Wacław Rolicz songs

Wacław Rolicz songs (bust of Konstanty Laszczka, 1898)

Wacław Koźma Damian Lieder , also: Rolicz-Lieder (born September 27, 1866 in Warsaw , Poland ; † April 25, 1912 there ), was a Polish poet and translator of German poetry in the era of Symbolism .

Life

Wacław was born in Warsaw as the son of the bank clerk Jan († 1903), who also worked as a writer in his youth, and his wife Katarzyna nee. Rola-Sadkowska († 1904). His father was the son of the German teacher Franz ( Franciszek ), who immigrated to Warsaw from Warmia , from near Rössel, today ( Reszel ) , who worked for decades as a professor and author of textbooks (including a German grammar used until 1914) worked at high schools in Warsaw. The mother came from the deposed nobility of Mazovia of the heraldic tribe Rola . The name suffix "Rolicz", which Wacław used from 1893, was the name of the noble coat of arms that was given to his father by Tsar Alexander III in that year . in connection with the elevation to the nobility of Congress Poland (the father received the Order of St. Vladimir for 30 years of civil service, which meant automatic ennoblement). The coat of arms was designed by Wacław himself and given a name derived from his mother's coat of arms.

Because of a violent conflict with a Russian teacher at his grammar school , Wacław, who spoke Polish in the school, which was forbidden, was expelled in 1883 and had to complete his grammar school education in Cracow . From 1888 to 1889 he studied law at the Cracow University and then went to Paris , with short stays in Munich and Switzerland , where he studied until 1892 at the College of Oriental Languages. As early as 1893 he created an elementary book for the Arabic language , a textbook for Polish students, and a grammar for Turkish. After that, Lieder moved to Vienna , where he continued his oriental studies. In 1894 he applied for a place at the Theresianum , but did not get it and went back to Paris, where he stayed until 1897 and studied at the École Pratique des Hautes Études and the École Libre des Sciences Politiques .

During his Paris years, Lieder got to know many important poets of the era, especially Paul Verlaine , Stéphane Mallarmé and Stefan George , who became his close friend and was to be of great importance for his development as a poet. Lieder also made friends with the Czech symbolist Julius Zeyer .

Lieder's grave in Warsaw

In 1897 Lieder returned definitively to Warsaw, worked for two years in the office of a metalworking company, then as a French teacher of commercial correspondence in courses for accountants. After the deaths of both parents, he inherited their large tenement house with 35 apartments and several shops in the center of Warsaw (demolished in 1951) and was able to live on the income without having to work. After 1898 he wrote almost nothing and only occasionally published his old poems in literary magazines. At the same time he was collecting material for his planned history of the language of Old Polish, but abandoned the plans when the essays announcing his book were poorly received by linguists. He seldom left Warsaw, only occasionally going to Bingen am Rhein , Munich and Berlin to meet Stefan George. He never married, died of heart failure in 1912 and was buried in the traditional Warsaw Powązki cemetery in the family crypt next to his parents and grandparents.

The lyric work

As a schoolboy, Rolicz-Lieder wrote poems in the style of epigonal romanticism, often of patriotic content, which had appeared in magazines since 1887 and published his first book in 1889. A year later, his poetic manifesto Z księgi lirycznej ( from the Book of poetry ). Two important Polish poets of the turn of the century , Zenon Przesmycki and Jan Kasprowicz , wrote rave reviews of Lieder's work, but the majority of the critics were bitingly negative. The sensitive poet then withdrew from the literary arena and published his volumes of poetry in ever-decreasing numbers of copies (see: Works ), all of which marked "Reproduction and criticism prohibited" and in an exquisite graphic design, like the books Georges, self- published. This meant that he remained almost completely unknown in his homeland, while his fame in Germany grew thanks to the many translations by Stefan George, which appeared in his journals for art . It was not until 1930 that it experienced a renaissance in Poland. a. through the essays by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz .

In his work, Lieder combined elements of French symbolism and the poetry of George with national Polish traditions, such as the poetry of Jan Kochanowski , but also with oriental influences. His poems were enigmatic and hermetic, the imagery required a lot of effort and concentration on the part of the reader, and he also used many old Polish expressions and forms of language that his contemporaries considered antiquated.

Czesław Miłosz (see: Literature ) says about Lieder's collaboration with Stefan George: " Lieder's poems addressed to Stefan George, as well as George's poems to Lieder, and their translations of each other constitute one of the most striking instances of Polish-German literary exchange Those close to George called Lieder "Callimachus"; the name refers to an Alexandrian poet and was used by an Italian humanist who lived in Poland in the fifteenth century - Filippo Callimachus Buonaccorsi ".

Works

• Poezje I , Cracow 1889;
• Poezje II , Cracow 1891 (only 60 copies were printed);
• Elementarz języka arabskiego ( Elementary Book of Arabic ), Kirchhain , 1893;
• Wiersze III , Cracow 1895 (only 50 copies);
• Abu Sajid Fadlullah Ben Abulhair i tegoż czterowiersze (translation from Persian), Cracow 1895;
• Moja Muza , Cracow 1896 (only 30 copies);
• Wiersze V , Cracow 1898 (only 20 copies);
• Nowe Wiersze , Cracow 1903 (collected poems, 100 copies);
• Wybór Poezji , Krakau 1962, (500 copies);
• Poezje wybrane , Warsaw 1962, (1000 copies).
• Waclaw Rolicz-Lieder, Stefan George: Poems. Letters . Stuttgart 1996.

• Translations into German: see web links.

literature

• Karl Dedecius : Documents of Friendship. Poetic about Stefan George and Waclaw Rolicz songs . In: Norbert Honsza, Hans-Gert Roloff (ed.): That one nation should understand the other. Festschrift for Marian Szyrocki on his 60th birthday . Amsterdam 1988, pp. 151-163.
• Annette Landmann: Stefan George , Waclaw Rolicz songs, poems and transmissions , Düsseldorf and Munich 1968.
• Czesław Miłosz : The History of Polish Literature , London 1969.
• Marian Pankowski : La poésie de Waclaw Rolicz-Lieder lue aujourd'hui , Brussels 1966.
• Maria Podraza-Kwiatkowska: Wacław Rolicz-Lieder , Krakau 1962.
• Stanisław Szenic: Cmentarz Powązkowski 1891-1918 , Warsaw 1983.

Web links

• Literature by and about Wacław Rolicz songs in the catalog of the German National Library .
• Poems by Wacław Rolicz songs.