Julian Stryjkowski (born Pesach Stark; April 27, 1905 – August 8, 1996) was a Polish journalist and writer, known for his social prose and radical leftist leanings. He was considered one of the best Polish-Jewish writers of the communist era. Stryjkowski was born April 27, 1905 in Stryj (

Austrian partition The Austrian Partition ( pl, zabór austriacki) comprise the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth acquired by the Habsburg monarchy during the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. The three partitions were cond ...

, modern Ukraine), to a family of Hasidic Jews. He graduated from the Faculty of Polish Studies and Literature of

Jan Kazimierz University The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...

Lwów Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...

and in 1932 started working as a teacher of the

Polish language Polish (Polish: ''język polski'', , ''polszczyzna'' or simply ''polski'', ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script. It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In add ...

in a gymnasium in

Płock Płock (pronounced ) is a city in central Poland, on the Vistula river, in the Masovian Voivodeship. According to the data provided by GUS on 31 December 2021, there were 116,962 inhabitants in the city. Its full ceremonial name, according to th ...

in central Poland. Initially a

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in J ...

, in 1934 he joined the outlawed Communist Party of Western Ukraine and began teaching his own pupils Communist ideology, for which he was arrested and imprisoned in 1935. Upon his release the following year he moved to

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is official ...

, where he started working as a journalist for various newspapers, and as a library clerk. About that time he also began working on the Polish translation of Céline's ''

Death on the Installment Plan ''Death on Credit'' (french: link=no, Mort à crédit, US translation: ''Death on the Installment Plan'') is a novel by author Louis-Ferdinand Céline, published in 1936. The most common, and generally most respected English translation is Ralph ...

''.

World War II

After the 1939

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week af ...

Stryjkowski escaped from Warsaw to Soviet-occupied

(modern Lviv, Ukraine), where he was one of the journalists of '' Czerwony Sztandar'', a Polish language propaganda newspaper published by the Soviets, and the only newspaper available to the city's inhabitants besides ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...

''. After the end outbreak of

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...

, through

Tarnopol Ternópil ( uk, Тернопіль, Ternopil' ; pl, Tarnopol; yi, טאַרנאָפּל, Tarnopl, or ; he, טארנופול (טַרְנוֹפּוֹל), Tarnopol; german: Tarnopol) is a city in the west of Ukraine. Administratively, Ternopi ...

Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Ky ...

and

Stalingrad Volgograd ( rus, Волгогра́д, a=ru-Volgograd.ogg, p=vəɫɡɐˈɡrat), formerly Tsaritsyn (russian: Цари́цын, Tsarítsyn, label=none; ) (1589–1925), and Stalingrad (russian: Сталингра́д, Stalingrád, label=none; ) ...

he escaped to Kuybyshev, where he tried to join the Polish II Corps. Unsuccessful, he moved to

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

, where he started working in a factory. On the insistence of Wanda Wasilewska he was allowed by the Soviet authorities to come to

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, where he began working for the weekly '' Wolna Polska'', the organ of Society of Polish Patriots, a communist and the Soviet-backed shadow government of Poland. There he adopted the pen name of Julian Stryjkowski, which became his official surname after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. He returned to Poland in 1946 and became the head of the

Katowice Katowice ( , , ; szl, Katowicy; german: Kattowitz, yi, קאַטעוויץ, Kattevitz) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Upper Silesian metropolitan area. It is the 11th most populo ...

branch of the Polish Press Agency. Between 1949 and 1952 he headed that agency's bureau in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. However, he was deported from Italy after having published a strongly anti-capitalist novel about the fate of Italian landless peasants. Upon his return to Poland he started working as the head of prose division of '' Twórczość'', a weekly devoted to modern literature. He held that post until his retirement in 1978. Initially strongly devoted to Communism, in 1966 he quit the

Polish United Workers' Party The Polish United Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza; ), commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other lega ...

in protest against the Communists' suppression of art, science and culture, along with other notable Polish writers of the time. Following this, he had to wait until 1978 before the

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

allowed his novels to appear in print again. He died on August 8, 1996 in Warsaw.

Personal life

Stryjkowski was gay, and came out at the age of 88.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stryjkowski, Julian 1905 births 1996 deaths Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) Ukrainian Jews Polish male writers Jewish Polish writers People from Stryi Gay Jews Polish gay writers International Writing Program alumni 20th-century Polish journalists Recipients of the State Award Badge (Poland) 20th-century Polish LGBT people