| Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1865-02-12)12 February 1865 Ludźmierz |
| Died | 18 January 1940(1940-01-18) (aged 74) Warsaw |
| Language | Polish Goralic |
| Genre | Romanticism |
| Literary movement | Young Poland |
Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer (12 February 1865 – 18 January 1940) was a Polish Goral poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and writer. He was a member of the Young Poland movement.
Life
Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer was born in Ludźmierz in Podhale near the Tatra Mountains, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire now in Poland, and died in Warsaw. His older half-brother was the painter Włodzimierz Tetmajer. Przerwa-Tetmajer studied classics and philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in 1884–1889. He then became a journalist at Kurier Polski, and lived both in the Tatras and in Kraków (Cracow). After World War I he moved to Warsaw to serve as president of the Society of Writers and Journalists. In 1934 he was made honorary member of the Polish Academy of Literature.
Przerwa-Tetmajer suffered from a mental illness in the latter years of his life, which prevented him from writing. He was living in a hospice in 1940 when the German occupants evicted all the patients. He was left homeless and died shortly afterwards in a Warsaw hospital.
Work
Przerwa-Tetmajer wrote seven collections of poetry before World War I. He is particularly well known for his works about the Tatra mountains. At least one of his poems, Kriváň, High Kriváň! (Krywaniu, Krywaniu wysoki!) is now often taken for an authentic folk song and was credited as such on a similarly named 1972 folk-rock album by Skaldowie. According to Barry Keane from The Warsaw Voice:
Przerwa Tetmajer was primarily a lyrical poet who articulated the birth pangs of modernism at the turn of the century, but he will be best remembered for his erotic verse and for poems evoking his beloved Tatra mountains. He broke with age-old subtleties and niceties common to amorous poetry and wrote on love in frank and provocative terms. The poet simultaneously attracted huge praise from legions of readers and loud accusations of depravity from other quarters... at the close of the 19th century.
His work was also part of the literature event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.
See also
References
- Przerwa-Tetmajer, Kazimierz (1903). "Jak Jasiek z Ustupu, Hanusia od Królów i Marta Uherczykówna z Liptowa śpiewali w jedno słoneczne rano ku sobie". Na Skalnym Podhalu.
- Długołęcka, Lidia; Maciej Pinkwart (1992). Muzyka i Tatry.
- (30 December 2008). "Sensational literary discovery". Polish Radio – External Service, English Section. thenews.pl.
- "Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer". Olympedia. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
See also
- About K. Przerwa-Tetmajer in Encyclopædia Britannica
- Sample poem: "A Cradle Wind", translated by Walter Whipple
- Polish literature
- Young Poland
- 1865 births
- 1940 deaths
- People from Nowy Targ County
- Polish Austro-Hungarians
- Polish Gorals
- Polish male poets
- Polish male novelists
- Polish erotica writers
- Jagiellonian University alumni
- Polish male journalists
- 19th-century Polish poets
- 19th-century Polish novelists
- 19th-century Polish journalists
- 19th-century Polish male writers
- 20th-century Polish poets
- 20th-century Polish novelists
- 20th-century Polish journalists
- 20th-century Polish male writers
- Olympic competitors in art competitions