Prominent Poles
Tadeusz Rozewicz, poet, playwright
Born: October 9, 1921, Radomsko, Poland
Early days. Father Wladyslaw, a court employee, mother- Stefania Maria nee Gelbard. .
Comment. Rozewicz is considered one of Poland's best post-war poets and most innovative playwrights.
Education. He went to a Fabiani�s �gimnazjum� (High school) in Radomsko where he got �mala matura� (intermediate final exam). Together with his older brother Janusz, Tadeusz he passionately read contemporary literary works and started writing first poems. His attempts to get admitted to �liceum� (senior high) were interrupted by WWII.
WWII From 1939 Rozewicz worked first as a page in Radomsko�s �Kreishauptmannschaft�, then as employee in the town hall and finally as a joiner�s apprentice. In 1942 his brother Janusz initiated him to the Home Army (Armia Krajowa). There he trained for 6 months, to be transferred in 1943 to forest units. He was in charge of the underground publication "Czyn Zbrojny". In 1944 he has published with his brother "Echa lesne". His brother was executed by the Gestapo in 1944. In 1945 Tadeusz met Julian Przybos who brought him to Cracow. He got there �matura� (high school final exam) and started studies of art history which he didn�t finish.
Neo avant-garde of Cracow. Rozewicz joined this group and in 1947 and 1948 his collections "Niepok�j" (considered by some to be his literary debut) and "Czerwona rekawiczka" influenced the contemporaries, among others: Leopold Staff and Czeslaw Milosz. Rozewicz�es early post-WWII poems are considered to be expressionistic and catastrophic bordering on nihilism. This caused criticism from communist writers.
1950-1967 In 1950 Rozewicz was allowed to go to Budapest, Hungary. There he became fascinated by common people. After returning to Poland he settled in Gliwice cutting links to hostile literary groups. He lived in extreme poverty. R�żewicz found himself a niche in postmodernism. His revolutionary invention was �Smietnik� (Dump) . He was also interested in pop-art. It seems that Rozewicz was inspired by Gombrowicz�es sketch "Przeciw poetom" (Against the poets). In 1962 his mentor, Julian Przybos, unexpextedly turned against his style in "Oda do turpist�w." In 1967 Przybos attacked Rozewicz and organized a campaign against him.
The theater of the absurd. After the death of Stalin in 1952 and after the events of 1956 the critics noticed in Rozewicz�es poems a tendency to emancipation. At that time he was fascinated by Parisian avant-garde (Beckett, Ionesco). Around this time he wrote �Kartoteka� who was the first example of the theater of the absurd in Polish literature. He has written over fifteen plays Some of his best known plays include: The Card Index, The Interrupted Act, Birth Rate, The Hunger Artist Departs, and White Marriage. Some works have been translated into German by Ilka Boll. His vision of life of the partisans i (Do piachu) raised voices of protest from the side of the combatants..
Present. Since 1968 Rozewicz lives in Wroclaw. He published volumes "Druga strona medalu" and "Kup kota w worku�. In the late 70ies and early 80ies Rozewicz was a serious candidate for Nobel Prize that went however to Milosz.
Awards, distinctions.
1948 Medal of the Polish Army;1974 Cross of the Home Army (London); 1997 Prize of the Polish PEN Club; 1991 � d.sc. (doctorate honoris causa) University of Wroclaw; 1991 Honorary citizenship of Radomsko ; 1999 d.sc. University of Silesia; 1999 laureate of Reymont�s Literary Prize; 2000 d.sc. University of Opole; 2000 d.sc. of Jagiellonian University; 2000 Nike�s Prize for the volume �Matka odchodzi� ; 2001 d.sc. University of Warsaw; 2004 � Prize "Zlota Kula"; 2006 d.sc. University of Gdansk; Prize of the Golden Mace; 2007 d.sc. of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw; 2008 European Literary Prize in Strassbourg (France) for the volume �Nauka chodzenia� ; 2008 Silesius Prize for Central and Eastern European poetry ; 2009 d.sc. University of Kielce
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Tdeusz Rozewicz" (in Polish) licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. :
Wikipedia (in Polish)- extensive bibliography
supplemented by information from other sources:
Article in cilture.pl (in Polish) with extensive bibliography
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