Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz

Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz
Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz
Born	(1894-02-20)20 February 1894 Kalnik, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire (now Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine)
Died	2 March 1980(1980-03-02) (aged 86) Warsaw, Poland
Pen name	Eleuter
Occupation	writer
Nationality	Polish

Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, also known under his literary pseudonym Eleuter (20 February 1894 – 2 March 1980), was a Polish poet, essayist, dramatist and writer. He is mostly recognized for his literary achievements in poetry before World War II, but also criticized as a long-term political opportunist in communist Poland, actively participating in the slander of Czesław Miłosz and other expatriates. He was removed from school textbooks soon after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc.

Iwaszkiewicz was born in Kalnik in Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine). After the death of his father (an accountant), he and his mother lived in Warsaw in 1902–04, and then moved back to Kiev Governorate in 1904–12. He graduated from a secondary school in Kiev in 1912 and enrolled at the Law Faculty of Kiev University. In 1914 he travelled in Sicily and North Africa with his friend and distant cousin, the composer Karol Szymanowski, for whose opera King Roger he later provided the libretto. After World War I, in October 1918 he returned to Warsaw. There, he joined a group of local artists who had started Pro Arte et Studio arts magazine. Iwaszkiewicz with Julian Tuwim and Antoni Słonimski co-founded the Skamander group of experimental poets in 1919.

In 1922 he married Anna Lilpop (1897-1979), a daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur, and the couple settled in Podkowa Leśna in the suburb of Warsaw. In 1928 they moved to a newly built house that Iwaszkiewicz named Stawisko. Maciej Rataj, the Speaker of the Lower Chamber of the Polish Parliament (Sejm) appointed him to be his secretary. Iwaszkiewicz worked for a magazine called "Wiadomości Literackie" and also published his works in numerous periodicals like "Gazeta Polska" (1934–1938) and "Ateneum" (1938–1939). Later he was a secretary to the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts (Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych), and a member of the Polish PEN Club. The Foreign Ministry first appointed him the head of the art promotion section and later sent him as a secretary to Copenhagen (1932-1925) and Brussels (1935–1936). He was a member of Związek Zawodowy Literatów Polskich (ZZLP, The Trade Union of Polish Writers) and in 1939 voted its vice-president.