Emotions enclosed in letters. Reflections on private correspondence addressed to Wojciech Jaruzelski in the years 1982–1989 (in the archives of the Hoover Institution)

The archives of the Hoover Institution contain a substantial portion of the legacy of General Wojciech Jaruzelski, amounting to over a hundred boxes. A significant part of this archive consists of a collection of private letters sent to the general from various parts of Poland, and from all over the world as well, during the 1980s. While demonstrating their affection and support for the addressee in various ways, or complaining about assorted problems in their lives, or seeking to obtain or request something, the senders of those letters frequently express strong emotions. This collection can be analysed on several levels. In the most obvious, fundamental way, an attempt to reconstruct the attitudes of the letter writers is worth making. Furthermore, the ‘stage directions’ accompanying the correspondence, in the form of handwritten notes, annotations or draft replies, allow us to see how Jaruzelski and his staff dealt with this correspondence and responded to the authors’ complaints, requests and emotions.