Aniela Zagórska (26 December 1881, in

Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...

– 30 November 1943, in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

) was a Polish

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

who rendered into

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

nearly all the works of

Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...

Life

Aniela Zagórska was a niece of

. In 1923–39 she translated nearly all of Conrad's works into

. In 1929, for these translations, she received a Polish PEN Club award. When in 1914 at the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Conrad had returned to his native Poland for the first time since departing it, he had taken refuge with his family in the southern-mountain resort town of

Zakopane Zakopane (Gorals#Language, Podhale Goral: ''Zokopane'') is a town in the south of Poland, in the southern part of the Podhale region at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. From 1975 to 1998, it was part of Nowy Sącz Voivodeship; since 1999, it has ...

. A few days after arrival there, they had moved to the ''Konstantynówka''

pension A pension (; ) is a fund into which amounts are paid regularly during an individual's working career, and from which periodic payments are made to support the person's retirement from work. A pension may be either a " defined benefit plan", wh ...

operated by Conrad's cousin Aniela Zagórska, the namesake mother of the future translator; the ''pension'' had earlier been frequented by celebrities including the statesman

Józef Piłsudski Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (Poland), Chief of State (1918–1922) and first Marshal of Poland (from 1920). In the aftermath of World War I, he beca ...

and Conrad's acquaintance, the young concert pianist Artur Rubinstein. The elder Zagórska had introduced Conrad to Polish writers, intellectuals and artists who had also taken refuge in Zakopane, including novelist

Stefan Żeromski Stefan Żeromski ( ; 14 October 1864 – 20 November 1925) was a Polish novelist and dramatist belonging to the Young Poland movement at the turn of the 20th century. He was called the "conscience of Polish literature". He also wrote under ...

and Tadeusz Nalepiński, a writer friend of anthropologist

Bronisław Malinowski Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (; 7 April 1884 – 16 May 1942) was a Polish anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropology. ...

. Conrad roused interest among the Poles as a famous writer and an exotic compatriot from abroad. He charmed new acquaintances, especially women. However, the double

Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

Maria Skłodowska-Curie's physician sister,

Bronisława Dłuska Bronisława Dłuska (; ; 28 March 186515 April 1939) was a Polish physician, and co-founder and first director of Warsaw's Maria Skłodowska-Curie Institute of Oncology. She was married to political activist Kazimierz Dłuski, and was an ol ...

, scolded him for having used his great talent for purposes other than bettering the future of his native land But thirty-two-year-old Aniela Zagórska (daughter of the ''pension'' keeper), Conrad's niece who would translate his works into Polish in 1923–39, idolized him, kept him company, and provided him with books. He particularly delighted in the stories and novels of the ten-years-older, recently deceased

Bolesław Prus Aleksander Głowacki (20 August 1847 – 19 May 1912), better known by his pen name Bolesław Prus (), was a Polish journalist, novelist, a leading figure in the history of Polish literature and philosophy, and a distinctive voice in world ...

, read everything by his fellow victim of Poland's

1863 Uprising The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last in ...

– "my beloved Prus" – that he could get his hands on, and pronounced him "better than Dickens" – a favorite English novelist of Conrad's. Translation, like other arts, inescapably involves choice, and choice implies interpretation.

Conrad Conrad may refer to: People * Conrad (name) * Saint Conrad (disambiguation) Places United States * Conrad, Illinois, an unincorporated community * Conrad, Iowa, a city * Conrad, Montana, a city * Conrad Glacier, Washington Elsewher ...

, whose writings have been described as verging on "auto-translation" from his Polish and French linguistic personae,

Zdzisław Najder Zdzisław Najder (; 31 October 1930 – 15 February 2021) was a Polish literary historian, critic, and political activist. He was primarily known for his studies on Joseph Conrad, for his periods of service as political adviser to Lech Wałęsa ...

, ''Joseph Conrad: A Life'', 2007, p. IX. would later advise his niece and

translator Aniela Zagórska:

Notes

Sources

* Ewa Głębicka .G. "Aniela Zagórska", in ''Współcześni polscy pisarze i badacze literatury: Słownik biobibliograficzny'' (Contemporary Polish Writers and Scholars of Literature: A Biobibliographic Dictionary), vol. IX: W–Z, edited by Jadwiga Czachowska and Alicja Szałagan, Warsaw, 2004, pp. 346–49. *

Christopher Kasparek Christopher Kasparek (born 1945) is a Scottish-born writer of Polish descent who has translated works by numerous Polish authors, including Ignacy Krasicki, Bolesław Prus, Florian Znaniecki, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Marian Rejewski, and Wł ...

, "The translator's endless toil", ''

The Polish Review ''The Polish Review'' is an English-language academic journal published quarterly in New York City by the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America. ''The Polish Review'' was established in 1956, as a successor of the ''PAU Bulletin''. It ...

'', vol. XXVIII, no. 2, 1983, pp. 83–87. *

, ''

under Familial Eyes'', Cambridge University Press, 1984, . *

, ''Joseph Conrad: A Life'', Rochester, New York, Camden House, 2007, . {{DEFAULTSORT:Zagorska, Aniela 1881 births 1943 deaths English–Polish translators Translators from English Translators to Polish 20th-century Polish translators