Marek Hłasko

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Portrait of Marek Hłasko
author Zbigniew Kresowaty
Bust of Marek Hłasko in Kielce

Marek Hłasko (born January 14, 1934 in Warsaw , † June 14, 1969 in Wiesbaden ) was a Polish writer .

Life

Hłasko's childhood was shaped by the Second World War and difficult family circumstances . His parents divorced in 1937 and his father died in 1939. The mother first spent the time of the German occupation of Warsaw with the young Marek in the capital. After the defeated Warsaw Uprising and the subsequent destruction of Warsaw in 1944, she moved with him to Częstochowa , where they stayed until 1945, then to Chorzów and in the same year to Białystok .

In 1946 they moved to Breslau , where their mother remarried in 1949. Hłasko finished secondary school and began a stage technical training in Warsaw in 1949, which he broke off after a year. In 1950 he returned to Wroclaw.

He spent the next few years doing various odd jobs. He secured his main occupation as a truck driver. In 1952 he became a workers correspondent for Trybuna Ludu , which enabled him to establish contacts with writers and publicists. In 1953 he gave up driving a truck and received a scholarship from the Polish Writers' Union , which enabled him to do literary work, having been writing consistently since his time in Częstochowa.

In 1954, Baza Sokołowska , Hłasko's debut work , appeared in the literary almanac of the newspaper "Iskra" . From 1955 onwards, numerous literary texts by him appeared in various Polish newspapers. In 1956 he published his first volume of short stories Pierwszy krok w chmurach ( The first step in the clouds ), which made him known in Poland, and in the same year his short story Ósmy dzień tygodnia ( Eng . The eighth day of the week ).

As early as 1957, The eighth day of the week was filmed in a German-Polish co-production under the title The eighth day of the week . While filming , Hłasko met the German actress Sonja Ziemann , who soon became his wife. In 1958 he received the Polish Publishers' Prize, in the same year he went on a trip to Paris for several months . In Paris he published several stories in the Polish exile publisher Instytut Literacki .

Shortly afterwards, a campaign against Hłasko was launched among the Polish public and he was discredited as a traitor to socialism . In the following years he was refused return to Poland. Because of that he never saw his home again.

He was unable to gain a foothold in the west. He received asylum in West Berlin in 1958 , and the German translation of The Eighth Day of the Week was published for the first time by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in Cologne . At that time he wrote about his relationship with the Germans: I really began to be afraid when I lived there for a while and when I saw how they lived: peacefully, comfortably and quietly.

After spending a short time in Israel , he commuted between Switzerland , Germany , France , Spain and Italy before moving to Los Angeles in 1966 , where he wanted to make a film with Roman Polański , which however could not be realized. His works, written in Polish, continued to appear in various exile publishers and have also been translated into various languages.

After divorcing Sonja Ziemann in 1969, he moved to Israel, where he had a partner and where one of his books was to be filmed. When he went to Wiesbaden that same year to meet with the film's producer, he died unexpectedly on June 14th. An overdose of sleeping pills has been identified as the cause of death. He found his final resting place in the Wiesbaden Südfriedhof .

Works (in German translation)

  • The eighth day of the week and other narratives. Translated by Vera Cerny, Hans Goerke and Maryla Reifenberg. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1958; ibid. 1990, ISBN 3-462-02053-6 .
  • Everyone had turned away . Narrative. Translated by Vera Cerny and Janusz von Pilecki. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1965.
  • The next one to paradise . Novel. Translated by Vera Cerny. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1960; ibid. 1991, ISBN 3-462-02153-2 .
  • Whip your anger . Novel. Translated by Vera Cerny. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1963.
  • Port of longing . Stories. People and World, Berlin 1979.
  • The beautiful twenty year olds . Translated by Roswitha Matwin-Buschmann . New Critique, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-8015-0346-1 .
  • Follow him through the valley . Novel. Translated by Janusz von Pilecki. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1970; Rowohlt Taschenbuch, Reinbek 1972, ISBN 3-499-11479-8 .

Film adaptations (selection)

  • 1956 - At the end of the night ( Koniec nocy ) - directed by Julian Dziedzina, Paweł Komorowski, Walentyna Uszycka
  • 1957 - The Eighth Day of the Week ( Ósmy dzień tygodnia ) - Director: Aleksander Ford
  • 1958 - The Loop ( Pętla ) - Director: Wojciech Has
  • 1958 - Baza ludzi umarłych - Director: Czesław Petelski
  • 1960 - Die Friedhöfe - Director: Rolf Hädrich
  • 1973 - The Second Murder of the Dog - Director: Peter Schulze-Rohr
  • 1987 Sonata Marymoncka Director: Jerzy Ridan
  • 1995 - Isprani - Director: Zrinko Ogresta
  • 2001 - Niebo nad fabryką - Director: Piotr Porczyński

literature

  • Claudia Wiepcke: Marek Hlasko. On the question of socialist-realistic contexts and their overcoming. Wisoco-Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-934352-03-0 .
  • Marek Zybura : Between Genet and Gombrowicz. Marek Hlasko (1934-1969) . In: Marek Zybura: lateral thinker, mediator, border crosser. Contributions to German and Polish literary and cultural history , Dresden 2007 ISBN 3-934038-87-5 .

Web links

Commons : Marek Hłasko  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ quoted from: Peter Oliver Loew : Wir Invisbaren. History of the Poles in Germany. CHBeck, Munich 2014, p. 203.
personal data
SURNAME Hłasko, Marek
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1969
Place of death Wiesbaden