Władysław Reymont
Władysław Reymont | |
---|---|
Born | Stanisław Władysław Rejment 7 May 1867 Kobiele Wielkie, Congress Poland, Russian Empire |
Died | 5 December 1925 Warsaw, Poland | (aged 58)
Nationality | Polish |
Period | 1896–1924 |
Genre | Realism |
Literary movement | Young Poland |
Notable works | The Promised Land (1899) The Peasants (1904–1909) |
Notable awards | Nobel Prize in Literature 1924 |
Signature | |
Władysław Stanisław Reymont (Polish:
Born into an impoverished
Władysław Reymont was popular in
Surname
Reymont's baptism certificate gives his birth name as Stanisław Władysław Rejment. The change of surname from "Rejment" to "Reymont" was made by the author himself during his publishing debut, as it was supposed to protect him, in the Russian sector of
Life
Reymont was born in the village of
To his family's annoyance, Reymont did not work a single day as a tailor. Instead, he first ran away to work in a travelling provincial theatre and then returned in the summer to Warsaw for the "garden theatres". Without a penny to his name, he then returned to Tuszyn after a year, and, thanks to his father's connections, he took up employment as a gateman at a railway crossing near
Work
When his Korespondencje (Correspondence) from
Rejmont sent his short stories to different magazines and, encouraged by good reviews, decided to write novels: Komediantka (The Deceiver) (1895) and Fermenty (Ferments) (1896). No longer poor, he would soon satisfy his passion for travel, visiting Berlin, London, Paris, and Italy. Then, he spent a few months in Łódź collecting material for a new novel ordered by the Kurier Codzienny (The Daily Courier) from Warsaw. The earnings from this book Ziemia Obiecana (The Promised Land) (1899) enabled him to go on his next trip to France where he socialized with other exiled Poles (Jan Lorentowicz, Żeromski, Przybyszewski and Lucjan Rydel).
His earnings did not allow for this kind of life of travel. However, in 1900 he was awarded 40,000 rubles in compensation from the
Nobel Prize
In November 1924 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature over rivals Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw and Thomas Hardy, after he had been nominated by Anders Österling, member of the Swedish Academy.[4] Public opinion in Poland supported this recognition for Stefan Żeromski, but the prize went to the author of Chłopi. Żeromski was reportedly refused for his allegedly anti-German sentiments. However, Reymont could not take part in the award ceremony in Sweden due to a heart condition. The award and the check for 116,718 Swedish kronor were sent to Reymont in France, where he was being treated.
In 1925, somewhat recovered, he went to a farmers' meeting in Wierzchosławice near Kraków, where Wincenty Witos welcomed him as a member of the Polish People's Party "Piast" and praised his writing skills. Soon afterward, Reymont's health deteriorated. He died in Warsaw in December 1925 and was buried in the Powązki Cemetery. The urn holding his heart was laid in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.
Reymont's literary output includes about 30 extensive volumes of prose. There are works of reportage: Pielgrzymka do Jasnej Góry (Pilgrimage to Jasna Góra) (1894), Z ziemi chełmskiej (From the Chełm Lands) (1910 – about the persecutions of the Uniates), Z konstytucyjnych dni (From the Days of the Constitution) (about the revolution of 1905). Also, there are some sketches from the collection Za frontem (Beyond the Front) (1919) and numerous short stories on life in the theatre and the village or on the railway: "Śmierć" ("Death") (1893), "Suka" ("Bitch") (1894), "Przy robocie" ("At Work") and "W porębie" ("In the Clearing") (1895), "Tomek Baran" (1897), "Sprawiedliwie" ("Justly") (1899) and a sketch for a novel Marzyciel (Dreamer) (1908). There are also novels: Komediantka, Fermenty, Ziemia obiecana, Chłopi, Wampir (The Vampire) (1911), which were sceptically received by the critics, and a trilogy written in the years 1911–1917: Rok 1794 (1794) (Ostatni Sejm Rzeczypospolitej, Nil desperandum and Insurekcja) (The Last Parliament of the Commonwealth, Nil desperandum and Insurrection).
Major books
Critics admit a number of similarities between Reymont and the Naturalists. They stress that this was not a "borrowed" Naturalism but rather a record of life as experienced by the writer. Moreover, Reymont never formulated an aesthetic of his writing. In that, he resembled other Polish autodidacts such as Mikołaj Rej and Aleksander Fredro. With little higher education and inability to read another language, Reymont realized that it was his knowledge of grounded reality, not literary theory, that was his strong suit.
His novel Komediantka paints the drama of a rebellious girl from the provinces who joins a traveling theatre troupe and finds, instead of escape from the mendacity of her native surroundings, a nest of intrigue and sham. In Fermenty, a sequel to Komediantka, the heroine, rescued after a suicide attempt, returns to her family and accepts the burden of existence. Aware that dreams and ideas do not come true, she marries a nouveau riche who is in love with her.
Ziemia Obiecana (The Promised Land), possibly Reymont's best-known novel, is a social panorama of the city of Łódź during the industrial revolution, full of dramatic detail, presented as an arena of the struggle for survival. In the novel, the city destroys those who accept the rules of the "rat race", as well as those who do not. The moral gangrene equally affects the three main characters, a German, a Jew, and a Pole. This dark vision of cynicism, illustrating the bestial qualities of men and the law of the jungle, where ethics, noble ideas and holy feelings turn against those who believe in them, are, as the author intended, at the same time a denunciation of industrialisation and urbanisation.
Ziemia Obiecana has been translated into at least 15 languages and two film adaptations—one in 1927, directed by A. Węgierski and A. Hertz, the other, in 1975, directed by Andrzej Wajda.
In Chłopi, Reymont created a more complete and suggestive picture of country life than any other Polish writer.[citation needed] The novel impresses the reader with its authenticity of the material reality, customs, behaviour and spiritual culture of the people. It is authentic and written in the local dialect. Reymont uses dialect in dialogues and in narration, creating a kind of a universal language of Polish peasants. Thanks to this, he presents the colourful reality of the "spoken" culture of the people better than any other author.[citation needed] He set the action in Lipce, a real village which he came to know during his work on the railway near Skierniewice, and restricted the time of events to ten months in the unspecified "now" of the 19th century. It is not history that determines the rhythm of country life, but the "unspecified time" of eternal returns. The composition of the novel astonishes the reader with its strict simplicity and functionality.
The titles of the volumes signal a tetralogy in one vegetational cycle, which regulates the eternal and repeatable rhythm of village life. Parallel to that rhythm is a calendar of religion and customs, also repeatable. In such boundaries Reymont placed a colourful country community with sharply drawn individual portraits. The repertoire of human experience and the richness of spiritual life, which can be compared with the repertoire of
Revolt
Reymont's last book, Bunt (Revolt), serialized in 1922 and published in book form in 1924, describes a revolt by animals which take over their farm in order to introduce "equality". The revolt quickly degenerates into abuse and bloody terror.
The story was a metaphor for the
Works
- Pielgrzymka do Jasnej Góry (A Pilgrimage to Jasna Góra, 1895)
- Komediantka (The Deceiver, 1896)
- Fermenty (Ferments, 1897)
- Ziemia obiecana (The Promised Land, 1898)
- Lili : żałosna idylla (Lily: A Pathetic Idyll 1899)
- Sprawiedliwie (Justly, 1899)
- Na Krawędzi: Opowiadania (On the Edge: Stories, 1907)
- Chłopi(The Peasants, 1904–1909), Nobel Prize for Literature, 1924
- Marzyciel (The Dreamer, 1910),
- Rok 1794 (1794, 1914–1919)
- Part I: Ostatni Sejm Rzeczypospolitej (The Last Sejm of the Republic)
- Part II: Nil desperandum! (Never Despair!)
- Part III: Insurekcja (The Uprising), about the Kościuszko Uprising
- Wampir – powieść grozy (The Vampire, 1911)
- Przysiega (Oaths, 1917)
- Bunt (The Revolt, 1924)
English translations
- The Comédienne (Komediantka) translated by Edmund Obecny (1920)
- The Peasants (Chłopi) translated by Michael Henry Dziewicki (1924–1925); translated by Anna Zaranko (2022)
- The Promised Land (Ziemia obiecana) translated by Michael Henry Dziewicki (1927)
- Polish Folklore Stories (1944)
- Burek The Dog That Followed the Lord Jesus and Other Stories (1944)
- A Pilgrimage to Jasna Góra (Pielgrzymka do Jasnej Góry) translated by Filip Mazurczak (2020)
- The Revolt of the Animals (Bunt) translated by Charles S. Kraszewski (2022)
See also
References
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1924. Wladyslaw Reymont". The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize. Retrieved March 20, 2012.
- ^ a b c Wladyslaw Reymont. "Autobiography". The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize. Retrieved March 20, 2012.
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures.
- ^ "Reymont in London: A Writer's Spiritualistic Adventures". Retrieved 29 August 2021.
- ^ "Nomination Archive". April 2020.
External links
- Władysław Reymont on Nobelprize.org
- Reymont pages at University of Buffalo's Polish Info Center
- Władysław Stanislaw Reymont at Culture.pl
- Works by Władysław Reymont at Project Gutenberg
- List of Works
- Works by or about Władysław Reymont at Internet Archive
- Works by Władysław Reymont at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)