Alfred Szklarski
Encyclopedia
Alfred Szklarski ' was a Polish
author of youth literature
. He also published his books as Alfred Bronowski, Fred Garland and Alfred Murawski.
, as the son of an émigré
and journalist, Andrzej Szklarski, and Maria née Markosik. He started school in Chicago but he moved to Poland with his father in 1926. At first he lived in Włocławek where he continued his education. Then in 1932 he moved to Warsaw
where he studied at the Academy of Political Sciences until 1938. The graduation paved the way for his diplomatic career but his plans were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II
. Szklarski stayed in the Polish capital during the German occupation. He took part in the Warsaw Uprising
as a volunteer rifleman. After the uprising's fall, he moved to Cracow
but in February 1945 he went to live in Katowice
in Upper Silesia
where he stayed permanently.
In the year 1949 he was judged by the communists
for his alleged publications in a daily New Courier of Warsaw
as well as other German propaganda
newspapers. He was sentenced to eight years in prison
but he was released in 1953.
s: Alfred Bronowski and Fred Garland. However, his publishing house persuaded him to write youth novels signed with his real name. That was how his best known books came into existence, namely the series of novels about Tomek Wilmowski, a young boy who travels the world with his friends (Polish emigrants) and experiences great adventures. Tomek, who is the main character of the books, learns the value of friendship, study, responsibility, etc. The series of 9 books is full of geographical, historical, cultural and biological knowledge as well as humour and entertainment which is aimed at adolescents and young adults.
Szklarski was co-author (with his own wife Krystyna Szklarska) of a trilogy
about the Sioux
titled Złoto Gór Czarnych (The Gold of the Black Hills). The books described hunting bisons
, the beliefs, intertribal conflicts and the later native Americans' first contact with the white people
as well as their fights. It is claimed that Szklarski's books about history and sufferings of the indigenous peoples of America were inspired by his own war experience as well as Polish people's tragic history and invaders' cruelty. He is considered to have believed that the history of native Americans is similar to a great extent to the history of Poland. The only difference was that Poles have managed to finally endure invasions, long years of occupation, extermination
, Germanisation
and Russification
, whereas tribes of America eventually lost their free homeland which was taken over by the Whites. He strongly condemned interracial violence, and supported the idea of reconciliation between nation
s.
The popularity of his books brought him several awards, including Orle Pióro (1968) and Order of the Smile in 1971. Moreover, he was twice given an award by the Prime Minister
(1973, 1987) for his literary works for the young readers. He was a member of the Association of Polish Authors.
His books have been translated into Russian
and Bulgarian
. They have also been published in the braille
system. They have been brought out in the number of 11 million.
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
author of youth literature
Youth literature
Youth literature may refer to:* Young adult literature* Children's literature...
. He also published his books as Alfred Bronowski, Fred Garland and Alfred Murawski.
Biography
Szklarski was born in Chicago, IllinoisIllinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, as the son of an émigré
Émigré
Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
and journalist, Andrzej Szklarski, and Maria née Markosik. He started school in Chicago but he moved to Poland with his father in 1926. At first he lived in Włocławek where he continued his education. Then in 1932 he moved to Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
where he studied at the Academy of Political Sciences until 1938. The graduation paved the way for his diplomatic career but his plans were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Szklarski stayed in the Polish capital during the German occupation. He took part in the Warsaw Uprising
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces...
as a volunteer rifleman. After the uprising's fall, he moved to Cracow
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
but in February 1945 he went to live in Katowice
Katowice
Katowice is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, on the Kłodnica and Rawa rivers . Katowice is located in the Silesian Highlands, about north of the Silesian Beskids and about southeast of the Sudetes Mountains.It is the central district of the Upper Silesian Metropolis, with a population of 2...
in Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of...
where he stayed permanently.
In the year 1949 he was judged by the communists
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
for his alleged publications in a daily New Courier of Warsaw
Nowy Kurier Warszawski
Nowy Kurier Warszawski was a German propaganda newspaper issued in the occupied Poland during World War II. Its name was coined after a popular pre-war newspaper Kurier Warszawski, with which it had nothing to do but the name...
as well as other German propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
newspapers. He was sentenced to eight years in prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
but he was released in 1953.
Career
Alfred Szklarski debuted during the German occupation of Poland with his novels which were aimed at adults. These included: Żelazny pazur (Iron claw, 1942), Krwawe diamenty (Bloody diamonds, 1943) and Tajemnica grobowca (The secret of the tomb, 1944). In the post-war period he started to sign his writings with pseudonymPseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
s: Alfred Bronowski and Fred Garland. However, his publishing house persuaded him to write youth novels signed with his real name. That was how his best known books came into existence, namely the series of novels about Tomek Wilmowski, a young boy who travels the world with his friends (Polish emigrants) and experiences great adventures. Tomek, who is the main character of the books, learns the value of friendship, study, responsibility, etc. The series of 9 books is full of geographical, historical, cultural and biological knowledge as well as humour and entertainment which is aimed at adolescents and young adults.
Szklarski was co-author (with his own wife Krystyna Szklarska) of a trilogy
Trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games...
about the Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
titled Złoto Gór Czarnych (The Gold of the Black Hills). The books described hunting bisons
American Bison
The American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds...
, the beliefs, intertribal conflicts and the later native Americans' first contact with the white people
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
as well as their fights. It is claimed that Szklarski's books about history and sufferings of the indigenous peoples of America were inspired by his own war experience as well as Polish people's tragic history and invaders' cruelty. He is considered to have believed that the history of native Americans is similar to a great extent to the history of Poland. The only difference was that Poles have managed to finally endure invasions, long years of occupation, extermination
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
, Germanisation
Germanisation
Germanisation is both the spread of the German language, people and culture either by force or assimilation, and the adaptation of a foreign word to the German language in linguistics, much like the Romanisation of many languages which do not use the Latin alphabet...
and Russification
Russification
Russification is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attributes by non-Russian communities...
, whereas tribes of America eventually lost their free homeland which was taken over by the Whites. He strongly condemned interracial violence, and supported the idea of reconciliation between nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
s.
The popularity of his books brought him several awards, including Orle Pióro (1968) and Order of the Smile in 1971. Moreover, he was twice given an award by the Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
(1973, 1987) for his literary works for the young readers. He was a member of the Association of Polish Authors.
His books have been translated into Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
. They have also been published in the braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
system. They have been brought out in the number of 11 million.
Works
- Gorący ślad. Współczesna powieść sensacyjna (1946, alias: Alfred Bronowski)
- Trzy Siostry. Powieść. (Three Sisters. A novel., 1946, alias: Alfred Bronowski)
- Błędne ognie. Opowieść współczesna z życia górników (1947, alias: Alfred Bronowski)
- Nie czekaj na mnie. Powieść współczesna (Don't wait for me. Contemporary novel., 1947, alias: A. Bronowski)
- Tomek w tarapatach (Tomek in trouble, 1948, alias: Fred Garland)
- Tomek w krainie kangurów (Tomek in the land of the kangaroos, 1957)
- Tomek na Czarnym Lądzie (Tomek on the Black Continent, 1958)
- Tomek na wojennej ścieżce (Tomek on martial path, 1959)
- Tomek na tropach Yeti (Tomek traces YetiYetiThe Yeti or Abominable Snowman is an ape-like cryptid said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal, and Tibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their history and mythology...
, 1961) - Tajemnicza wyprawa Tomka (Tomek's secret expedition, 1963)
- Sobowtór profesora Rawy (1963, a science fictionScience fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel) - Tomek wśród łowców głów (Tomek among headhunters, 1965)
- Tomek u źródeł Amazonki (Tomek at the source of Amazon, 1967)
- Złoto Gór Czarnych – Orle Pióra (The gold of the Black Hills: Eagle Feathers, 1974)
- Złoto Gór Czarnych – Przekleństwo złota (The gold of the Black Hills: The curse of gold, 1977)
- Złoto Gór Czarnych – Ostatnia walka Dakotów (The gold of the Black Hills: The last battle of the Sioux, 1979)
- Tomek w Gran Chaco (Tomek in Gran Chaco, 1987)
- Tomek w grobowcach faraonów (Tomek in pharaohs' tombs, 1994, published posthumously by fr. Adam Zelga who had finished the book on the basis of notes left by Szklarski)