Tadeusz Konwicki

Tadeusz Konwicki
Tadeusz Konwicki in 2008
Born	22 June 1926 Nowa Wilejka, Poland (now Naujoji Vilnia, Lithuania)
Died	7 January 2015(2015-01-07) (aged 88) Warsaw, Poland
Occupation	Writer
Language	Polish

Tadeusz Konwicki (22 June 1926 – 7 January 2015) was a Polish writer and film director, as well as a member of the Polish Language Council.

Konwicki was born in 1926 as the only son of Jadwiga Kieżun and Michał Konwicki in Nowa Wilejka, where he spent his early childhood. His father died early and Konwicki lived with his great-aunt and great-uncle who he later depicted in his novels. He attended a local King Zygmunt August gymnasium. Immediately following the outbreak of World War II, Wilno was occupied by the Soviet Union and subsequently by Nazi Germany, and all education for Poles was discontinued. Konwicki continued his studies underground and joined the eighth Oszmiana Brigade of the Home Army that took part in the nationwide guerrilla operation code-named Operation Tempest and Operation Ostra Brama. He later disarmed and went into hiding from the Soviet Army. In November 1944, he joined Tur's (Witold Turonek) unit and fought until April 28, 1945 - one of the last guerrilla units in the area. After the war Wilno (retrieving its name as Vilnius in the process) was annexed by the Soviet Union and Konwicki was expatriated.

In the spring of 1945 Konwicki moved to Kraków, where he enrolled at Jagiellonian University. He also started to work as a journalist at Odrodzenie weekly, moving to Warsaw in 1947 to continue his work for the magazine. In the capital, he was one of the leading advocates for Socialist Realism in literature. In 1948 he finished his memoirs of his partisan years (Rojsty), but the book was not published until 1956. His literary debut was the production novel Construction Site (1950, Przy budowie), which was followed by the novel Power (1954, Władza). His 1956 novel From a Besieged City (1956, Z oblężonego miasta) also became quite popular.