LOndon -MAZE of streetWe ran into a maze of streets, squares, houses and gardens. The city was drowning in the fog London in eyes of Polish writers
Of course, I choose randomly, two Polish authors, Henryk Sienkiewicz and Władysław Reymont. Ok, they are not so randomly chosen. They are two Polish Nobel Prize Winners for Literature (Sienkiewicz, known at least for his novel Quo Vadis, won his Nobel Prize in 1905 and Reymont, completely unknown, was a winner in 1924). Both of them visited London and left their impression about the city. Władysław Stanisław Reymont’s The Travelling Notes (Notatki podróżne) are the notes from the writer’s journey in 1894. When he describes arriving to London he writes We ran into a maze of streets, squares, houses and gardens. The city was drowning in the fog. The smoke obscured the horizon but Thames flickered with a winding lane when we were passing through it and thousands towers and summits loomed (Notatki pordóżne, page 390) Sienkiewicz visited London earlier, in 1876, on the way to America and what he writes about is: fast trains, poverty and imperial lushness. Literary Trails Ok, let’s come back to London and its Polish literary trails… In the most recent post-WWII history London was one of the most important centres for Poland - from 1941 it was home of Polish government -in-exile and one of the main accumulation of emigration (next to Paris) . For decades Polish literature is split into home production (under the censorship of communist regime) and “free” one, émigré literature, created and published abroad, banned in Poland. In London , there were a dozen large and prosperous Polish publications (including Polish Writers Association, Polish Literary Society, “Veritas “,Krystyna and Czeslaw Bednarczyks Poet’s and Painter’s Publishing House (Oficyna Poetów i Malarzy), Publishing House by Stanisław Gliwa, Polish Cultural Foundation "Polonia" ), from which between 1947 and 1989 in the British capital few hundreds of newspapers appeared in London . It appeared there “Wiadomości”- weekly founded by Mieczyslaw Grydzewski (before the war, headed the most famous literary magazine Wiadmości Literackie). Lodnon was a heart of many most important émigré journals: “Dziennik Polski” sine 1940, veterans magazine “Orzeł Biały”, “Myśl Narodowa”, monthly “Kontynenty – Nowy Merkuriusz”. In those magazines all the poets and writers were publslishin and they gather in Związku Pisarzy Polskich na Obczyźnie. Kazimierz Wierzyński Kazimierz Wierzyński is an example of an emigrant who settled in London. Skamandryta – a member of a famours poetic group from the early 1920s, Skamander. When the war broke out, he was evacuated along with the editorial team of "Gazeta Polska” from Lviv , he went to France, Portugal and Brazil, and then to the USA , where for more than 20 years lived in Sag Harbor - a small fishing village on the north coast island Long Island. In subsequent years, he lived in Rome and in London, where he worked with "Wiadomości", edited by Grydzewski, published in the London publishing houses, worked with Radio Free Europe. See his profile at Culture.pl Polish bibliography: Ewa Paczoska, Stolica „świata zwyrodniałego”. Londyn w literaturze angielskiej i polskiej początków XX wieku (z rzutem oka na następne stulecie), in: Prawdziwy koniec XIX wieku, Warszawa 2010. |
PEOPLE AND SIGHTS OF POLISH LITERARY EMIGRATION IN LONDON
TYMON TERLECKI O GRYDZEWSKIM SHORT BIO IN ENGLISH GRYDZEWSKI IN EYES OF POLISH SECURITY SERVICES
|
|