Jerzy Ficowski
Encyclopedia
Jerzy Ficowski (ˈjɛʐɨ fiˈt͡sɔfskʲi; October 4, 1924, Warsaw
- May 9, 2006, Warsaw) was a Polish poet, writer and translator (from Yiddish, Russian
, Romani
and Hungarian
).
and took part in the Warsaw Uprising
of 1944. His codename was Wrak and he fought in Mokotów
region. Following the uprising, Ficowski entered a camp with other survivors of the battle.
After the war, Ficowski returned to Warsaw and enrolled at the university in order to study philosophy and sociology. There he published his first volume of poetry, Ołowiani żołnierze (The Tin Soldiers, 1948). This volume reflected the Stalinist atmosphere of the early postwar Poland, in which heroes of the Armia Krajowa Warsaw Uprising were treated with suspicion at best, arrested and executed at worst, together with the sense of a new city arising on the ashes of the old.
His early works show the influence of Julian Tuwim
. Later he became interested in the poems of the interwar period, with elements of fantasy
and grotesque
. In the later period his poems reflected various moral and social aspects of life in the People's Republic of Poland
.
From 1948 to 1950 Ficowski chose to travel with Polish Gypsies and came to write several volumes on or inspired by the Roma way of life, including Amulety i defilacje (Amulets and Definitions, 1960) and Cyganie na polskich drogach (Gypsies on the Polish Roads, 1965). He was the member of the Gypsy Lore Society
and translated the poems of Bronisława Wajs (Papusza). He was interested in many aspects of international poetry. He translated the poems of the Spanish
poet, Federico García Lorca
, and he was also a known specialist of Jewish folklore and Jewish poetry, becoming an editor of the Jewish poem anthology Rodzynki z migdałami (Raisins with Almonds, 1964).
Ficowski devoted many years of his life to the study of the life and works of Bruno Schulz
, and in 1967 published the first edition of what is considered the definitive biography of him, entitled Regions of the Great Heresy. He received the award of the Polish Pen Club in 1977. His 1979 collection of poems, A Reading of Ashes, has been called the most moving account of the Holocaust written by a non-Jew.http://www.traktor.cz/twisted/ficowski.html
After he signed the letter of 59
in 1975, in the late 1970s, all of Ficowski's works had been banned in Poland. However, his prose and poems were translated widely in the West
and the emergence of Solidarity in the 1980s brought his works back to Poland's bookshelves. He was active in the opposition movement, and was a member of the Workers' Defence Committee
(Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR) and later the Committee for Social Self-defence KOR
.
Under the communist regime he had urged his fellow writers to voice their concerns over censorship
and the suppression of workers. His most public statement was a letter to the Writers Union in which he said, "I do not believe deeply in the immediate effectiveness of letters to the government, but even less do I believe in the effectiveness of silence."
Following the fall of communism, liberalisation of Poland and its breaking with the Soviet bloc, Ficowski continued to write and translate works from languages as diverse as Spanish
and Romanian
, not to mention the Yiddish and Roma languages that had always fascinated him.
Poetry
Poetic prose
Others
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...
- May 9, 2006, Warsaw) was a Polish poet, writer and translator (from Yiddish, 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...
, Romani
Romani language
Romani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....
and Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
).
Biography and works
During the German occupation of Poland in World War II, Ficowski who lived in Włochy near Warsaw was a member of the Polish resistance. He was a member of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK), was imprisoned in the infamous PawiakPawiak
Pawiak was a prison built in 1835 in Warsaw, Poland.During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia....
and 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...
of 1944. His codename was Wrak and he fought in Mokotów
Mokotów
Mokotów is a dzielnica of Warsaw, the capital of Poland. Mokotów is densely populated. It is a seat to many foreign embassies and companies...
region. Following the uprising, Ficowski entered a camp with other survivors of the battle.
After the war, Ficowski returned to Warsaw and enrolled at the university in order to study philosophy and sociology. There he published his first volume of poetry, Ołowiani żołnierze (The Tin Soldiers, 1948). This volume reflected the Stalinist atmosphere of the early postwar Poland, in which heroes of the Armia Krajowa Warsaw Uprising were treated with suspicion at best, arrested and executed at worst, together with the sense of a new city arising on the ashes of the old.
His early works show the influence of Julian Tuwim
Julian Tuwim
Julian Tuwim , sometimes used pseudonym "Oldlen" when writing song lyrics. He was a Polish poet, born in Łódź, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, of Jewish parents, and educated in Łódź and Warsaw where he studied law and philosophy at Warsaw University...
. Later he became interested in the poems of the interwar period, with elements of fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
and grotesque
Grotesque
The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "Grotto", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century...
. In the later period his poems reflected various moral and social aspects of life in the People's Republic of Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
.
From 1948 to 1950 Ficowski chose to travel with Polish Gypsies and came to write several volumes on or inspired by the Roma way of life, including Amulety i defilacje (Amulets and Definitions, 1960) and Cyganie na polskich drogach (Gypsies on the Polish Roads, 1965). He was the member of the Gypsy Lore Society
Gypsy Lore Society
The Gypsy Lore Society was founded in Great Britain in 1888 to unite persons interested in the history and lore of Gypsies and rovers and to establish closer contacts among scholars studying aspects of such cultures. David MacRitchie was one of its founders and he worked with Francis Hindes Groome...
and translated the poems of Bronisława Wajs (Papusza). He was interested in many aspects of international poetry. He translated the poems of the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
poet, Federico García Lorca
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
, and he was also a known specialist of Jewish folklore and Jewish poetry, becoming an editor of the Jewish poem anthology Rodzynki z migdałami (Raisins with Almonds, 1964).
Ficowski devoted many years of his life to the study of the life and works of Bruno Schulz
Bruno Schulz
Bruno Schulz was a Polish writer, fine artist, literary critic and art teacher born to Jewish parents, and regarded as one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century. Schulz was born in Drohobycz, in the province of Galicia then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and spent...
, and in 1967 published the first edition of what is considered the definitive biography of him, entitled Regions of the Great Heresy. He received the award of the Polish Pen Club in 1977. His 1979 collection of poems, A Reading of Ashes, has been called the most moving account of the Holocaust written by a non-Jew.http://www.traktor.cz/twisted/ficowski.html
After he signed the letter of 59
Letter of 59
The Letter of 59 was an open letter signed by 66 Polish intellectuals who protested against the changes of the Constitution of the People's Republic of Poland that were made by the communist party of Poland in 1975...
in 1975, in the late 1970s, all of Ficowski's works had been banned in Poland. However, his prose and poems were translated widely in the West
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
and the emergence of Solidarity in the 1980s brought his works back to Poland's bookshelves. He was active in the opposition movement, and was a member of the Workers' Defence Committee
Workers' Defence Committee
The Workers’ Defense Committee was a Polish civil society group that emerged under communist rule to give aid to prisoners & their families after the June 1976 protests & government crackdown...
(Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR) and later the Committee for Social Self-defence KOR
Committee for Social Self-defence KOR
Committee for Social Self-defence KOR was a Polish civil society group that emerged under communist rule. It was created in 1977 from the Workers' Defence Committee . It was one of the movements whose activities led to the creation of Solidarity...
.
Under the communist regime he had urged his fellow writers to voice their concerns over censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
and the suppression of workers. His most public statement was a letter to the Writers Union in which he said, "I do not believe deeply in the immediate effectiveness of letters to the government, but even less do I believe in the effectiveness of silence."
Following the fall of communism, liberalisation of Poland and its breaking with the Soviet bloc, Ficowski continued to write and translate works from languages as diverse as Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, not to mention the Yiddish and Roma languages that had always fascinated him.
Selected publications
- Ołowiani żołnierze (1948)
- Zwierzenia (1952)
- Po polsku (1955)
- Moje strony świata (1957)
- Makowskie bajki (1959)
- Amulety i defilacje ("Amulets and Definitions") (1960), inspired by his stay with Gypsies
- Pismo obrazkowe (1962)
- Ptak poza ptakiem (1968)
- Odczytanie popiołów (1979); on the Jews and their suffering; illustrated by Marc Chagall; translated by Keith BosleyKeith BosleyKeith Bosley is a British poet and language expert.Bosley was born in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, grew up in Maidenhead, Berkshire...
as A Reading of Ashes, 1981) - Errata (1981)
- Śmierć jednorożca (1981)
- Przepowiednie. Pojutrznia (1983)
- Inicjał (1994)
- Mistrz Manole i inne przekłady (2004; collected translations of poetry)
- Zawczas z poniewczasem (2004)
- Pantareja (2006)
Poetic prose
- Wspominki starowarszawskie (1959)
- Czekanie na sen psa (1970; translated by Soren A. Gauger and Marcin Piekoszewski as Waiting for the Dog to Sleep, 2006)
Others
- Cyganie polscy (1953)
- Cyganie na polskich drogach (1965)
- Gałązka z drzewa słońca (1961)
- Rodzynki z migdałami (1964)
- Regiony wielkiej herezji (1967, revised editions 1975, 1992, 2002; translated by Theodosia S. Robertson as Regions of the Great Heresy, 2000)
- Okolice sklepów cynamonowych (1986)
- Demony cudzego strachu (1986)
- Cyganie w Polsce. Dzieje i obyczaje (1989; translated by Eileen Healey as The Gypsies in Poland. History and Customs, 1989)