Aleksander Wat

Aleksander Wat Aleksander Chwat
Portrait of Aleksander Wat before 1967
Born	1 May 1900 Warsaw
Died	29 July 1967 Antony, France

Aleksander Wat was the pen name of Aleksander Chwat (1 May 1900 – 29 July 1967), a Polish poet, writer, art theoretician, memorist, and one of the precursors of the Polish futurism movement in the early 1920s, considered to be one of the more important Polish writers of the mid 20th century. In 1959, he emigrated to France and in 1963 relocated to the United States, where he worked at the Center for Slavic and East European Studies of the University of California, Berkeley.

Aleksander Chwat was born on 1 May 1900 in Warsaw, at that time under Russian rule, into a well-established and prosperous Jewish family. His father, Bronisław, was an observant Jew whose first language was Yiddish. He allowed his children a liberal education. His family had interests in Polish literature and drama and one of his sisters, Seweryna Broniszówna (13 July 1891 – 28 June 1982), was an actress.

After a brief service with the Polish Army he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the Warsaw University, where he studied philosophy, psychology and logic. In 1919 he was among the young poets to proclaim the advent of new, futuristic poetry. The following year he published his first collection of poems titled JA z jednej strony i Ja z drugiej strony mopsożelaznego piecyka (Pug Iron Stove; literally: I at Either Side of the Pug Iron Stove), which gained much popularity among the supporters of the new trends in literature of the epoch. In 1927 he followed up with a volume of short stories, Lucifer unemployed (Bezrobotny Lucyfer in Polish). Until 1922 he was one of the creators of the influential monthly magazine Nowa Sztuka (New Art; appeared 1921-22), followed by Almanachy Nowej Sztuki (New Art Almanach) and "the increasingly rabid Communist periodical"Miesięcznik literacki (The Literary Monthly). He contributed in the dissemination of the work of Vladimir Mayakovsky and of Futurism in general across Poland, before becoming a supporter of communism.