patriotism and strongly promoting famous Polish people of past generations. While trying to promote these figures they morph them into their own - largely false - molds, like with Maria Konopnicka, who they named a year in Poland after, who spend her whole life in a relationship with a women, which was completely erased from any of the "promotional" actions. There is a huge rhetoric I meet with daily, that you CANNOT be Polish/love Poland/be a patriot and be queer. If you're queer you're anti-Poland, you're an enemy of the nation. A lot of queer polish people feel completely rejected from spaces that celebrate their own heiritage. In this context Chopin's sexuality is not redundant.

[@neptunviro]

You seem really affected by the possibility of Chopin being gay

[@Jhud69]

His life partner was a crossdresser, so… Also bisexuality has always existed/back in the day you were pretty much expected to mingle with the opposite sex so you had almost no choice.

[@hello_there_bees]

@@Jhud69 Yes. People always like to bring up relationships historical figures have had with their 'opposite' sex as though this is somehow proof against queerness lmao

[@FreedomLovingLoyalist]

No he wasn't.

[@ździeb_ko]

Oh, you guys must have been good friends if you are sooo sure.

[@FreedomLovingLoyalist]

@@ździeb_ko Yes.