Wisława Szymborska

Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska<ref>Jarosław Malesiński Wspomnienie. mieczewo.com. 2 February 2012. [dostęp 11 February 2012].</ref><ref name=GW>Violetta Szostak Szymborscy – burzliwe fortuny obroty gazeta.pl, 9 February 2012. [dostęp 11 February 2012].</ref> (Template:IPA; 2 July 1923 – 1 February 2012) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent (now part of Kórnik in west-central Poland), she resided in Kraków until the end of her life.<ref name=reuters_death/><ref name=france24_death/> In Poland, Szymborska's books have reached sales rivaling prominent prose authors, though she wrote in a poem, "Some Like Poetry" ("Niektórzy lubią poezję"), that "perhaps" two in a thousand people like poetry.<ref>Szymborska, Wisława. "Some Like Poetry".</ref>

Szymborska was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> She became better known internationally as a result. Her work has been translated into many European languages, as well as into Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, Persian and Chinese.

Life

File:Dawna oficyna folwarczna z ok. poł. XVIII w., ul. Prowent 4.jpg

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>Template:Cite web</ref> of Wincenty Szymborski and Anna (née Rottermund) Szymborska. Her father was, at that time, the steward of Count Władysław Zamoyski, a Polish patriot and charitable 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 underground classes. From 1943, she worked as a railroad employee and managed to avoid being deported to Germany as a forced labourer.<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>Template:Cite web</ref>

Szymborska adhered to the People's Republic of Poland's (PRL) official ideology early in her career. For example, during the Polish anti-religious campaign, she signed an infamous 1953 political petition condemning Polish priests accused of treason in a Kraków show trial.<ref name="Zieleśkiewicz">Michał St. de Zieleśkiewicz, "Szymborska: zabić księży Kurii Krakowskiej." Bibula – pismo niezalezne, 21 January 2011. Template:In lang</ref><ref name="Łysiak2000">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Wilhelm">Template:Cite book</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>Template:Cite web</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.

Death and last works

Surrounded by friends and relatives, Szymborska died peacefully of lung cancer in her sleep at home in Kraków in 2012, aged 88.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=reuters_death>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=france24_death>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She was working on new poetry at the time of her death, but was unable to arrange her final poems for publication in the way she wanted. Her last poetry was published later in 2012.<ref name=bbc_death>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2013, the Wisława Szymborska Award was established in honour of her legacy.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2024, the Wisława Szymborska Foundation president Michał Rusinek signed an agreement with Polskie Radio's OFF Radio Krakow for the rights to use her voice recordings for generated speech to be used for an interview-like programme. The programme, broadcast on 29 October that year, was swiftly condemned by both Polish audiences and media producers.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Themes

Szymborska frequently employed literary devices such as ironic precision, paradox, contradiction, and understatement to illuminate philosophical themes and obsessions. Many of her poems feature war and terrorism.<ref name=reuters_death/><ref name=france24_death/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She wrote from unusual points of view, such as a cat in the newly empty apartment of its dead owner.<ref name=france24_death/> Her reputation rests on a relatively small body of work, fewer than 350 poems. When asked why she had published so few poems, she said, "I have a trash can in my home".<ref name=reuters_death/>

Pop culture

Szymborska's poem "Buffo" was set to music by Barbara Maria Zakrzewska-Nikiporczyk in 1985.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Her poem "Love at First Sight" was used in the film Turn Left, Turn Right, starring Takeshi Kaneshiro and Gigi Leung. Krzysztof Kieślowski's film Three Colors: Red was also inspired by "Love at First Sight".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In her last year, Szymborska collaborated with Polish jazz trumpeter Tomasz Stańko, who dedicated his record Wisława (ECM, 2013) to her memory, taking inspiration from their collaboration and her poetry.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Szymborska's poem "People on the Bridge" was made into a film by Beata Poźniak. It was shown worldwide and at a New Delhi film festival. As an award, it was screened 36 more times in 18 Indian cities.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The poem Nothing Twice (Nic dwa razy) has inspired multiple musical adaptations, including Łucja Prus's performance at the 1965 Sopot International Song Festival and Maanam's song Nic dwa razy, from their 1994 album Róża. In 2022, Sanah adapted the poem into a song as part of her project based on Polish poetry, Sanah śpiewa Poezyje.

Major works

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Wisława Szymborska and President Bronisław Komorowski at the Order of the White Eagle award ceremony in January 2011.

• 1952: Dlatego żyjemy ("That's Why We Are All Alive")
• 1954: Pytania zadawane sobie ("Questioning Yourself")
• 1957: Wołanie do Yeti ("Calling Out to Yeti")
• 1962: Sól ("Salt")
• 1966: 101 wierszy ("101 Poems")
• 1967: Sto pociech ("No End of Fun")
• 1967: Poezje wybrane ("Selected Poetry")
• 1972: Wszelki wypadek ("Could Have")
• 1976: Wielka liczba ("A Large Number")
• 1986: Ludzie na moście ("People on the Bridge")
• 1989: Poezje. Poems, bilingual Polish-English edition
• 1992: Lektury nadobowiązkowe ("Non-required Reading")
• 1993: Koniec i początek ("The End and the Beginning")
• 1996: Widok z ziarnkiem piasku ("View with a Grain of Sand")
• 1997: Sto wierszy – sto pociech ("100 Poems – 100 Happinesses")
• 2002: Chwila ("Moment")<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2003: Rymowanki dla dużych dzieci ("Rhymes for Big Kids")
• 2005: Dwukropek ("Colon")<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2005: Monolog psa zaplątanego w dzieje ("Monologue of a Dog Ensnared in History")
• 2009: Tutaj ("Here")<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2012: Wystarczy ("Enough")<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2013: Błysk rewolwru ("The Glimmer of a Revolver")<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Prizes and awards

File:Wisława Szymborska 2023 stamp of Serbia.jpg

Szymborska on a 2023 stamp of Serbia

• 1954: The City of Kraków Prize for Literature
• 1963: The Polish Ministry of Culture Prize
• 1974: Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta
• 1990: Kościelski Award
• 1991: Goethe Prize
• 1995: Herder Prize
• 1995: Honorary Degree of the Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznań)
• 1996: The Polish PEN Club prize
• 1996: Nobel Prize in Literature
• 1996: Person of the Year by Wprost
• 1997: Honorary Resident of the Royal Capital City of Kraków
• 2005: Gold Medal for Merit to Culture - Gloria Artis
• 2011: Order of the White Eagle<ref name=reuters_death/>

Reviews

• 1998 Boston Review: Poems – New and Collected 1957–1997 by Frances Padorr Brent
• 2001 The New Republic: "Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska" by Ruth Franklin
• 2006 The Christian Science Monitor: A fascinating journey with two women poets by Elizabeth Lund
• 2006 Moondance magazine: Stories/Poems. Plain and Simple. – Mapping the Words of Wislawa Szymborska on Her Latest Book, Monologue of a Dog by Lys Anzia
• 2006 Sarmatian Review: Wislawa Szymborska's 'Conversation With a Stone' – An Interpretation by Mary Ann Furno Template:Webarchive
• 2006 Words Without Borders: Monologue of a Dog – New Poems of Wislawa Szymborska by W. Martin
• 2015 All roads will lead you home Poetic Alchemy: Wislawa Szymborska's Map: Collected and Last Poems by Wally Swist [vacpoetry.org/journal/]

See also

• Moskalik (poetry)
• Wisława Szymborska Award

External links

• Wislawa Szymborska: Including biography and Nobel speech – NobelPrize.org
• Template:Nobelprize including the Nobel Lecture, 7 December 1996 The poet and the world
• List of Works
• Wisława Szymborska at Encyclopædia Britannica
• Wisława Szymborska poems and biography at poezja.org