Michał Kuziak’s Pejzaż myśli. Warszawa Chopina i początek polskiej nowoczesności [literally: “The Thought Landscape. The Warsaw of Chopin and the early Polish modernity”] is another book in the Chopin. Contexts series. The author created an enticing narrative about the intellectual panorama of the capital of Poland, portraying the factors that defined the environment, in which the young Fryderyk Chopin grew.

“I want to make a pact with the reader, so that they could guess what they are into if they decide to read this book. It is intended to present the Warsaw of Chopin as a city of intellectual and cultural life. I consider these two dimensions melded together, as, especially early in the 19th century, they were inseparably bound with each other in so many areas. (…) Thus, the city offers a realistic topography, distinctive and distinguishing its residents, as well as a particular state of mind. The city provides a certain organisation of time, space, and relation that translates into a particular experiencing of existence. It is juxtaposed with civilisation in the social (…) institutional, and finally also technical dimensions. (…) This results in the creation of a spatial and cognitive, but also affective, whole. I present it using the aforementioned reflection map metaphor: dynamic, nuanced, questing, and not free from contradictions and tensions.”