Melchior Wańkowicz
Melchior Wańkowicz (born January 10, 1892 in Kałużyce , Minskaja Woblasz , † September 10, 1974 in Warsaw ) was a Polish writer and journalist , in the Second Polish Republic , in the ranks of the 2nd Polish Corps , in post-war exile in Italy , Great Britain and the United States as well as in the People's Republic of Poland .
Life
Melchior Wańkowicz came from a noble Polish family that had lived in what is now Belarus for generations . He was the youngest son of the participant in the Polish January uprising of 1863/1864, also Melchior Wańkowicz, who was then deported to Siberia . His father died when he was two months old and his mother died three years later.
In 1903 he came to Warsaw to take classes at Chrzanowski High School. As early as 1907 he became a member of a secret Polish resistance movement. After graduating from high school in 1911, he began his studies at the law faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow , which he dropped out in 1914. During the student years he was also involved in politics.
On February 8, 1916 he married in Kiev Zofia nee Małagowska, student of history at Jagiellonian University.
From 1917 to 1918 he fought in Russia against the Bolsheviks in the ranks of General Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki's 1st Polish Corps . In 1920 he took part in the Polish-Soviet War . He began studying law at the University of Warsaw , which had broken off in 1914, and finished it in 1923, after which he was appointed head of the press department of the Ministry of the Interior.
In 1926 he left the civil service and became the owner of the "Rój" publishing company, which had been founded in 1924 and which in the following years produced the most important works of contemporary Polish literature as well as the works of John Galsworthy , Aldous Huxley , André Malraux , Thomas Mann , Marcel Proust , Erich Maria Remarque , Bertrand Russell , Upton Sinclair , Sigrid Undset , Arnold Zweig , Ilja Grigorjewitsch Ehrenburg , Boris Andrejewitsch Pilnjak and Maxim Gorki .
In addition to managing the publishing house, Wańkowicz worked as a journalist. As early as 1926 he spent three months in Mexico . His reports appeared in the Polish press and were also published in book form. In 1933 he came to the Soviet Union with a group of Polish writers . In the reports he showed an optimistic picture of the Soviet state.
One of his greatest successes was the invention of the advertising slogan “Cukier krzepi” (sugar gives starch) which earned him a considerable fee. He repeated this success in 1971 with the advertising slogan of the LOT airline “Lotem bliżej” (Closer with the flight).
In June 1935 he traveled through East Prussia in a motor vehicle and a paddle boat . Before that, he obtained an order from Hans Schwarz van Berk , the editor of “ The Attack ”, for a report A Pole experiences East Prussia about the life of the Polish minority. His 14-year-old daughter Marta accompanied him on the trip. Wańkowicz met representatives of the Polish minority there, including the poet and folk artist Michael Kajka . This resulted in the book “Na tropach Smętka” (On Smętek's Footsteps), which was published in nine editions by 1939 and brought the author a great success. Smętek was a malicious gnome from a Kashubian legend and personification of a crusader of the Teutonic Order .
The book was published in Königsberg in 1937 in German under the title In the footsteps of Smentek by Verlag des Bundes Deutscher Osten in a small edition accessible only to familiar celebrities. The German Foreign Ministry responded to the publication of the book with protests, and the author was declared an enemy of the Third Reich .
In 1937 Wańkowicz was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Polonia Restituta Order . In 1938 he visited the United States of America for three months on behalf of the daily newspaper Ilustrowany Kuryer Codzienny and the Polish Radio.
After the outbreak of World War II , Wańkowicz fled to Romania through the floods of the Dniester on the night of September 24-25, 1939 . There he met celebrities who had also fled: Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły and Foreign Minister Józef Beck . The interviews with them later resulted in the book Drogą do Urzędowa (On the way to the official city).
In 1941, thanks to the help of the British authorities, Wańkowicz came to Cyprus, where he stayed until 1942. After the capture of Crete by German troops, Wańkowicz came to Palestine , where he stayed for two years. It joined the Polish Army in the Middle East under the direction of General Władysław Anders . Through Iran , Iraq , Syria , Lebanon and Egypt , he came to Italy with the army and took part in the battle of Monte Cassino as a reporter.
In 1945 and 1946 he wrote a three-volume report on this battle in Rome . The work was first published in exile in the West, only in 1958 in Poland in a version that was severely curtailed by the censors. In 1947 Wańkowicz came to London , where he joined the community of Polish emigrants. There he continued to work as a writer. Among other things , he wrote the book "Kundlizm" (about "muttism") about the national character defects of the Poles. The word he coined has since become widely known. Wańkowicz was also heavily criticized by the emigrants for the publication of some articles in the Polish regime-loyal press (including " Przekrój " ).
In 1949 Wańkowicz came to America, where he was received by his daughter Marta and settled in Long Island . There he wrote "Targets na kraterze" (plants on the volcanic crater), a story about his own family, including his daughter Krystyna, who died in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.
Wańkowicz had been considering returning to Poland since the Polish October thaw . On June 14, 1956, he received American citizenship, but in the fall of that year he came to Poland for a couple of weeks. On May 27, 1958, he finally came to Warsaw and settled in an apartment on Puławska Street.
The irrepressible writer did not want to bow to the demands of state censorship . The stubborn First Party Secretary Władysław Gomułka didn't like the popular writer. Wańkowicz came on trial because of his contacts with Radio Free Europe . He was arrested on October 5, 1964 and held for five weeks. He was sentenced to three years in prison, but his term was reduced to 18 months due to an amnesty. The worldwide scandal forced the authorities to renounce the enforcement of the judgment and the writer remained at large, his older works appeared again in new editions. Wańkowicz even met with Gomułka, but nothing was known about the course of the meeting.
Wańkowicz's last work was “Karafka La Fontaine'a” (La Fontaine’s Carafe) - his thoughts on a writer's workshop. The first volume appeared in 1972, the second posthumously in 1981.
In 1969 his wife Zofia died, five years later Wańkowicz died of gastric cancer and was buried at Powązki Cemetery .
Works (selection)
- W kościołach Meksyku (In the churches of Mexico 1927)
- Na tropach Smętka (In Smętek's footsteps 1936)
- Monte Cassino (1945)
- Kundlizm (muttism 1947)
- Aim na kraterze (plant at the volcanic crater 1950)
- Drogą do Urzędowa (On the way to the administrative center 1955)
- Westerplatte (1959)
- Od Stołpców po Kair (1969)
- Karafka La Fontaine'a , (La Fontaine decanter 1972 and 1981)
literature
- Krzysztof Kąkolewski: Wańkowicz krzepi (Wańkowicz makes you strong): Warszawa: 1977.
- Mieczysław Kurzyna: O Wańkowiczu nie wszystko (Not everything about Wańkowicz): Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1975.
- Aleksandra Ziółkowska: Blisko Wańkowicza (Near Wańkowicz): Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1975. ISBN 83-08-01917-X .
- Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm: Proces Melchiora Wańkowicza 1964 roku (Trial of Melchior Wańkowicz 1964): Warszawa: Nowe Wydawnictwo Polskie, 1990. ISBN 83-85135-08-1 .
- Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm: Na tropach Wańkowicza po latach (In Wańkowicz's footsteps after years): Warszawa: Prószyński i S-ka, 2009. ISBN 978-83-7648-261-3 .
- Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm: Melchior Wańkowicz Poland's Master of the Written Word , Lexington Books, USA 2013. ISBN 978-0-7391-7590-3 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Melchior Wańkowicz: Szczenięce lata (puppy years): Warszawa: "Nasza Księgarnia", 1990, ISBN 8310094183
- ↑ Hanna Kister: Pegazy na Kredytowej: Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1980 ISBN 8306002571
- ↑ Nina Kraśko: instytucje wydawnicze w II Rzeczypospolitej. Warszawa: Biblioteka Narodowa, 2001, s. 178. ISBN 83-7009-281-0
- ↑ Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm: Proces Melchiora Wańkowicza 1964: Warszawa: Nowe Wydawnictwo Polskie, 1990 ISBN 8385135081
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wańkowicz, Melchior |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish journalist and writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 10, 1892 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kałużyce |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 10, 1974 |
| Place of death | Warsaw |