Tuwim: Mamusia

Julian Tuwim was a great poet but I can’t read him. He irritates me. I have the feeling the man never grew up.

This is perhaps its most striking symbol: in his fifties he still referred to his mother as Mamusia (“Mommy”). Of course, his is an extreme case of the general refusal to grow up: though adult Poles do not usually use the word Mamusia, most say Mama, which is also a childish form of the word whose proper form is Matka. When I say Matka in Polish, to the ears of my interlocutors it sounds harsh and confrontational. The diminutive, indicative of emotional warmth and attachment, is de rigeur. I wonder why it should be. Yet, even Anglo-Saxons, famous for their rugged individualism, usually say “Mom” rather than “mother”. So in this sense most of us do not grow up; Tuwim only more so than others.