Karol Kuryluk
Encyclopedia
Karol Kuryluk was a Polish journalist
, editor
, activist, politician
and diplomat
. In 2002 he was honored by Yad Vashem
for saving Jews in the Holocaust.
(Zbarazh), a small town in Galicia, the eastern province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (after World War I
part of Poland
, today in the Ukraine
), and died in Budapest
. He was the eldest son of Franciszek Kuryluk, a mason, and Łucja, née Pańczyszak. He had three brothers and four sisters.
In 1930, after finishing high school
in his native town, Kuryluk received a small scholarship to study Polish language
at the University of Lvov (in Polish Lwów, in German Lemberg, today Lviv
, Ukraine), the former capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia and a multicultural metropolis (Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Armenians, Byelorussians, Germans and Tatars). He was multilingual (Polish, Ukrainian, Russian and German), and during his studies he supported himself and helped his family back home by giving private lessons.
In 1931 Kuryluk met the writer and philanthropist Halina Górska
and became involved in her social care project Akcja Błękitnych (Action of the Blue Knights), distributing food and clothing to slum children and helping to run shelters for homeless boys. At the University he protested against the “bench ghetto”, set up by the nationalists to separate Poles and Jews in the lecture hall
s, and he sided with Jewish and Ukrainian students who were harassed and beaten up by the Endecja
gangs.
He married Miriam Kohany
, a poet, writer and translator who during the war changed her name to Maria Grabowska and published under the name of Maria Kuryluk. They had two children, Ewa Kuryluk, an artist and writer, and Piotr Kuryluk, a translator.
In September 1967 Kuryluk suffered a heart attack. He flew to a book fair in Budapest against his doctor’s advice and died there on 9 December 1967.
Kuryluk is buried together with his wife and son at the Powązki Military Cemetery
in a tomb designed by Ewa Kuryluk.
(“Signals Magazine”) with the poet Tadeusz Hollender
and became its editor-in-chief. He called upon the young literary talent in the city (Erwin Axer
, Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Czesław Miłosz, Mirosław Żuławski), won over established writers from all over the country (Maria Dąbrowska
, Bruno Schulz
, Leopold Staff
, Andrzej Strug
, Julian Tuwim
), and published translations of writings by foreign authors (Appolinaire
, Henri Barbusse
, André Malraux
, Carl von Ossietzky
, Bertrand Russell
, Upton Sinclair
, Paul Valéry
). Special issues were dedicated to Jewish, Ukrainian and Belorussian culture, and to the city of Lwów.
“Signals” promoted the work of contemporary Polish artists ( Henryk Gotlib
, Bruno Schulz
, Zygmunt Waliszewski
) and avant-garde photographers (Otto Hahn, Mieczysław Szczuka), and popularized modern European art (van Gogh, Gauguin, Archipenko
, Max Ernst
). A group of gifted graphic artists and caricaturists (K. Baraniecki, F. Kleinmann, Eryk Lipiński
, Franciszek Parecki) collaborated with the magazine, which was famous for its biting humor and merciless derision of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and the Polish anti-Semites, but also of Stalin. By mid-thirties “Signals” had become a leading periodical of the leftist Polish intelligentsia.
In 1938 an armed gang of ONR (National Radical Camp) raided the editorial office and Kuryluk just barely escaped being killed. Yet he managed to continue publishing “Signals”, in spite of financial hardship, ongoing censorship
and vicious political attacks, until the outbreak of World War II
. The last issue came out in August 1939. In September 1939, after the Soviet annexation of Lwów, Kuryluk deposited his “Signals” archive at the Ossolineum Library (now Stefanyk Library) where it has survived until now. Kuryluk was offered a job at “Czerwony Sztandar” (“Red Flag”), a Soviet-sponsored magazine, but soon lost it because of the poem “Today Stalin called me” by Tadeusz Hollender
published in “Signals”.
In 1965 he became the director of the PWN Science Publisher, publishing the Big PWN Encyclopedia
. When the volume with the entry on Nazi Camps was released, a storm broke out. The entry contained the factual information about the Nazi Camps being divided into concentration camps and extermination camp (for Jews). This division, however, was used as a pretext to attack the Encyclopedia editors. The Party’s nationalist faction insinuated that they were all Jews, accused them of “historical treachery that would rob the Polish people of their justified war suffering,” and organized street demonstrations to protest “the Zionist
plot.”
and publishing activities. But he was also involved in the news service and publications of the AK (Home Army of the London government in exile).
In August 1944 Kuryluk moved from Lwów to Lublin and began to publish “Odrodzenie” (“The Renaissance”). The magazine was intended as a revival of “Signals” and the first issue commemorated writers and artists killed by the Nazis, publishing a long list of victims, including Bruno Schulz whom the underground tried to save. In 1945 he moved with his magazine to Cracow, and in 1947 to Warsaw. Among the contributors to “Odrodzenie” counted the future Nobel Prize laureates Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska, the novelist Tadeusz Konwicki
and the poet Tadeusz Różewicz
.
After the Kielce pogrom
in July 1946, the taboo topic of anti-Semitism
’s rise in postwar Poland was addressed by “Odrodzenie”. However, with the Soviets firm grip on power and Stalinism
on the move, Kuryluk was quickly losing what had remained of his relative independence. In February 1948 he resigned from “Odrodzenie” and worked first in the literary section of the Polish Radio and later in publishing.
and used his term to liberalize culture, and to open it to the West. The French Institute opened in Warsaw (the first lecturer was Michel Foucault
), theater and movie stars (Laurence Olivier
, Vivien Leigh
, Gérard Philipe
, Yves Montand
) came to visit and to perform; western books and films, avant-garde music and art became available, the first exhibit by Henry Moore
was arranged. New galleries and publications sprung up all over the country and a group of young Wrocław journalists founded, but soon had to stop publishing, “Signals II”.
In the spring of 1957 Kuryluk was part of a government delegation headed by the Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz. The delegation was to tour Asia in order to lobby for the enlarged version of the Rapacki Plan that would suit the Soviets by creating a huge block of non-aligned countries, extending from East Berlin through Poland, Mongolia, India, China, Vietnam, Burma, and Cambodia. The delegation was received by Nehru, Mao Tse-Tung, Hồ Chí Minh and Prince Sihanouk, signed everywhere with meaningless declarations of friendship, and was a complete flop.
Towards the end of 1957 the Party (PZPR
) began to stop the process of liberalization. The First Secretary Gomułka was against the generous scholarship program of the Ministry of Culture, sending thousands of Polish intellectuals and artists to the West. When the writer Marek Hłasko chose freedom in Paris, this was taken as a pretext to fire Kuryluk as minister of culture, and to get him out of the country as well.
In December 1958 Kuryluk was appointed ambassador of the People’s Republic of Poland to Austria
. He arrived with his family on 1 January 1959 in Vienna and served until the summer of 1964.
as Righteous Among the Nations
of the World.
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, editor
Editor
The term editor may refer to:As a person who does editing:* Editor in chief, having final responsibility for a publication's operations and policies* Copy editing, making formatting changes and other improvements to text...
, activist, politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
. In 2002 he was honored by Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
for saving Jews in the Holocaust.
Biography
Karol Kuryluk was born on October 27, 1910 in ZbarażZbarazh
Zbarazh is a city in the Ternopil Oblast of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Zbarazh Raion , and is located in the historic region of Galicia....
(Zbarazh), a small town in Galicia, the eastern province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
part of Poland
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...
, today in the Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
), and died in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. He was the eldest son of Franciszek Kuryluk, a mason, and Łucja, née Pańczyszak. He had three brothers and four sisters.
In 1930, after finishing high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
in his native town, Kuryluk received a small scholarship to study Polish language
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
at the University of Lvov (in Polish Lwów, in German Lemberg, today Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
, Ukraine), the former capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia and a multicultural metropolis (Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Armenians, Byelorussians, Germans and Tatars). He was multilingual (Polish, Ukrainian, Russian and German), and during his studies he supported himself and helped his family back home by giving private lessons.
In 1931 Kuryluk met the writer and philanthropist Halina Górska
Halina Górska
Halina Górska - was a Polish writer and a communist activist.Beginning in 1924 Górska became associated with the Lwów literary scene. Her first publication, in 1925, was "Mam mieszkanie" , in the Kurier Lwowski...
and became involved in her social care project Akcja Błękitnych (Action of the Blue Knights), distributing food and clothing to slum children and helping to run shelters for homeless boys. At the University he protested against the “bench ghetto”, set up by the nationalists to separate Poles and Jews in the lecture hall
Lecture hall
A lecture hall is a large room used for instruction, typically at a college or university. Unlike a traditional classroom with a capacity from one to four dozen, the capacity of lecture halls is typically measured in the hundreds...
s, and he sided with Jewish and Ukrainian students who were harassed and beaten up by the Endecja
Endecja
National Democracy was a Polish right-wing nationalist political movement active from the latter 19th century to the end of the Second Polish Republic in 1939. A founder and principal ideologue was Roman Dmowski...
gangs.
He married Miriam Kohany
Maria Kuryluk
Maria Kuryluk, 24 December 1917–1 January 2001, was a poet, writer, translator, and amateur pianist. She was first married to Teddy Gleich , then to Karol Kuryluk...
, a poet, writer and translator who during the war changed her name to Maria Grabowska and published under the name of Maria Kuryluk. They had two children, Ewa Kuryluk, an artist and writer, and Piotr Kuryluk, a translator.
In September 1967 Kuryluk suffered a heart attack. He flew to a book fair in Budapest against his doctor’s advice and died there on 9 December 1967.
Kuryluk is buried together with his wife and son at the Powązki Military Cemetery
Powązki Military Cemetery
Powązki Military Cemetery is an old military cemetery located in the Wola district, western part of Warsaw, Poland. The cemetery is often confused with the older Powązki Cemetery, known colloquially as "Old Powązki"...
in a tomb designed by Ewa Kuryluk.
Literary career
In 1933 Kuryluk founded the cultural periodical SygnałySygnały
Sygnały Magazyn was a Polish cultural and social magazine published 1933–1939 in Lwów . It was a leading periodical of the leftist Polish intelligentsia. The journal started as a 12-page monthly and was subsequently published once every two weeks, with editions of up to 32 pages...
(“Signals Magazine”) with the poet Tadeusz Hollender
Tadeusz Hollender
Tadeusz Hollender was a Polish poet, translator and humorist. During World War II, he wrote satirical articles and poems in underground press, for that he was arrested by the German Gestapo and executed in May in the infamous prison, Pawiak....
and became its editor-in-chief. He called upon the young literary talent in the city (Erwin Axer
Erwin Axer
Erwin Axer is a Polish theatre director, writer and university professor. A long-time head of Teatr Współczesny in Warsaw, he also staged numerous plays abroad, notably in German-speaking countries, in the USA and Leningrad ....
, Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Czesław Miłosz, Mirosław Żuławski), won over established writers from all over the country (Maria Dąbrowska
Maria Dabrowska
Maria Dąbrowska was a Polish writer.Dąbrowska was a member of the impoverished landed gentry. Interested both in literature and politics, she set herself up to help people born into poor circumstances. She studied sociology, philosophy, and natural sciences in Lausanne and Brussels and moved to...
, 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...
, Leopold Staff
Leopold Staff
Leopold Staff was a Polish poet and one of the greatest artists of European modernism honored two times by honorary degrees . He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, Andrzej Strug
Andrzej Strug
Andrzej Strug, real name Tadeusz Gałecki was a Polish socialist politician, publicist and activist for Poland's independence....
, 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...
), and published translations of writings by foreign authors (Appolinaire
Guillaume Apollinaire
Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
, Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbusse was a French novelist and a member of the French Communist Party.-Life:...
, André Malraux
André Malraux
André Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...
, Carl von Ossietzky
Carl von Ossietzky
Carl von Ossietzky was a German pacifist and the recipient of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize. He was convicted of high treason and espionage in 1931 after publishing details of Germany's alleged violation of the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding an air force, the predecessor of the Luftwaffe, and...
, Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
, Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
, Paul Valéry
Paul Valéry
Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
). Special issues were dedicated to Jewish, Ukrainian and Belorussian culture, and to the city of Lwów.
“Signals” promoted the work of contemporary Polish artists ( Henryk Gotlib
Henryk Gotlib
Henryk Gotlib , was a Polish-born painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and writer, who settled in England and made a significant contribution to modern British art. He was profoundly influenced by Rembrandt, and the European Expressionist painters.“There was never any doubt of Gotlib’s stature in the...
, 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...
, Zygmunt Waliszewski
Zygmunt Waliszewski
Zygmunt Waliszewski was a Polish painter, a member of the Kapist movement.-Biography:Waliszewski was born in Saint Petersburg to the Polish family of an engineer. In 1907 his parents moved to Tbilisi where Waliszewski spent his childhood. In Tbilisi began his studies at a prestigious art school...
) and avant-garde photographers (Otto Hahn, Mieczysław Szczuka), and popularized modern European art (van Gogh, Gauguin, Archipenko
Alexander Archipenko
Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko was a Ukrainian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist.-Biography:...
, Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
). A group of gifted graphic artists and caricaturists (K. Baraniecki, F. Kleinmann, Eryk Lipiński
Eryk Lipinski
Eryk Lipiński was a Polish artist. Satirist, caricaturist, essayist, he has designed posters, written plays and sketches for cabarets, as well as written books on related subjects.-Biography:...
, Franciszek Parecki) collaborated with the magazine, which was famous for its biting humor and merciless derision of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and the Polish anti-Semites, but also of Stalin. By mid-thirties “Signals” had become a leading periodical of the leftist Polish intelligentsia.
In 1938 an armed gang of ONR (National Radical Camp) raided the editorial office and Kuryluk just barely escaped being killed. Yet he managed to continue publishing “Signals”, in spite of financial hardship, ongoing 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 vicious political attacks, until 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...
. The last issue came out in August 1939. In September 1939, after the Soviet annexation of Lwów, Kuryluk deposited his “Signals” archive at the Ossolineum Library (now Stefanyk Library) where it has survived until now. Kuryluk was offered a job at “Czerwony Sztandar” (“Red Flag”), a Soviet-sponsored magazine, but soon lost it because of the poem “Today Stalin called me” by Tadeusz Hollender
Tadeusz Hollender
Tadeusz Hollender was a Polish poet, translator and humorist. During World War II, he wrote satirical articles and poems in underground press, for that he was arrested by the German Gestapo and executed in May in the infamous prison, Pawiak....
published in “Signals”.
In 1965 he became the director of the PWN Science Publisher, publishing the Big PWN Encyclopedia
Wielka Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN
Wielka Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN was, until 2005, the largest Polish encyclopedia ever written. It was published between 1962 and 1970 by Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe in Warsaw...
. When the volume with the entry on Nazi Camps was released, a storm broke out. The entry contained the factual information about the Nazi Camps being divided into concentration camps and extermination camp (for Jews). This division, however, was used as a pretext to attack the Encyclopedia editors. The Party’s nationalist faction insinuated that they were all Jews, accused them of “historical treachery that would rob the Polish people of their justified war suffering,” and organized street demonstrations to protest “the Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
plot.”
Political career
From July 1941 to July 1944, during the Nazi occupation of Lwów, Kuryluk was part of the resistance on both sides of the political divide. As member of PPR (Polish Workers Party), he was responsible for its clandestine radio stationRadio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
and publishing activities. But he was also involved in the news service and publications of the AK (Home Army of the London government in exile).
In August 1944 Kuryluk moved from Lwów to Lublin and began to publish “Odrodzenie” (“The Renaissance”). The magazine was intended as a revival of “Signals” and the first issue commemorated writers and artists killed by the Nazis, publishing a long list of victims, including Bruno Schulz whom the underground tried to save. In 1945 he moved with his magazine to Cracow, and in 1947 to Warsaw. Among the contributors to “Odrodzenie” counted the future Nobel Prize laureates Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska, the novelist Tadeusz Konwicki
Tadeusz Konwicki
Tadeusz Konwicki is a Polish writer and film director, a member of the Polish Language Council.-Life:Konwicki was born in 1926 in Nowa Wilejka near Wilno, where he spent his early childhood. He spent his adolescence in Wilno, attending a local gymnasium...
and the poet Tadeusz Różewicz
Tadeusz Rózewicz
Tadeusz Różewicz is a Polish poet and writer.Różewicz belongs to the first generation born and educated after Poland regained its independence in 1918. His youthful poems were published in 1938...
.
After the Kielce pogrom
Kielce pogrom
The Kielce pogrom was an outbreak of violence against the Jewish community in the city of Kielce, Poland on July 4, 1946, perpetrated by a mob of local townsfolk and members of the official government forces of the People's Republic of Poland...
in July 1946, the taboo topic of anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
’s rise in postwar Poland was addressed by “Odrodzenie”. However, with the Soviets firm grip on power and Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
on the move, Kuryluk was quickly losing what had remained of his relative independence. In February 1948 he resigned from “Odrodzenie” and worked first in the literary section of the Polish Radio and later in publishing.
Minister of Culture
From April 1956 to April 1958 Kuryluk was Minister of Culture in the government of Józef CyrankiewiczJózef Cyrankiewicz
Józef Cyrankiewicz was a Polish Socialist, after 1948 Communist political figure. He served as premier of the People's Republic of Poland between 1947 and 1952, and again between 1954 and 1970...
and used his term to liberalize culture, and to open it to the West. The French Institute opened in Warsaw (the first lecturer was Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
), theater and movie stars (Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
, Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
, Gérard Philipe
Gérard Philipe
Gérard Philipe was a prominent French actor, who had appeared in 34 films between 1944 and 1959.-Career:...
, Yves Montand
Yves Montand
-Early life:Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, the son of poor peasants Giuseppina and Giovanni Livi, a broommaker. Montand's mother was a devout Catholic, while his father held strong Communist beliefs. Because of the Fascist regime in Italy, Montand's family left for France in...
) came to visit and to perform; western books and films, avant-garde music and art became available, the first exhibit by Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
was arranged. New galleries and publications sprung up all over the country and a group of young Wrocław journalists founded, but soon had to stop publishing, “Signals II”.
In the spring of 1957 Kuryluk was part of a government delegation headed by the Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz. The delegation was to tour Asia in order to lobby for the enlarged version of the Rapacki Plan that would suit the Soviets by creating a huge block of non-aligned countries, extending from East Berlin through Poland, Mongolia, India, China, Vietnam, Burma, and Cambodia. The delegation was received by Nehru, Mao Tse-Tung, Hồ Chí Minh and Prince Sihanouk, signed everywhere with meaningless declarations of friendship, and was a complete flop.
Towards the end of 1957 the Party (PZPR
Polish United Workers' Party
The Polish United Workers' Party was the Communist party which governed the People's Republic of Poland from 1948 to 1989. Ideologically it was based on the theories of Marxism-Leninism.- The Party's Program and Goals :...
) began to stop the process of liberalization. The First Secretary Gomułka was against the generous scholarship program of the Ministry of Culture, sending thousands of Polish intellectuals and artists to the West. When the writer Marek Hłasko chose freedom in Paris, this was taken as a pretext to fire Kuryluk as minister of culture, and to get him out of the country as well.
In December 1958 Kuryluk was appointed ambassador of the People’s Republic of Poland to Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. He arrived with his family on 1 January 1959 in Vienna and served until the summer of 1964.
Honors and awards
A pacifist by nature, he stayed away from military action and was particularly active in saving Jews. He hid Peppa Frauenglas and her two sons in his own sublet room. In 2002 he was honored by Yad VashemYad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
as Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
of the World.
External links
- Encyklopedia Gazety Wyborczej, 2005
- Ewa Pankiewicz, Karol Kuryluk. Biografia polityczna 1910–1967, doctoral dissertation, Warsaw University.
- Prasa Polska w latach 1939–1945, Warsaw, 1980.
- Książka dla Karola (a collections of memoirs and essays on Karol Kuryluk, and his letters), ed. K. Koźniewski, Warsaw, 1984.
- Tadeusz Breza, “Wspomnienie o Karolu”, in Nelly, Warsaw, 1970
- Halina Górska, Chłopcy z ulic miasta, with an introduction by Karol Kuryluk, Warsaw, 1956.
- Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz, edited by J. Ficowski, New York, 1988.
- Czesław Miłosz, Zaraz po wojnie, korespondencja z pisarzami 1945–1950, Cracow, 1998
- Ewa Kuryluk, Ludzie z powietrza—Air People, Cracow, 2002
- Ewa Kuryluk, Cockroaches and Crocodiles, The Moment Magazine, July/August 2008
- Frascati, Cracow, 2009
- Ewa Kuryluk, Kangór z kamerą—Kangaroo with the Camera, Cracow and Warsaw, 2009
- Source materials about Karol Kuryluk in Polish, published in Zeszytyhistoryczne, in Acrobat PDF format: http://www.marekhlasko.republika.pl/03_artykuly/Kuryluk.pdf
- Ewa Kuryluk, Goldi, Warsaw, 2004
- www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_kuryluk_ewa
- www.marekhlasko.republika.pl/03_artykuly/Kuryluk.pdf
- www.sowa.website.pl/cmentarium/.../spisPowazkiW.html
- Museum of the History of Polish Jews’ web page about Karol Kuryluk