Aleksander Wat

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Aleksander Wat (actually: Chwat ) (born May 1, 1900 in Warsaw , Russian Empire ; died July 29, 1967 in Paris ) was a Polish writer and co-founder of Polish Futurism .

Life

Wat came from a long-established Jewish-Polish Warsaw family. One of his brothers was murdered in Treblinka . One of his sisters was the actress Seweryna Broniszówna . Wat studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw in 1918/1919 , a. a. with Władysław Tatarkiewicz . He soon gave up his studies in favor of his literary work. In 1919 he was one of those who helped organize the first futuristic appearance in Poland. From 1921 to 1922 he was editor of the Nowa Kultura magazine , from 1924 to 1925 of the Nowej Sztuki almanac and from 1929 to 1931 of the Miesięcznik Literacki . From the late 1920s he began to sympathize with communism , also under the influence of his friend Vladimir Mayakovsky . When the German troops invaded Poland in 1939, he fled to Soviet-occupied Lemberg , where he initially took part in cultural life. In 1940, however, he was denounced, arrested by the NKVD, and in 1941 the entire family was deported to Kazakhstan . In 1946 he was able to return to Poland, where he stayed, even though he had broken away from communism. In 1948 he suffered a stroke, which he survived, but as a result suffered from severe nerve pain until the end of his life. After the thaw , Wat returned to public life and in 1957 received the Nowa Kultura award for his poetry . In 1959 he went with his family to the West and had lived in France since 1961, where he also died in 1967.

plant

Wat's early work was shaped by the spirit of futurism and surrealism , like the poem Ja z jednej strony i Ja z drugiej strony mego mopsożelaznego piecyka (I from one side and I from the other side of my pug-iron oven) from 1919. Unlike his former colleagues Anatol Stern and Bruno Jasieński , however, he continued to develop in terms of content and form, more closely related to his friend Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz . His only volume of short stories, Bezrobotny Lucyfer (The Unemployed Lucifer), from 1927 alluded to the deep spiritual crisis of western civilization. His poems, on the other hand, show the inner struggle between Judaism, atheism and Catholicism, which fascinated him more and more at the end of his life , up to the volume Ciemne Świecidło (Dark Light ), which appeared posthumously in 1968 .

His most important work, however, are undoubtedly his memories of the years 1926 to 1945 - especially the years in Soviet prisons - which Czesław Miłosz had with him in the 1960s in the form of conversations recorded on tape and later given for printing led. These memoirs, which were published under the title Mój Wiek , recall the somewhat earlier autobiographical report (World Without Mercy) by Gustaw Herling-Grudziński in their precise description of everyday Soviet life .

Wat also worked as a translator of English, French, German and Russian-language literature. He was married to Paulina, called Ola, (1904–1991), whose memoirs are also available in German. The two had a son, Andrzej.

Publications

  • Ja z jednej strony i Ja z drugiej strony mego mopsożelaznego piecyka (1920)
  • Gga. Pierwszy polski almanach poezji futurystycznej (together with Anatol Stern, 1920)
  • Bezrobotny Lucyfer (1927)
  • Wiersze (1957) (German: What does the night say? Selected poems . Bad Honnef 1991. ISBN 3-926589-11-6 )
  • Ciemne świecidło (posthumously, 1968)
  • Kobiety z Monte Olivetto (posthumous, 2000)
  • Mój wiek. Pamiętnik mówiony (German: Beyond truth and lies: my century. Frankfurt / Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 2000. (= Polish Library Vol. 50) ISBN 3-518-41189-6 )

literature

  • Matthias Freise, Andreas Lawaty (eds.): Aleksander Wat and “his” century (= publications of the German Poland Institute Darmstadt . Vol. 15). Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2002. ISBN 3-447-04478-0 .
  • Gérard Conio: Aleksander Wat et le diable dans l'histoire . Lausanne 1989.
  • Tomas Venclova : Aleksander Wat - life and art of an iconoclast . Yale University Press, New Haven 1996, ISBN 0-300-06406-3 .
  • Ola Wat: Wszystko co najważniejsze. London 1984 (German: The second shadow . New criticism publisher, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-8015-0237-6 ). Filmed in 1992 by Robert Gliński

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wat, Aleksander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chwat, Aleksander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish writer and co-founder of Polish futurism
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 1967
Place of death Paris