Polish authors, books & literature.

AdamKadmonThreads: 38 Posts: 1,120 Joined: Apr 23, 10 ♂	Apr 27, 11, 11:01 #61
Antoni Ferdynand Ossendowski

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Apr 27, 11, 18:39 #62

Andrzej Stasiuk

I read two of his books.

"Opowieści galicyjskie" ("Galician tales") - a semi-fictional travel to a god-forgotten village in the provincial Carpatian foothills - back in time to the last days of PRL and early post-communist times. Some fragments are almost brutal in their exposition of immoral characters of some villagers. Not quite "The Delivery", but tough to read sometimes.

"Jadąc do Babadag" ("Travelling to Babadag"), a nostalgic report from the "second class" Europe: Ukraine, Romania, Hungary. The action is set during the post-communist transformation period. Attention to details, great observation ability, good style. I liked this book.

Here is a fragment from his profile on culture.pl:

More than a cult

by J. Andruchowycz, translated B. Zadura

Stasiuk sees everything.
The organ of his love - is visual memory.
The organ of his breath - is a packet of cigarettes.
The organ of his writing - is a dilapidated typewriter.
Because it is dilapidated, he writes by hand.
So, "on the spot", from himself, from me, from you.
So he is one of us, although, maybe, the best.
His writing is authentic, this is called character.
From something like that, you get to know a writer or a serial killer.
So, you will never catch him cheating.

AdamKadmonThreads: 38 Posts: 1,120 Joined: Apr 23, 10 ♂	Apr 27, 11, 18:41 #63
Jerzy Pietrkiewicz

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Apr 29, 11, 17:22 #64

Des Essientes:

Here is a link to an English translation of his book Beasts, Men and Gods http://librivox.org/beasts-men-and-gods-by-ferdinand-ossendowski/ I highly recommend it both as an account of the tumultuous Red vs. White war in Siberia and Mongolia and also as a rich first-hand account of a Pole coming face to face with the magical shamanistic and Buddhistic East.

I actually picked up the online book you recommended from the Gutenberg project. Reading it - with Google maps handy - has been fun to some point, when I started doubting authenticity of the events he describes. I had this sinking feeling of déjà vu: many years ago I was being similarly entertained by S. Rawicz's book, "The long walk" - up to the point where he described his encounter with yeti and which prompted me to carefully scrutinize the book and discover some other nonsense or publicly known facts which were claimed by Rawicz as his unique experience.

So I looked around and I found this project: "In search of the Ja Lama, The Life and Death of Dambijantsan", Don Croner, http://dambijantsan.doncroner.com .

In the draft of the first chapter Croner describes his initial fascination by the Ossendowski's "Beasts, Men and Gods" and he quotes long passages from that book, especially related to Tuyshegoun Lama, a.k.a. Dambijantsan, Dambijaltsan, Dambija, Ja Lama, Ja Bagsh, Khoyor Temeet Lam, False Lama, Chia Lama, Avenger Lama, etc. - a future hero of the Croner's book.

According to Croner, "Beasts, Men and Gods" had received rave reviews upon its publication in 1922.

The English language version went into twenty-two printings in 1922 alone, selling some 300,000 copies, and the book eventually translated into a dozen or more languages, becoming international best-seller.

Given the book's high profile and sensational content, however, it is not surprising that detractors soon appeared … historians, explorers, and travellers who were more familiar with Mongolia found much in the book that was incorrect or simply unbelievable.

After about a page or so details of the book critiques he gets to this conclusion:
Confronted in Paris by a whole posse of European Tibetologists (sic!) and other scholars, he finally issued a statement admitting that <<this book of mine is not a scientific work but only the romantic story of my travel across Central Asia for the large public … So -- my book Beasts, Men and Gods is exclusively a literary work, based on my observations in Central Asia.>>

Croner is even implying that the "observations" were actually "enhanced by a liberal sense of literary license."

So much for the facts. But the book is still a good read though.

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Apr 29, 11, 17:54 #65

boletus:

Tuyshegoun Lama

Yes this personage was especially fascinating. Ossendowski portays him as a sort of super-spy. I wonder if Beasts Men And Gods will be made into a film as Rawicz's book was. I don't know if there are any Kalmuk actors working in the film industry that would be up for the task, but it would be very interesting to see this Lama portrayed by one of the popular Asian action stars.

boletus:

So much for the facts.

There is a biography of Baron Ungern Von Sternberg called The Bloody White Baron which portrays the Baron as a virulent Anti-Semite and so I was surprised by Ossendowski's claim that the Baron was well disposed towards Jews, but I ascribed it to his not having spent much time with Von Sternberg. Ossendowski surely wasn't trying to whitewash this bizzarre warlord in the rest of his account.
And thank you for the link to Don Croner's project, boletus. I am quite excited to learn more about the amazing super-Lama.

AdamKadmonThreads: 38 Posts: 1,120 Joined: Apr 23, 10 ♂	May 2, 11, 20:55 #66
Barszcz w kulturze starożytnej Grecji Jerzego Gota

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May 3, 11, 16:38 #67

I just discovered the webpage which is devoted to Polish political prisoners in Ravensbruck concentration camp for women. [My great aunt, a teacher, was sent there in 1939. She survived and continued teaching until late 1970s.]
http://individual.utoronto.ca/jarekg/Ravensbruck/index.html

The owner of the webpage, Jarek Gajewski, translated several poems by Grażyna Chrostowska, one of the prisoners,
http://individual.utoronto.ca/jarekg/Ravensbruck/GrazynaChrostowskaPoe tryEnglish.html

Grażyna Chrostowska was born on 21st October, 1921 in Lublin, in Poland. She was a member of the underground KOP (Komenda Obrońców Polski) organization during the Nazi Germany occupation of Poland. She was arrested by Gestapo in Lublin on 8th May, 1941. Together with her sister she was sent to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp on 23rd September, 1941. On 18th April, 1942, Grażyna Chrostowska and her sister were executed by firing squad in the camp. 8 hours before her death, she wrote the poem titled "Inquietude" (Niepokój).

THE INQUIETUDE (Niepokój)

The day is like the inquietude of Chopin's music,
The birds, scared away from their nests are circling
Low above the earth,
They are listening, afraid…

Quietness in the nature, warmth is like before a storm.
From the West, low, dark clouds flow.
Waylaid fear strikes into the heart.
Homesickness, homesickness…

I want to walk on soggy roads,
Listen to the sound of wind,
Hunt the breath of spring time,
Feel the deepest feeling,
Find quietness in love.

I am walking, unable to find, keep changing and returning.
Somewhere far a way, village hamlets are left behind.

Clouds flew to the East,
And on the east side,
Lonely, leaning, dark trees endure,
In the wind, and in the quietness,
They are swung by the inquietude.

Ravensbrück. 18 April, 1942

wildroverThreads: 180 Posts: 8,188 Joined: Jun 7, 07 ♂	May 3, 11, 16:49 #68
Des Essientes: the amazing super-Lama. oh... thats interesting...

AdamKadmonThreads: 38 Posts: 1,120 Joined: Apr 23, 10 ♂	May 3, 11, 19:11 #69
Schronisko Roman Gren

WroclawThreads: 77 Posts: 7,404 Joined: Apr 1, 06 ♂ [Moderator]	May 3, 11, 19:29 #70
When providing a link in Polish it is requested that you also provide a summary in English. Otherwise it may end up in the bin. Thank you.

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Edited by: AdamKadmon May 3, 11, 21:06 #71

Roman Gren The Shelter (pol. Schronisko)

It is about homelessness and the homeless. They came to France like many before them, driven by the hope of a better life. And they all came together in a shelter. Sissoko from Mali, whose close family were murdered in unexplained circumstances. Youmi from Senegal, who bought an apartment in one of the wealthiest quarters of Paris for a diamond. Monsieur Dembo; a minister in a Central African republic, who ran away from a diplomatic party which turned into a coup. Stiopa came from Kiev to recover after being cheated on by his wife. Maria from Cape Verde; an AIDS sufferer with three children, whose stunning beauty made the men look away, overawed. And many others. They would appear suddenly and vanish just as quickly. Some stayed longer, although they always said they were only stopping by for a while. They always left the space in the form marked “who to inform in case of an accident” blank. Roman Gren paints his characters with the precision of a Dutch master. He lovingly pens full-blooded portraits and extraordinary genre scenes, recording what is most precious in them: human dignity.

The book is available only in Polish.

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May 6, 11, 19:02 #72

The General Langfitt Story 
Polish Refugees Recount Their Experiences of Exile, Dispersal and Resettlement  

By Maryon Allbrook and Helen Cattalini
 ISBN 0 644 35781 9
First Published 1995
Available on line here: http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/refugee/langfitt/

From the introduction:
The General Langfitt Story combines excellently the extraordinary background account of a group of displaced persons, mainly women and children, from Poland who arrived in Australia in 1950, and their subsequent experience in Australia.

and from the chapter 1:
They were a part of the 1500 000 Poles who were deported to the Soviet Union in 1940 to work in remote labour camps. Around 30 000 of them later found 'freedom' in transit camps in India, British East Africa and Palestine. Their story of hardship and survival is a dramatic and remarkable one.

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