Zygmunt Mycielski wrote diaries throughout his life, but it was only after the war that he wrote them thinking that they might be published one day. He gave some fragments to friends to read, depositing the various notebooks with people he trusted, afraid that the communist government might confiscate them. They were published in four volumes after the composer’s death. Critics believe that Zygmunt Mycielski’s diaries are among the most important diary documents of the twentieth century. 

Dziennik 1950-1959 [Diary 1950-1959] was prepared for publication in its entirety by the composer’s niece, Zofia Mycielska-Golik, on the basis of surviving manuscripts. It contains entries from 10 March 1950 to 23 December 1959, with a break between 21 October 1951 and 25 March 1955, when Mycielski ceased to keep a diary after his mother’s death. The volume bears the following motto:

... when you stop believing people, it is no more worth living