By Ossoliński National Institute
Hanna Kulesza (Manuscript Department of the Ossoliński National Institute)
Post-War Plan of Wrocław (1946) by Measurement Department of the Voivodship Office in WrocławOssoliński National Institute
In the summer of 1945, the Potsdam Conference decided to hand Lower Silesia over to Poland. This resulted in relocation of the population.
In 1946, the Library of the Ossoliński National Institute, called the Ossolineum, was moved from Lviv to Wrocław.
For Lvivians it became a symbol of their lost “little homeland”. For many migrants, Wrocław became their final destination and their new “little homeland”. They actively engaged in the literary and cultural life of the city.
Tadeusz Mikulski
He arrived from Warsaw at the end of 1945 to co-create the Polish Studies Department in Wrocław. He engaged in the Polish Literature and Language Enthusiasts Club, which organised Literary Thursdays. The events featured well-known writers, literature experts and artists.
"Wrocław Encounters". Historical and literary essays (1950) by Tadeusz Mikulski (1909–1958)Ossoliński National Institute
One of the highlights of Literary Thursdays were Mikulski’s lectures, during which he presented links between old Wrocław and Polish culture, collected in a book entitled “Wrocław Encounters”.
Mikulski did not shy away from the post-war ideology of the “Regained Territories”. He focused on fortunes of writers and emigrants passing through Wrocław, starting with Juliusz Słowacki.
"The Monastery Street". Excerpts from a radio play and novel (1946-1949) by Anna Kowalska (1903–1969)Ossoliński National Institute
Anna Kowalska
Anna was married to Jerzy Kowalski, a professor of classical philology and a writer from Lviv who was involved in establishing the University of Wrocław after the war. She lived in Wrocław until 1954 and took an active part in organising the city’s cultural life. She wrote several books in Wrocław.
Radio plays, such as Anna Kowalska’s series “Uliczka klasztorna” [“The cloister alley”], played an important role in integrating the newcomers. She wrote dialogues among newcomers from Lviv and Warsaw based on her own experiences. Later on, Kowalska turned them into the first post-war novel about Wrocław.
Tadeusz Zelenay
Writer, journalist, translator and radio presenter. He settled in Wrocław just after the war. He wrote a series of reportages from Lower Silesian towns and cities, describing how the settlers started their new lives.
As recommended by the authorities, he paid attention to Polish traces in history and architecture, especially medieval, but he was most interested in ordinary people.
Ewa Szumańska-Szmorlińska
A native of Warsaw, Ewa Szumańska settled in Wrocław in 1947. She worked at the Polish Radio Station in Wrocław, was a journalist, author of travel and autobiographical prose, columns and dramatic plays.
Her reportages were a “window on the world” for readers in the People’s Republic of Poland, often deprived of the opportunity to leave the country
From a Young Doctors’ Diary
Szumańska’s radio sketches in the form of dialogues between a female doctor and her patients, which she wrote and performed between 1975 and 2007, gained her greatest popularity. The dialogues were based on observations of of everyday life and allusions to politics.
Tymoteusz Karpowicz
Tymoteusz Karpowicz was Professor Mikulski’s assistant at the University of Wrocław. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was an important figure in the city’s literary life, editor of literary magazines, author of poetry and dramas and promoter of young talents.
From 1973, he lectured on the history of Polish literature abroad (mainly at the University of Illinois in Chicago). He died in the USA in 2005, and his archive was brought to Wrocław.
At the turn of 1960s and 1970s, Karpowicz was associated with the Wrocław Contemporary Theatre, which staged 8 of his plays. A drama entitled “The Invisible Boy” was stopped by political censorship.
"Inverted Light". Poems (1961-1971) by Tymoteusz Karpowicz (1921–2005)Ossoliński National Institute
The poetry volume “Inverted Light”, published in 1972, considered the pinnacle of the linguistic poetry current.
Karpowicz was sometimes called the “The 20th Century Alchemist”. Prominent features of his poetry, known as linguistic poetry, included innovative language transformation and piled-up up metaphors. His groundbreaking volume of poems, “Inverted Light”, got a cold reception from critics, which contributed to the author’s decision to emigrate.
Having left the country, Karpowicz cultivated some of his Wrocław friendships, for example with the poet Marianna Bocian. They both strived for renewing language of poetry and communication. Both were interested in art, philosophy, ecology, and were uncompromising on ethical issues.
Concrete poetry. Designs of objects, theoretical texts (1970-1979) by Marianna Bocian (1942–2003)Ossoliński National Institute
Marianna Bocian
Marianna Bocian’s concrete poetry looks at the intersection of the word and the image. It expressed the revolt against the appropriation of language by political propaganda and the media.
"I remember. Records of Martial Law". Poems (1982-1986) by Krystyna Miłobędzka (1932 –)Ossoliński National Institute
Krystyna Miłobędzka
Karpowicz also engaged in letter dialogues with Krystyna Miłobędzka and Andrzej Falkiewicz, a married couple of writers who lived in Wrocław (intermittently) from 1967 to 1993.
Miłobędzka was a poet and author of plays for children. Like Karpowicz, she experimented with poetic language. Her notebooks with poetry, written in Wrocław during martial law, shows how she searched for the right words to include a maximum of content.
Rafał Wojaczek
Rafał Wojaczek owed his successful debut to Karpowicz, who included his poems in the first issue of “Poetry” magazine in 1965. He returned the favour by dedicating his volume “Unfinished Crusade” to his mentor. Wojaczek spent seven years in Wrocław.
Wojaczek spent only seven years in Wrocław (1964-1971). Filled with literary successes and alcoholic excesses, this period ended with his tragic death. He treated his life and body as a laboratory of poetry and freedom. He deliberately crossed boundaries in life and art, just like the poets of the Romantic era.
Diary of a stay at the Psychiatric Clinic of Wrocław Medical University (1965) by Rafał Wojaczek (1945–1971)Ossoliński National Institute
“You don’t die here. You live here, all the more so” – he wrote in a diary written in 1965 at the Psychiatric Clinic of the Medical Academy in Wrocław. He meant the hospital, the city and the Motherland.
Wojaczek sought to renew poetic language in a different way to the poets of the linguistic trend. He raised subjects considered embarrassing and unpoetic, broke moral and linguistic taboos. By blurring the boundaries between life and art, he created his own biographical legend.
Tadeusz Różewicz
Tadeusz Różewicz settled in Wrocław in 1968. By then, he had already been an established poet, playwright and prose writer. He was attracted to Wrocław by its peripherality, the anonymity of life, its openness to the avant-garde, the presence of theatres and literary magazines such as “Odra”.
He moved into a tenement house on Gliniana Street. He complained about the city noise, which disturbed him at work. Despite that, he wrote some outstanding pieces in Wrocław, such as the micro-story “Death in Old Decorations”, the dramas “White Marriage” and “Trap”, and the columns from his “Margin, but...” series.
The Giant Mountains became Różewicz’s respite from the city. He only discovered them in 1996, when he visited Karpacz at the invitation of Henryk Tomaszewski, the founder of the Pantomime Theatre. “The Tale About Late Love” is a tribute to the beauty of the mountains and Wanda Rutkiewicz, a Himalayan climber.
Tadeusz Różewicz wrote numerous brief prose narratives. He often drew themes from his own life and observations. He composed the story about his meeting with the legendary Rübezahl on the occasion of a ceremony held by the Karpacz Town Council in 1997.
Różewicz might have never found out anything about Liczyrzepa, or Rüberzahl, but for Józef Sykulski, a teacher who settled in Jelenia Góra after the war. He adapted the German legends for Polish readers and culture and published in 1945.
It was the first post-war fiction book in Lower Silesia. Since then, Liczyrzepa has been incorporated into the Karkonosze landscape and nomenclature, although the author decided years later that he should have been named the Treasurer of the Riphean Mountains.
Tadeusz Różewicz in the Hall under the Dome at the Ossolineum in Wrocław (2002) by Andrzej NiedźwiedzkiOssoliński National Institute
Over time, Tadeusz Różewicz found his favourite places in Wrocław, such as the ZOO, the Southern Park and the historic Ostrów Tumski (Cathedral Island). In 1975, he moved to the quieter Januszowicka Street, and in 2003 to a villa in the Biskupin district.
When he died, a bust of him was placed in the Gallery of Famous Wroclawians in the City Hall. His manuscripts, books and memorabilia became part of the collection of the Ossoliński National Institute, where he was a frequent guest during his lifetime.
Post-War Plan of Wrocław (1946) by Measurement Department of the Voivodship Office in WrocławOssoliński National Institute
Wrocław since the post-war years – “a laboratory of freedom”
The protagonists presented here strived to achieve freedom in various ways. Not allowing mass culture and politics to impoverish their art, they shifted their attention from content to form, from the social to the private. They restored meaning to the word “artist”.
Their oeuvre remains important and influences Wrocław’s contemporary involvement in the life of their “little homeland”.
