Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski

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Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski

Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski (born May 27, 1876 in Ludza (Polish: Lucyn, German: Ludsen) in Latgale , today's Latvia ; † January 3, 1945 in Grodzisk Mazowiecki in Masovia , Poland ) was a Polish writer and explorer.

Life

Youth, academic years and first trips

Ossendowski was born on his family mansion in what was then Vitebsk Governorate of the Russian Empire . He received his high school education in Kamieniec Podolski . Since his father, who was a doctor, went to St. Petersburg , he graduated from a Russian-speaking school there. He then entered the mathematics and science faculty of the University of St. Petersburg, where he studied chemistry . As a university assistant, he traveled to remote areas of the Russian Empire such as Siberia , the Altai and the Caucasus .

Later in the summer, Ossendowski hired himself several times as a ship clerk on the Russian shipping line from Odessa to Vladivostok . These trips gave him the opportunity to visit much of Asia, including Japan , what is now Indonesia, including Sumatra , China, and Malayas .

These trips brought him his first income as a writer, for example for describing his trip to Crimea and Constantinople . For his report on a trip to India under the title Chmura nad Gangesem (German: Clouds over the Ganges ), he received the Literature Prize of the Petersburg Society .

After being forced to leave Russia as a participant in a student protest in St. Petersburg, Ossendowski continued his studies at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1899 . Professors there were among others Marie Curie-Skłodowska and Marcelin Berthelot . In 1901 he was able to return to Russia, where his former professor Aleksander Zalewski invited him to the newly founded Institute of Technology at the University of Tomsk to give lectures in chemistry and physics. At the same time he taught at the Academy of Agriculture and published a number of scientific papers on the subjects of hydrology , geology , chemistry, geography and physics .

After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) Ossendowski founded the Central Technical Research Laboratory in Harbin , Manchuria . This institute was funded by Russians to help develop iron ore deposits in Manchuria. At the same time he was the chairman of the Russian Geographical Society's branch in Vladivostok . In this function he made several trips to the Far East of Russia and to Korea , Sakhalin , the Ussuri and along the Bering Strait .

From revolution to revolution

In Manchuria, Ossendowski became one of the leaders of the Polish diaspora there and published his first novel in Polish: Noc deutsch: Nacht . During the Russian Revolution in 1905 he was part of the Revolutionary Committee, which, as a left-wing organization, tried to take power in Manchuria. After the failure of this revolution in all of Russia, he organized a protest strike against the brutal repression in Congress Poland. This resulted in his arrest and a death sentence by a military tribunal for conspiracy against the Tsar . This sentence was changed to seven years in the labor camp .

In 1907 Ossendowski was dismissed. However, the discharge papers ensured that he could not get a job and leave Russia. He dedicated himself to writing and described, for example, in his novel W ludskoj pyli (German: In human dust ) his experiences in Russian prisons. This novel brought him some popularity so that he was able to return to St. Petersburg in 1908. There he worked, among other things, in the editorial offices of various magazines and newspapers in Russian and Polish as well as on the board of the gold and platinum industry association.

During the First World War , he wrote the propaganda novel Mirnyje Sawojewateli (German: Peaceful Conquerors ) under the pseudonym Mark Tschertwan, as well as numerous newspaper articles that alleged that the trading house Kunst und Albers in Vladivostok was a German espionage organization. He has also authored various books including a science fiction novel and brochures on German and Austro-Hungarian war crimes.

After the outbreak of the February Revolution in 1917 , Ossendowski withdrew to Siberia in the city of Omsk , where he lectured at the university. After the October Revolution and the outbreak of civil war in Russia, he approached the government of Commander-in-Chief Admiral Kolchak , which was fighting the Bolshevik side. He took on various tasks, including as a reconnaissance officer, posted to the American expeditionary force in Siberia and adviser to the 5th Polish Rifle Division under Major Walerian Czuma . In 1918 he was also responsible for handing over the Sisson documents , which he had forged himself, to the Entente powers . These were supposed to prove the support of the Imperial German government for Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Escape from Siberia

After Kolchak's defeat in 1920, Ossendowski joined a group of Poles and "white Russians" who tried to get to India from Siberia, which was now ruled by the Bolsheviks, via Mongolia , China and Tibet . In the Chinese-controlled part of Mongolia they encountered the effects of the coup by Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg . This saw himself as a reincarnation of the Mongolian god of war, Kantschendzönga . His successes as a warlord quickly increased the number of his troops. Ossendowski became the commander of a unit and for a short time the political advisor and head of the baron's secret service. Little is known about this period. At the end of 1920 Ossendowski was sent on a diplomatic mission to Japan and the USA , from where he did not return.

Writers and politicians

Towards the end of 1921, Ossendowski published his experiences in his first English-language book: Beasts, Men and Gods , which was a success and had a circulation of 50,000 copies in Germany as early as 1924 with the title: Animals, People and Gods . A major controversy developed on the question of the authenticity of Ossendowski's experiences, in which Sven Hedin , who accused Ossendowski of plagiarism, also got involved. Ossendowski and his Frankfurt publisher rejected these allegations.

Ossendowski returned to Poland via New York and gave lectures at various institutions in Warsaw . He developed into an advisor to the Polish government and a "Sovietologist". At the same time he traveled through different parts of the globe and published travel reports on his return, which were also translated into other languages. The next great success was his book on Lenin . The book criticized the methods of politics in Soviet Russia and the communist leaders.

Second World War

During the Second World War he converted to Catholicism, joined the Polish resistance and left Warsaw after the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. He died on January 3, 1945 in Żółwin.

Afterlife

On January 18, 1945, Soviet troops occupied the village. NKVD officials later exhumed Ossendowski's body in order to identify it. He was wanted because he was accused of anti-Soviet agitation as the author of the book on Lenin.

In post-war Poland, Ossendowski's books were outlawed and removed from public libraries. It was not until 1989 that his books were published again in Poland. Since 2004 he has been honored with a grave in the cemetery in the garden city of Milanówek .

Awards

• Golden Laurel of the Polish Academy of Literature

Works

• Zwierzęta, ludzie, bogowie . Warsaw 1923, Posen 1927. New edition Wydawnictwo Łuk, Byałystok 1991, ISBN 83-8518304-3 .
  • Animals, humans and gods. Translated by Wolf von Dewall. Frankfurter Societäts-Druckerei, Frankfurt am Main 1923. (List reprinted, Munich 1955)
• In the jungles of people and forests. Wolf von Dewall (Ed.). Frankfurter Societätsdruckerei, Frankfurt am Main 1924.
• Shadow of the dark east. Translated from Polish by Ada Propper. Eurasia Verlags-Ges., Vienna 1924.
• Cud bogini Kwan-Non : z życia Japonij . Poznań 1924.
• Japanese stories. Translated from Polish and edited by Ada Propper. Eurasia, Vienna, Leipzig 1924.
• Zbuntowane i zwycięzone , Warsaw 1925.
• In the Siberian penitentiary. Wolf von Dewall (Ed.), Frankfurter Societätsdruckerei, Frankfurt am Main 1925.
• The lioness: a Moroccan novel. translated by Carl Hans Pollog. C. Reissner, Leipzig 1927.
• Shadows from the new Russia. Translated from the English by Helene Klepetar. Phaidon, Vienna 1928.
• Slaves of the Sun: A Piece of Moral History of the Russian People. translated by Ada Propper. Eurasia Verlagsgesellschaft, Vienna 1928.
• Pięć minut pólnocy . Wydawnictwo Polskie R. Wegnera, Poznań 1928.
• Under the glow of the desert: across Algeria and Tunis. Translated from the English by Ernst Otto Marbach. Franke , Berlin 1929.
• Flaming Africa: Across Morocco. Translated from the English by Carl Hans Pollog. Franke, Berlin 1929.
• Behind China's wall. Novel. Translated by Ernst Otto Marbach. C. Reissner, Dresden 1929.
• Lenin. A biographical novel. Seven rods, Berlin 1930.
• Diary of a chimpanzee. With pictures by CO Petersen. Phaidon, Vienna 1930.
• Puszcze Polskie . Wydawnictwo Polskie R. Wegnera, Poznań 1936.
• W krainie niedźwiedzi. Warsaw 1932.
  • German: In the land of the bears. With drawings by Ottomar Starke . Stuffer, Baden-Baden 1946.

literature

• Sven Anders Hedin : Ossendowski and the truth. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1925.
• About Ferdinand Ossendowski: Ferdinand-Antoni Ossendowski. On authenticity, examiners and witnesses, afterword. Frankfurter Societätsdruckerei, Frankfurt 1925.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Lothar Deeg : Art & Albers Vladivostok. the story of a German trading company in the Russian Far East 1864–1924. P. 243 f.
2. ^ Thomas Neuhaus: Tibet in the Western Imagination. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2012, ISBN 978-1-137-26482-4 , p. 126 ff.
3. ↑ Wolfgang Nastali : Ursein, Urlicht, Urwort: the tradition of the religious "original source" according to Joseph Schneiderfranken Bô Yin Râ. Lit, Münster 1999, ISBN 3-8258-4406-4 , p. 71, note 84; preview
4. ↑ Sven Anders Hedin : Ossendowski and the truth. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1925.
5. ^ About Ferdinand Ossendowski: Ferdinand-Antoni Ossendowski. On authenticity, examiners and witnesses, afterword. Frankfurter Societätsdruckerei, Frankfurt 1925.

Web links

Commons : Ferdynand Ossendowski  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski in the catalog of the German National Library