Jerzy Szaniawski
| Jerzy Szaniawski | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
10 February 1886 Zegrzynek, Vistula Land, Russian Empire |
| Died | 16 March 1970 (aged 84) Warsaw, People's Republic of Poland |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Notable works | Dwa teatry (Two Theatres) |
Jerzy Szaniawski (Zegrzynek, 10 February 1886 – 16 March 1970, Warsaw) was a Polish writer, playwright, and essayist; an elected member of the prestigious Polish Academy of Literature in the interwar period. He is best remembered for his series of short stories about the fictitious Professor Tutka, published in daily press in postwar Poland. During Stalinism his writing was temporarily banned as "ideologically adverse".
Szaniawski was born into a family of Polish landed gentry at an estate in Zegrzynek in east-central Poland under foreign partitions. His parents belonged to a local cultural elite visited by writers such as Maria Konopnicka and Konrad Prószyński. The estate was nationalized after World War II, but the actual manor remained his until the end of his life. Szaniawski went to school in Warsaw and studied agriculture in Lausanne, France, before returning there. He debuted in 1912 with a series of short novellas published in Kurier Warszawski and in a satirical weekly Sowizdrzał. The stories were soon collected in his volume Łgarze pod Złotą Kotwicą (Liars under a Gold Anchor, 1928). His first play – a comedy entitled Murzyn (1917) – staged by Teatr Polski in Warsaw turned out to be a commercial failure; but his friend and director Aleksander Zelwerowicz took it to Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Kraków the very same year, where it became a success, staged by Sosnowski with the renowned actress Irena Solska. Since then, his plays were performed regularly by many Polish theatres.
In the 1920s Szaniawski wrote a whole series of stage plays, notably: Papierowy kochanek (Paper-made Lover, 1920), Ewa (1921), Lekkoduch (Trifler, 1923) performed by Reduta; as well as Ptak (Bird, 1923), Żeglarz (Sailor, 1925), and Adwokat i róże (Attorney and roses, 1929) which won the national literary prize a year later. He published his only full-size novel entitled Miłość i rzeczy poważne (Love and Other Serious Matters) in 1924. Szaniawski moved to Warsaw during World War II, expelled from the territories annexed by Nazi Germany. He was active in Polish resistance and in 1944 was temporarily arrested by Gestapo.
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