Miron Białoszewski (; born 30 June 1922,

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 ...

; died 17 June 1983,

) was a Polish

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

and

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

Biography

Białoszewski studied

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

at the clandestine courses of the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...

during the

German occupation of Poland German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

. Following the end of the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...

, he was sent to a

labour camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see British and American spelling differences, spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are unfree labour, forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have ...

in the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

, and returned to Warsaw at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. First, he worked at the central post office, and then as a

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

for a number of popular magazines, some of them for children. In 1955 Białoszewski took part in the foundation of a small theatre called ''Teatr na Tarczyńskiej'', where he premiered his plays ''Wiwisekcja'' and ''Osmędeusze'', and acted in them with Ludmiła Murawska. In the same year Białoszewski debuted in ''Życie literackie'' along with another renowned Polish poet and his contemporary, Zbigniew Herbert. Białoszewski was

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

and for many years, he shared an apartment at Pl. Dąbrowskiego 7 with his live-in partner, the

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

Leszek Soliński. According to Joanna Nizynska from

University of California in Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the Cal ...

: His highly acclaimed

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

, ''Pamiętnik z powstania warszawskiego'' ("Memoir of the

") was published in 1970 (and translated into English in 1977). In it, Białoszewski gave a

philosophical Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

account of his wartime experiences 27 years after the fact. Another great example of Białoszewski’s innovative approach to literature and language is ''Chamowo'' – another memoir in which he describes one year of his life after suffering from heart attack. ''Chamowo'', written between June 1975 and May 1976, is characterized by vivid descriptions and experimental use of language. The language is vivid, it very often tries to show how regular people communicate in everyday situations, at the same time it can be rich in metaphors and mysterious. Białoszewski depicts his everyday life, where he tries to adapt to new reality of living in a new apartment situated in heretofore unknown part of Warsaw, colloquially called Chamowo, hence the name of the book. The writer describes his recovery, meetings with friends, day-to-day struggles and thoughts. The original manuscript of ''Chamowo'' was lost, only some part of typescript had prevailed, as well as a recording that Białoszewski had recorded for his blind friend, Jadwiga Stańczakowa. The book was eventually posthumous published in 2009. In 1982 he was awarded the

Jurzykowski Prize The Alfred Jurzykowski Prize is an annual prize awarded by the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation in New York City for the translation of Polish works into English. Its recipients have included such writers as Witold Lutosławski (1966), Leszek Koł ...

by the

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

-based Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation. He died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

on 17 June 1983. There is a large body of literature devoted to the critical analysis of Białoszewski's works - most notably by such writers and academics as

Czesław Miłosz Czesław Miłosz ( , , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish Americans, Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. He primarily wrote his poetry in Polish language, Polish. Regarded as one of the great poets of the ...

Maria Janion Maria Janion (24 December 1926 – 23 August 2020) was a Polish scholar, literary theorist and critic, as well as a feminist. She was a professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, specialising in literary Ro ...

Stanisław Barańczak Stanisław Barańczak (, November 13, 1946December 26, 2014) was a Polish poet, literary critic, scholar, editor, translator and lecturer. He is perhaps most well known for his English-to- Polish translations of the dramas of William Shakes ...

, Jan Błoński,

Kazimierz Wyka Kazimierz Wyka (19 March 1910 – 19 January 1975) was a Polish literary historian, literary critic, and professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków following World War II. He was a deputy to the Polish parliament (Sejm) from 1952 to 1956 ...

and Artur Sandauer.

Works

The number given between square brackets after each book title and year of publication refers to the volume of Białoszewski's Collected Works (''Utwory zebrane'', Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy 1987) in which the texts published originally in these books have been reprinted.

Poetry

:*''Obroty rzeczy'' (1956) :*''Rachunek zachciankowy'' (1959) :*''Mylne wzruszenia'' (1961) :*''Było i było'' (1965) :*''Wiersze'' (1976) :*''Poezje wybrane'' (1976) :*''Miron Białoszewski'' n the series ''Poeci Polscy'' (1977) :*''Odczepić się'' (1978) :*''Wiersze wybrane i dobrane'' (1980) :*''Trzydzieści lat wierszy'' (1982) :*''Oho'' (1985)

Poetry and Prose

:*''Teatr Osobny'' (1973) :*''Rozkurz'' (1980) :*''Stara proza i nowe wiersze'' (1984) :*''Obmapywanie Europy. Aaameryka. Ostatnie wiersze'' (1988 – posthumously)

Prose

:*''Pamiętnik z powstania warszawskiego)'' (1970)
English translation by Madeline Levine: ''A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising'' (1977, 1991) :*''Donosy rzeczywistości'' (1973) :*''Szumy, zlepy, ciągi'' (1976) :*''Zawał'' (1977) :*''Przepowiadanie sobie'' (1981) :*''Konstancin'' (1991 – posthumously)

References

External links

Polish Literature in English Translation: Miron Białoszewski

Miron Białoszewski
at Culture.pl
Miron Białoszewski
biography and poems at poezja.org
The Kingdom of Insignificance: Miron Białoszewski and the Quotidian, the Queer, and the Traumatic

A memoir of the Warsaw Uprising

Post-war Polish Poetry

Hybrid Humour: Comedy in Transcultural Perspectives

The Historicity of Experience: Modernity, the Avant-Garde, and the Event

Miron Bialoszewski: Radical Quest Beyond Dualisms
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bialoszewski, Miron 1922 births 1983 deaths Burials at Powązki Cemetery Gay novelists Polish LGBTQ novelists Polish LGBTQ poets Polish LGBTQ dramatists and playwrights Polish male novelists Gay dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Polish novelists 20th-century Polish poets 20th-century Polish dramatists and playwrights Polish male dramatists and playwrights Polish male poets 20th-century Polish male writers Gay poets 20th-century Polish LGBTQ people Prisoners of Dulag 121 Pruszków