- Tadeusz Konwicki
Tadeusz Konwicki (born
June 22 ,1926 ) is a Polishwriter andfilm director , a member of thePolish Language Council .Life
Konwicki was born in 1926 in
Nowa Wilejka nearVilnius , where he spent his earlychildhood . He spent his adolescence in Vilnius, attending a local gymnasium. Immediately following the outbreak ofWorld War II , Vilnius was occupied by theSoviet Union and subsequently byNazi Germany , and all education for Poles was discontinued. Konwicki continued his studies underground. In 1944, he joined the ranks of a localHome Army partisan unit, taking part inOperation Tempest andOperation Ostra Brama . After the war Vilnius was annexed by theSoviet Union and Konwicki was expatriated.In the spring of 1945 Konwicki moved to
Kraków , where he enrolled atJagiellonian University . He also started to work as a journalist at "Odrodzenie" weekly, moving toWarsaw in 1947 to continue his work for the magazine. In the capital, he was one of the leading advocates forSocialist Realism in literature. In 1948 he finished his memoirs of his partisan years ("Rojsty"), but the book was not published until 1956. His literary debut was theproduction novel "Construction Site" (1950, "Przy Budowie"), which was followed by the novel "Power" (1954, "Władza"). His 1956 novel "From a Besieged City" (1956, "Z oblężonego miasta") also became quite popular.In the years 1952-1966 he was a member of
Polish United Workers' Party By the mid 1950s, Konwicki had become disillusioned by thecommunist regime inPoland and fell out of grace with the party. His later works (beginning with "A Hole in the Sky" (1959, "Dziura w niebie"), are mostly concerned with the author's childhood and the semi-mythical, romantic land of his youth.At this time Konwicki became the head of the
Kadr Film Studio and has since been recognized as one of the most notable members of thePolish Film School . However, his work veered away from the style pursued by his contemporaries, due to its uniquely bitter quality. As a filmmaker he is best known for "The Last Day of Summer " ("Ostatni dzień lata", 1958) and "All Souls' Day" ("Zaduszki", 1961).He is best known for two novels, published by the Polish underground press: "
The Polish Complex " (1977) and "A Minor Apocalypse " (1979). The latter work, a bitter satire about a washed-up writer who is asked to burn himself in front of the Soviet-builtPalace of Culture and Science, Warsaw , was subsequently adapted as the basis of a French film bearing the same title.Konwicki currently lives in
Warsaw and continues to write essays and journal articles.Works
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*ee also
*List of Poles
External links
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