Editing Wisława Szymborska (section)

== Life ==
[[File:Dawna oficyna folwarczna z ok. poł. XVIII w., ul. Prowent 4.jpg|thumb|right|260px|The house where Wisława Szymborska was born, in Prowent, now part of [[Kórnik]], Poland]]
Wisława Szymborska was born on 2 July 1923 in [[Prowent]], the second daughter<ref>{{cite web|url=http://culture.pl/pl/tworca/wislawa-szymborska |title=Wisława Szymborska |last=Kowalczyk |first=Janusz R. |date=2012 |publisher= culture.pl |access-date=18 September 2017}}</ref> of Wincenty Szymborski and Anna (née Rottermund) Szymborska. Her father was, at that time, the [[steward (office)|steward]] of Count [[Władysław Zamoyski]], a Polish patriot and charitable [[patronage|patron]]. After Zamoyski's death in 1924, her family moved to [[Toruń]], and in 1931 to [[Kraków]], where she lived and worked until her death in early 2012.<ref name=france24_death/>

When [[World War II]] broke out in 1939, she continued her education in [[Education in Poland during World War II|underground classes]]. From 1943, she worked as a railroad employee and managed to avoid being deported to Germany as a [[forced labor in Nazi Germany|forced labour]]er.<ref name=france24_death/> During this time, her career as an artist began, with illustrations for an English-language textbook. She also began writing stories and [[occasional poems]]. In 1945, she began studying Polish literature before switching to sociology at [[Jagiellonian University]] in Kraków.<ref name=france24_death/> There, she became involved in the local writing scene, and met and was influenced by [[Czesław Miłosz]]. In March 1945, she published her first poem, "Szukam słowa" ("Looking for words"), in the daily newspaper ''Dziennik Polski''. Her poems continued to be published in various newspapers and periodicals for a number of years.<ref name=france24_death/><ref name=bbc_death/> In 1948, she quit her studies without a degree, due to poor financial circumstances; the same year, she married poet [[Adam Włodek]], whom she divorced in 1954. They remained close until Włodek's death in 1986.<ref name=france24_death/> Their union was childless. Around the time of her marriage, she was working as a secretary for an educational biweekly magazine as well as an illustrator. Her first book was to be published in 1949, but did not pass censorship as it "did not meet socialist requirements".<ref>{{Cite web |date=22 August 2022 |title=Wisława Szymborska – krótka biografia – Wisława Szymborska – Zinterpretuj.pl |url=https://zinterpretuj.pl/opracowania/wislawa-szymborska-krotka-biografia/ |access-date=29 August 2022 |language=pl-PL}}</ref>

Szymborska adhered to the [[People's Republic of Poland]]'s (PRL) [[Stalinism in Poland|official ideology]] early in her career. For example, during the [[Polish anti-religious campaign]], she signed an infamous 1953 political petition condemning [[Stalinist show trial of the Kraków Curia|Polish priests accused of treason]] in a [[Kraków]] [[show trial]].<ref name="Zieleśkiewicz">Michał St. de Zieleśkiewicz, [http://www.bibula.com/?p=30966 "Szymborska: zabić księży Kurii Krakowskiej."] ''Bibula – pismo niezalezne'', 21 January 2011. {{in lang|pl}}</ref><ref name="Łysiak2000">{{cite book|author=Waldemar Łysiak|title=Stulecie kłamców|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bXIWAQAAIAAJ|access-date=3 February 2012|year=2000|publisher=Ex Libris/Galeria Polskiej Książki|isbn=978-83-88455-21-6|page=214}}</ref><ref name="Wilhelm">{{cite book|author=Stanisław Wilhelm|title=Pajęczyna III RP – Urzędnicy i Sędziowie; Anatomia manipulacji prawem|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lQkZgdcdwGMC&pg=PA320|access-date=3 February 2012|publisher=Stanislaw Wilhelm Grys|isbn=978-83-932740-0-0|page=320}}</ref> Her early work supported socialist themes, as seen in her debut collection ''Dlatego żyjemy'' (''That is what we are living for''), containing the poems "Lenin" and "Młodzieży budującej Nową Hutę" ("For the Youth who are building [[Nowa Huta]]"), about the construction of a Stalinist industrial town near Kraków.<ref name=france24_death/> She became a member of the ruling [[Polish United Workers' Party]].

Although initially close to the official party line, as the Polish Communist Party shifted from the Stalinist communists to "national" communists, Szymborska grew estranged from socialist ideology and renounced her earlier political work.<ref name=france24_death/> Although she did not officially leave the Communist party until 1966, she began to establish contacts with dissident intellectuals.<ref name=france24_death/> As early as 1957, she befriended [[Jerzy Giedroyc]], the editor of the influential Paris-based émigré journal ''[[Kultura]]'', to which she contributed. In 1964, she opposed a Communist-backed protest to ''[[The Times]]'' against independent intellectuals, demanding freedom of speech instead.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://prawy.pl/r2_index.php?dz=felietony&id=27894&subdz=11|title=portal poświęcony Polsce, rodzinie i tradycji|publisher=Prawy.pl|access-date=3 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218221203/http://prawy.pl/r2_index.php?dz=felietony&id=27894&subdz=11|archive-date=18 February 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1953, Szymborska joined the staff of the literary review magazine ''Życie Literackie'' (''Literary Life''), where she continued to work until 1981 and from 1968 had a book review column, ''Lektury Nadobowiązkowe''.<ref name=france24_death/> Many of her essays from this period were later published in book form. From 1981 to 1983, she was an editor of the Kraków-based monthly periodical ''NaGlos'' (''OutLoud''). In the 1980s, she intensified her oppositional activities, contributing to the [[samizdat]] periodical ''Arka'' under the pseudonym "Stańczykówna", as well as to ''Kultura''. In the early 1990s, with a poem published in ''[[Gazeta Wyborcza]]'', she supported the vote of no confidence in the first non-Communist government that brought former Communists back to power. The last collection published while Szymborska was still alive, ''Dwukropek'', was chosen as the best book of 2006 by readers of Poland's ''[[Gazeta Wyborcza]]''.<ref name=france24_death/> She also translated [[French literature]] into Polish, in particular [[Baroque]] poetry and the works of [[Agrippa d'Aubigné]], a [[Huguenot]] soldier-poet during the [[French Wars of Religion]]. In the [[Germanosphere]], Szymborska is closely associated with [[Łódź]]-born [[literary translator]] [[Karl Dedecius]], who did much to popularize postwar [[Polish literature]] there.