RÓŻEWICZ, Tadeusz

Nationality: Polish. Born: Radomsk, 9 October 1921. Education: Studied art history, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, 1945-49. Military Service: Served in the Polish Underground. Career: Poet, playwright, fiction writer, essayist, and screenwriter. Worked as a factory laborer and tutor during World War II. Awards: State prize for poetry, 1955, 1962, and 1966; Krakow City literary prize, 1959; prize from minister of culture and art, 1962; Jurzykowski Foundation prize (United States), 1966; prize from minister of foreign affairs, 1974 and 1987; Austrian National prize for European literature, 1982; Golden Wreath, Struga Poetry Festival, Yugoslavia, 1987. Commander, Cross of Order, Polonia Restitua, 1970; Order of Banner of Labor, 2nd class, 1977. Member: Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts; Academy of Arts.

Publication

Collection

Poezja, dramat, proza [Poetry, Drama, Prose]. 1973.

Poetry

Wlyzce wody. 1946.

Niepokój [Faces of Anxiety]. 1947.

Czerwona rekawiczka [The Red Glove]. 1948.

Piec poematow [Five Longer Poems]. 1950.

Czas ktory idzie [The Time to Come]. 1951.

Wiersze i obrazy [Poems and Images]. 1952.

Wybor wierszy. 1953.

Rownina [The Plain]. 1954.

Usmiechy [Smiles]. 1955.

Srebrny klos [Silver Ear of Grain]. 1955.

Poemat otwarty [The Open Poem]. 1956.

Poeszje zebrane. 1957; as Collected Poems, 1976.

Formy [Forms]. 1958.

Rozmowa z ksieciem. 1960.

Glos anonima [Voice of an Anonymous Man]. 1961.

Niepokoj; Wybor wierszy, 1945-1961. 1963.

Twarz [Face]. 1964.

Wiersze i poematy. 1967.

Poezje wybrane [Selected Poems]. 1967.

Twarz trzecia [The Third Face]. 1968.

Regio. 1969.

Wiersze [Poems]. 1969.

Wybor poezji. 1969.

Faces of Anxiety (English translation). 1969.

Wiersze. 1974.

"The Survivor" and Other Poems (selections in English). 1976.

Duszyczka [Little Spirit]. 1977.

Unease (English translation). 1980.

Green Rose (English translation). 1982.

Conversation with a Prince and Other Poems (selections in English). 1982; revised edition, as They Came to See a Poet, 1991.

Na powierzchni poematu i w srodku. 1983.

Poezje wybrane. 1984.

Poezje. 1987.

Poezja (2 vols.). 1988.

Plaskorzezba [Bas-Relief]. 1991.

Forms in Relief: And Other Works (Polish and English). 1994.

Poezja wybrane/Selected Poems. 1994.

Zawsze Fragment; Recycling (English translation). 1996.

Novel

Smierc w starych dekoraocjach [Death amidst Old Stage Props]. 1970.

Short Stories

Opadly liscie z drzew [The Leaves Have Fallen from the Trees]. 1955.

Przerwany egzamin [The Interrupted Exam]. 1960.

Wycieczka do muzeum [Excursion to a Museum]. 1966.

Opowiadania wybrane [Selected Stories]. 1968.

Plays

Beda sie bili. First serialized in Echo Tygodnia, 1949-50.

Grupa Laokoona [The Laocoon Group]. 1961.

Spaghetti i miecz [Spaghetti and the Sword]. 1966.

Utwory dramatyczne. 1966.

Przyrost naturalny. In Dialog, 1968; as Birth Rate: The Biography of a Play for the Theatre in Twentieth-Century Polish Avant-Garde Drama, 1977.

Kartoteka (produced Warsaw, 1960). As The Card Index, in "The Card Index" and Other Plays, 1969.

Wyszedl Kartoteka (produced Warsaw, 1960; as Wyszedl, Warsaw, 1960; as Wyszedl z domu, 1964). As Gone Out, in "The Card Index" and Other Plays, 1969.

Akt przerwany (produced 1964). As The Interrupted Act, in "The Card Index" and Other Plays, 1969.

"The Card Index" and Other Plays (English translations; includes The Card Index ; Gone Out ; The Interrupted Act ). 1969.

Teatr niekonsekwencji (includes Smieszny staruszek ; Stara kobieta wysiaduje ). 1970.

Świadkowie, albo nasza mala stabilizacja (produced 1962). As The Witnesses, in "The Witnesses" and Other Plays, 1970.

Smieszny staruszek (produced 1964). As The Funny Old Man, in "The Witnesses" and Other Plays, 1970.

Stara kobieta wysiaduje (produced 1968). As The Old Woman Broods, in "The Witnesses" and Other Plays, 1970.

"The Witnesses" and Other Plays (English translations; includes The Witnesses ; The Funny Old Man ; The Old Woman Broods ). 1970.

Sztuki teatralne [Pieces for the Theatre]. 1972.

Biale malzenstwo (translated as White Marriage and produced New Haven, Connecticut, 1977). In Biale mtilzenstwo i inne utwory sceniczne, 1975.

Biale mtilzenstwo i inne utwory sceniczne (includes Biale malzenstwo ; Dzidzibobo czyli milosc romantyczna czeka juz pod drzwiami ; Sobowtor ; Dramat rozbiezny ; Czego pyrzbywa czego ubywa ). 1975.

Pułapka. 1982; as The Trap, 1997.

"Marriage Blanc" and "The Hunger Artist Departs" (English translations). 1983.

Teatr (2 vols.). 1988.

Reading the Apocalypse in Bed: Selected Plays and Short Pieces (selections in English). 1998.

Other

Zielona roza [The Green Rose] (poetry), with Kartoteka [The Card Index] (play). 1961.

Nic w plaszczu Prospera [Nothing in Propsero's Cloak] (poetry and plays). 1963.

Kartki z Wegier. 1953.

Przygotowanie do wieczoru autorskiego [Preparation for an Author's Evening]. 1971.

Proza [Prose]. 1972.

Proba rekonstrukcji. 1979.

Echa lesne. 1985.

Proza (2 vols.). 1990.

Editor, Kto jest ten dziwny nieznajomy [Who Is This Odd Stranger] by Leopold Staff. 1964.

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Media Adaptation:

My Little Daughter, from the novella Moja coreczka, 1966.

Critical Studies:

Różewicz by Henryk Vogler, 1972; "Tadeusz Rózewicz and the Poetics of Pessimism" by Robert Hauptman, in North Dakota Quarterly, 50(3), Summer 1982, pp. 77-82; "Theatrical Reality in the Plays of Tadeusz Rózewicz," inSlavic and East European Journal, 26(4), Winter 1982, pp. 447-59, and A Laboratory of Impure Forms: The Plays of Tadeusz Rozewicz, 1991, both by Halina Filipowicz; "On Różewicz" by András Fodor, in Acta Litteraria, 30(1-2), 1988, pp. 152-60; "Gardens of Stone: The Poetry of Zbigniew Herbert and Tadeusz Rozewicz" by Paul Coates, in The Mature Laurel: Essays on Modern Polish Poetry, edited by Adam Czerniawki, 1991; "Without Boundaries" by Jonathan Aaron, in Parnassus, 9(1), Spring/Summer 1991, pp. 110-28; "Rózewicz at Seventy: Rebirth of a Survivor," in Polish Review, XXXIX(2), 1994, pp. 195-211, and "Sources of Tadeusz Rózewicz's Correspondence: Julian Przybos, 1945-1962," in Polish Review, XLI(1), 1996, pp. 3-36, both by Richard Sokoloski.

* * *

Tadeusz Różewicz belongs to the Kolumbowie Generation, also called the Generation of the Fulfilled Apocalypse. The main experience of the group's members, who were taking final exams in high school in 1939, was World War II and the fight with the Nazi invaders. Young and talented poets from Warsaw such as K.K. Baczyñski, T. Gajcy, and A. Trzebinski died at the time. Różewicz fought in Armia Krajowa clandestine guerrilla troops in the country. Such experiences left a deep mark both in Różewicz's writing and in the writing of the most outstanding writer of that generation, Tadeusz Borowski . The tragic experience of wartime in Różewicz's life was intensified by the fact that his mother was of Jewish origin, and in November 1944 his elder brother was murdered by the Gestapo. His brother was for him the embodiment of patriotism as well as his spiritual and artistic confidant.

The war motif—moral degradation of the human race and the Holocaust crime—has been present in Różewicz's works since his debut until present times. He has specified it in his poetry, prose, and drama. It is best seen in two volumes of poems, Niepokój (Faces of Anxiety ) and Czerwona rekawiczka ("The Red Glove").

At once Różewicz became a revelation for readers as an outstanding poet and a moral radical who had lost his faith in beautiful lies of art and in the effectiveness of ethical standards that were deeply downtrodden by those responsible for the Holocaust, though he did not share the dilemma of the antifascist Theodore Adorno, who questioned the purpose of creating poetry after Auschwitz. It is significant that Adorno was answered by two poets who survived the Holocaust in Poland. In the poem "Widziałem cudowne monstrum" ("I Saw the Miraculous Monster"), Różewicz writes, "a task is waiting for me/at home:/To create poetry after Auschwitz." Henryk Grynberg , in his poem "Popioły i Diamenty" ("The Ashes and the Diamonds"), firmly emphasizes, "let me add one more thing/it is possible/to write poems after Auschwitz."

What do these ironically heroic declarations of two poets who survived the Holocaust have in common? First of all is autobiographical compulsion, the necessity of personal trauma. There is also the crucial need to reveal the truth about "the times of contempt" as well as the need to save the memory of those millions of Jews from Europe who died of hunger in ghettos or were cremated at Auschwitz. Each poet was also aware of the fact that goals can be reached only when language adequate for expressing these extremely depressing events is found—the debate focused on the truth and the bare facts recording, which are so scary and hard to imagine.

Tadeusz Różewicz invented a kind of poetic debate that rejected ornamental style. It was called Różewicz's type, or a peculiar variety of the type IV free verse system. Soon after, a school of poets imitating the author's formal innovations of Faces of Anxiety emerged in Poland and in some other countries.

Różewicz's merits for modernization of the drama form in Poland are also of great importance. In his famous book The Theatre of the Absurd, Martin Esslin juxtaposes the drama revelations of the author of Kartoteka and of European playwrights such as Sławomir Mrożek and Václav Havel. In spite of the fact that the problem of the Holocaust does not constitute the main theme in Różewicz's plays, some Holocaust motifs can be found in the following dramas: Świadkowie (The Witnesses ), Grupa Laokoona ("The Laokoon Group"), Odejśie Głodomora (The Hunger Artist Departs ), and Pułapka (The Trap ), especially in those related to Franz Kafka.

Różewicz's poetics have gone through some changes. As a playwright he has used categories of tragedy, ridicule, absurd, and sublime. He has mixed genres and styles. He has made use of fantasy and contrasted it with aesthetic norms of realism in one piece. As a searching and pessimistic diagnostician of twentieth-century mass culture, he has perceived ideas and themes of modern art on "the scrap heap of life" just as Samuel Beckett did in Endgame. This Polish pessimist and innovator of poetry and drama is known for his original works. Like Friedrich Hölderlin, Różewicz believes that "what persists does so thanks to poets" despite crises in our civilization and the madness of a human race capable of committing horrible crimes such as the Holocaust or some other ethnic purge, which nowadays can be observed on racial, national, or religious grounds.

—Stanisław Gawliński

See the essay on Collected Poems.