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Jerzy Andrzejewski (1909-1983) |
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Polish novelist, short-story writer, and political dissident, whose most famous work is Popiol i diament (1948, Ashes and Diamonds). It dealt with the conflict between two visions of the world in Poland, some years before "a people's republic" was established in 1947. Andrzejewski's novel was translated into more than 20 languages and adapted for screen in 1958 by the director Andrzej Wajda. "What lay ahead, what sort of life, what future? The worst years had passed but now, at the beginning of a new day, it looked as if so much had been destroyed, so much laid waste, so much crushed down and afflicted, that the destructive force, as though yet unappeased, was encroaching upon the present, poisoning even the future, in which she placed her hopes during the worst periods." (in Ashes and Diamonds, tr. David J. Welsh) Jerzy Andrzejewski was born in Warsaw into a middle-class family. His father was a grocer and mother the daughter of a provincial doctor. Andrzejevski studied Polish literature at the University of Warsaw, without taking a degree, and contributed to the literary weekly Prosto z mostu. He had started to write in his early boyhood. Andrzjewski's first works Drogi nieuniknione (1936), a volume of short stories, and Lad secra (1938), published in Prosto z mostu, showed the influence of such French Catholic writers as François Mauriac and Georges Bernanos. Lad secra received the award of the Polish Academy of Literature. Andzejewski was called the most gifted Catholic writer of his country, a "Polish Mauriac." During WW II Andrzejewski was a member of the Resistance movement in Warsaw. Noc (1945), Andrzejewski's collection of short stories, dealt with the war and occupation. This collection contained the novella 'Wielki tydzien' (Holy Week), written in the spring of 1943 and adapted for the screen by Andrzej Wajda some fifty decades later. Structured around the plight of a Jewish woman, Irena Lilien, it dealt with emotional and moral responses towards the Jews and saving her as the Warsaw Ghetto burns. Lilien understands that she is doomed, but she also prophesies that the Poles will soon be killing each other for ideological reasons. In occupied Poland helping Jews was punished by death. In addition, the predominat attitude towards Jews was hostile; for a long period they had been the main targets of nationalists. Andrzejewski himself helped Jews in hiding at the risk of his own life. Later, during the communist period, the 1968 purge drove more than half the Jews then living in Poland out of the country. After decades silence, in the 1980s, writers began to examine Polish-Jewish relations. With Popiól i diament (Ashes and Diamonds) Andrzejewski captured the agony of the war-torn generation. Its title and motto, how a new society can be created, was taken from Cyprian Norwid's (1821-1883) drama Za kulisami. The novel covers three days in May 1945 in the district city of Ostrowiec, where old ideals collide with the rise of a new government. Wajda's celebrated film version from 1958 completed the director's informal trio begun with A Generation (Pokolonie, 1955) and Sewer / They Loved Life (Kanal, 1957). One of the characters says: "But nowadays I've met so many people who broke down and failed this or that test that I don't attach much importance to what a man thinks of himself. Until a man faces the test he can deceive himself endlessly." The protagonist is a young Polish nationalist and partisan, Maciek Chelmicki, a member of the underground Home Army. His acts of terrorism bring him in conflict with the new social order. Maciek is assigned to assassinate a new Communist district secretary, Szczuka, who has returned from Russia. Maciek and Szczuka, both sympathetically portrayed, form a contrasting pair – the young man representing the past and cynicism, the old man the future and purposefulness. As Maciek waits in a hotel, he meets a young woman, Krystyna. She works at the bar, where people celebrate the end of the war and drown bad memories in liquor. Maciek and Krystyna both like violets, and they spend some time together. Maciek shoots Szczuka in the street, but in the morning he is in turn fatally wounded by soldiers. Maciek dies on a giant scrap-heap – an obvious symbol. Highly dramatic, realistic in detail, and full of memorable scenes, such as Maciek setting fire to liquor in glasses, and Maciek and Krystyna conversing in a ruined church building, where a figure of Christ hangs upside down. After the war Andrzejewski joined the Writers' Union. The fairly liberal cultural atmosphere did not last long. Early in 1949 the Union of Polish Writers adopted the Soviet model for socialist realism. In 1949 Andrzejewski was elected president of the Polish Writers' Union. He produced some books in the Socialist Realist vein, and defended in his journalism the Communist rule in Poland. Andrzejewski (as Alfa) was portrayed by Czeslaw Milosz in Captive Mind (1953), which revealed the problems of intellectuals living under Stalinism. Milosz described his colleague under the code name quot;Alfa" as a man with a "barometer-like sensitivity to the moral opinion of his environment". Andrzejewski's companion from 1941 to 1943 was Wanda Wertenstein, who gained prominence as a film critic and screenwriter; she was partly the model for Irena Lilien in Holy Week. Another model was Janina Askenazy, the daughter of Simon Askenazy (1866-1935), a historian. In 1945 Andrzejewski married his second wife, Maria Abgarowicz. His first wife he had left soon after their wedding in 1934. From 1952 to 1954 Andrzejewski was editor of a leading cultural weekly, Przeglad kulturalny, and from 1952 to 1957 he was a member of the Polish parliament. In protest against censorship he resigned from the party in 1957. Andrzejewski then moved towards more or less open criticism of the government, starting from the novel The Inquisitors (tr. 1960), a philosophical parable on the autocratic rule of a totalitarian ideology. Primarily following the thoughts of a young Dominican, it documents how his personality is changing as he adopts the mind of his teacher, Torquemada. Andrzejewski's characters are often defeated by circumstances, or forces outside of the control of themselves. The Appeal (1968) attacked directly the Communist regime and was not published in Poland. The protagonist is Marian Konieczy, a middle-aged paranoiac and faithful supporter of the United Workers Party. He is too conscientious and uncorrupted in his work and is shut up in an institution, where he appeals to the First Secretary, whom he trusts. Andrzejewski seems to say that sometimes paranoiacs are actually persecuted, but only an insane person can truly believe in the totalitarian system. "I consider myself a very Polish product in many ways, i.e. a- and simplifying it a little – a person generally more immune to great hardships than to the petty troubles of everyday life. Two periods in my life I consider the most intense: the second World War and the period preceding the so-called 'Polish October.' I lived through two great spiritual adventures: in my youth, the Roman Catholic Church; and in my middle age the experience of Marxism." (Jerzy Andrzejewski in World Authors 1950-1970, ed. John Wakeman, 1975) In general, Andrzejewski's career reflected the typical development of an eastern European intellectual after World War II, from the initial support of the Communist policies to the later more or less openly expressed disappointment. The widening gulf between reality and official truths led Andrzjeweski to such explorations of mass movements and culture as Bramy raju (1960, The Gates of Paradise), focusing on the Children's Crusade of 1212, and the satirical Idzie skaczac po górach (1963, A Sitter for a Satyr), in which Andrzejewski used a stream-of-consciousness style. The Picasso-like protagonist is Antonio Ortiz, a celebrated artist and genius, who is surrounded by women, art dealers, and sycophants. He thinks he has lost his creativity, but returns to painting after the stimulation of young love and energy. Andrzejewski's ambiguous thoughts and experimental use of language was a problem for the authorities, and several of his works were left unpublished. His most important novel from late 1960s, Miazga (1969), a portrait of modern Polish intelligentsia, did not appear officially until 1981. Andrzejewski, Kazimierz Brandys, Tadeuz Konwicki, Wlodzimierz Odojewski, and several other authors printed their works in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the literary quarterly Zapis (1979-82), or in the emigré publishers. In 1979 Andrzejewski helped found the workers' defence committee (KOR) to aid families of striking workers, who were jailed or dismissed from their jobs. Andrzejewski died on April 19/20, 1983, in Warsaw. His novel on the homosexual Roman emperor Heliogabalus was left unfinished. For further reading: The Captive Mind by C. Milosz (1953); Portraits of Contemporary Polish Writers by Mutuszewski (1959); 'On the Evils of Fanatic Belief' by S.L. Shneiderman in Eastern Europe, Oct (1960); The History of Polish Literature by Czeslaw Milosz (1969, 2nd edition 1983); 'On the History of Ashes and Diamonds' by J.Krzyzanowski , in Slavic and East European Journal, 15 (1971); Andrzejewski by Waclaw Sadkowski (1973); World Authors 1950-1970, ed. by John Wakeman (1975); A History of Polish Literature by Julian Krzyzanowski (1978); Modernist Trends in Twentieth-Century Polish Fiction by Stanislaw Eile (1996) - For further information: Popiol i diament by Andrzej Wajda; Jerzy Andrzejewski (1909-1983) Selected works:
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