Tadeusz Peiper was a Polish

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...

 poet, art critic, theoretician of literature and one of the precursors of the avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 movement in Polish poetry

Polish literature

Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages, used in Poland over the centuries, have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Yiddish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, German and...

. Born to a Jewish family

History of the Jews in Poland

The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...

, Peiper converted to Catholicism

Roman Catholicism in Poland

Ever since Poland officially adopted Latin Christianity in 966, the Catholic Church has played an important religious, cultural and political role in the country....

 as a young man and spent several years in Spain. He is notable as the co-founder of the Awangarda krakowska group of writes.

Peiper was born 3 May 1891 in Kraków

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...

 under Partitions

Partitions of Poland

The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...

. In 1921, in reborn Poland

Second Polish Republic

The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...

 he founded the Zwrotnica monthly (a "Railroad switch

Railroad switch

A railroad switch, turnout or [set of] points is a mechanical installation enabling railway trains to be guided from one track to another at a railway junction....

"), devoted mostly to avant-garde movements in contemporary poetry. Although short-lived, the magazine (issued until 1923 and then briefly reactivated between 1926 and 1927), paved the way for the young poets of the Awangarda krakowska (Kraków Avant-garde) group, among them Julian Przyboś

Julian Przybos

Julian Przyboś was a Polish poet, essayist and translator, one of the most important poets of Kraków Avantgarde....

, Jan Brzękowski and Jalu Kurek

Jalu Kurek

Jalu Kurek was a Polish poet and prose writer, one of the figures of the so-called Kraków avant-garde...

. He also published three notable collections of poems, all of them being among the most notable pieces of the constructivist

Constructivism (art)

Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...

 Polish poetry. As an artist, Peiper believed that a writer should resemble a skilled craftsman, able to carefully plan his words. He also coined the "3 x M" slogan (Miasto, Masa, Maszyna; Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

 for City, Mass and Machine), one of the meme

Meme

A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...

s of Polish poetry of the 1920s. Soon after World War II he wrote about Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...

 for Tygodnik Powszechny

Tygodnik Powszechny

Tygodnik Powszechny is a Polish Roman Catholic weekly magazine, focusing on social and cultural issues. Established in 1945 under the auspices of Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha, Jerzy Turowicz was its editor-in-chief until his death in 1999. He was succeeded by priest Adam Boniecki.-History:The...

. Until retirement, Peiper worked for Jerzy Borejsza

Jerzy Borejsza

Jerzy Borejsza , was a Polish communist activist and writer, chief of the communist press and publishing syndicate in the Stalinist period of the People's Republic of Poland.-Biography:Borejsza was born as Beniamin Goldberg to a Polish Jewish family...

.