15 Things You Didn't Know About Jan Brzechwa

jan-brzechwa-pap.jpg, default, Jan Brzechwa, photo: CAF/PAP, 15 Things You Didn't Know About Jan Brzechwa

The Polish author Jan Brzechwa is primarily known for creating the beloved children’s story ‘The Academy of Mr. Kleks’. The life of the poet himself, however, was often as eventful as his lively verse. From meetings with Oskar Schindler to a variety of romantic adventures and political entanglements, we explore a few facts about the Polish author’s extraordinary life.

1. Brzechwa didn’t intend to write poetry for children

lesmian boleslaw portret forum_6827489_1_0.jpg — Bolesław Leśmian, reproduction: Piotr Miecik / Forum

For the first twenty years of his literary career, Jan Brzechwa saw himself as a serious lyrical poet. Not everyone, however, shared his point of view. Having read the young Brzechwa’s verse, his older cousin, the great Polish poet Bolesław Leśmian, who had also come up with the novice author’s sonorous pseudonym Brzechwa (‘brzechwa’ means ‘fletching’), advised the young man to forget about writing and focus on his legal studies. However, the young poet did not give up, and his debut compilation Oblicza Zmyślone (Imaginary Faces), which came out in 1925, won the approval of his famous relative.

The reaction of literary critics turned out to be much more restrained. Brzechwa was already almost 40 when he brought the publisher Janina Mortkowicz a selection of poems, which composed his first book of poetry for children, Tańcowała Igła z Nitką (The Needle Danced with the Thread). This book, appearing in bookstores just before Christmas 1937, made Brzechwa famous and forever enshrined him in the canon of Polish children’s literature. And Brzechwa realized that it is better to be the first poet-storyteller, than a good second-rate poet.

2. Before the war Brzechwa worked with the Warsaw cabaret & wrote many popular hits

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The 'Mary Lou' sketch at the Morskie Oko cabaret in Warsaw, the Hawaiian dance scene; from left to right: Tadeusz Olsza, Loda Halama, Eugeniusz Bodo, photo: licensed to Culture.pl

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Brzechwa made up for the rather modest success of his lyrical poetry with his popular sketches, poems, and songs, written for the leading cabarets of inter-war Warsaw, including Qui Pro Quo, Lotos, and Morskie Oko. For his cabaret pieces, he wrote under the pseudonym Szer-Szeń, which was a peculiar reference to the famous novel The Gadfly by Ethel Lilian Voynich. As Szer-Szeń, he penned the words to such songs as Barbara, Czarny Kot (Black Cat), and Panna Pelagia. The most popular song put to Brzechwa’s verse was the composition Nietoperze (The Bats). The poet Stanisław Ryszard Dobrowolski recalled that during his service in the army he even had to sing this song in his drill training. The song Nietoperze was destined to survive World War II; and with the onset of the new historical era, it did not lose any of its brilliance and grace. In the post-war period it was performed by Mieczysław Fogg and Tadeusz Faliszewski with great success.

3. Jan Brzechwa was a well-known lawyer & copyright specialist

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Festivities on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Union of Stage Artists and Composers, Warsaw, 1948; pictured: speech by Jan Brzechwa, General Counsel of the Union, photo: PAP

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Brzechwa’s image never took on the Romantic character of the ‘cursed poet’. The author also was a well-off, elegant attorney. A law school graduate, in 1918 Brzechwa became one of the founders and leading legal advisors of the Society of Authors and Composers (ZAiKs - Związek Artystów i Kompozytorów Scenicznych) – an association for the protection of copyright and intellectual property. At that time a royalties system was already in place in Europe; but in Poland this practice didn’t exist yet, so Brzechwa and his colleagues started a revolution, instructing Poles not only to respect the intellectual property of others, but also to pay for it. Brzechwa was a lawyer in the first trial in Europe concerning copyrights in the area of movies with sound – and he won the case. In the latter half of the 1950s Brzechwa even became the chairman of ZAiKS. There was so much work associated with this post that once, when asked by a journalist ‘What do you dream about, ZAiKS chairman?’, the poet answered, ‘Not being chairman anymore’.

4. Brzechwa began writing children’s poetry… out of boredom

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Иллюстрации Яна Мартина Шанцера к книге "Бжехва - детям" (1955), источник: www.book.hipopotamstudio.pl

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Jan Brzechwa made his debut as a children’s author rather late in life, and he didn’t have much experience with children (his only daughter first met her father when she was 9 years old). So, what brought him to children’s literature? Legend has it that one day Brzechwa decided to spend a vacation in a boarding house in Zalishchyky, where he met a pretty, young woman – a kindergarten teacher. It rained every day in Zalishchyky, and Brzechwa, in order to entertain his new acquaintance, began to compose funny poems for her about different animals. Soon there were so many poems that Brzechwa decided to publish them – imagine his surprise when the publisher decided to release these poems as a book for children!

The success of the collection, entitled The Needle Dance with the Thread, inspired Brzechwa so much that he quickly wrote another book of children’s poems Kaczka-Dziwaczka (The Eccentric Duck). Despite these successful publications, Brzechwa half-jokingly, half-seriously asserted his entire life that he didn’t write poetry for children. Instead, he claimed, his poetry recreated his childhood view of the world and was verse for adults on behalf of children. That is why the prototypes of many of his children’s poems are very real adults. For example, in his poem The Insidious Flea, Brzechwa, not without irony, made the main character in the image of his third wife. However, the poem became so famous that several other ladies disputed over the right to be considered the inspiration for the insidious flea.

5. In interwar Poland, critics accused the poet of distributing pornography

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'Kaczka Dziwaczka' by Jan Brzechwa, illustrated by Franciszka Themerson, ed. by J. Mortkowicz, Warsaw, 1939, photo: National Library / Polona

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The Needle Danced with the Thread and Kaczka-Dziwaczka were met enthusiastically by little readers; however, some critic-obscurantists met Brzechwa’s debut as a fabulist with hostility. In the pages of one right-wing conservative magazine, the poet was accused of molesting minors and distributing pornography camouflaged as innocent rhymes. Indignant critics pointed to a potential double entendre in the poem Don’t Pepper, Peter… the verb 'pepper' (the verb ‘to pepper’, ‘pieprzyć’, in Polish, was colloquially used to mean ‘talking nonsense’ or ‘having sex’). At the end of the poem On the Counter, where one of the vegetable characters says ‘We will become a pot of soup, / so it’s just stupid to argue…’, Brzechwa, according to one reviewer, insidiously slipped young readers a rhyme to the word ‘soup’ (zupa), evoking a vulgar word (in Polish, the word ‘zupa’ can be rhymed with, among other words, ‘dupa’, meaning ‘butt’).

6. At the beginning of the war Brzechwa met the well-known Oskar Schindler & dedicated a love poem to his employee

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Кадр из фильма Стивена Спилберга "Список Шиндлера", 1993, фото: Rue des Archives / RDA /Forum

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In the years of the Nazi German occupation, Brzechwa’s life was constantly under threat due to the poet’s Jewish roots. In one occupation newspaper, his name even appeared on the list of Jewish writers hiding from the authorities. The poet had to live with friends and acquaintances, constantly changing addresses. At the very start of the occupation, Brzechwa hid in Mianocice near Kraków, at the estate of Helena Oskierko-Haller. A frequent visitor to the house was businessman Oskar Schindler, who bought a factory in occupied Kraków and saved the lives of more than a thousand Jews; and whose story would be the basis of Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List. Having met Brzechwa, the businessman advised the poet on how to stay safe from revealing himself to the Germans. Schindler came to Mianocice with his coworker Janina Olszewska, who Brzechwa liked so much that he gave her a poem entitled Janus for a Kiss. These verses subsequently became widely known as The Ballad of the Little Princess, and for a long time it was believed that Brzechwa wrote it for his future third wife, Janina Serocka. However, it is possible that the poet simply dedicated the same poem to two different women – especially since they had the same name.

7. Brzechwa barely noticed the Nazi German occupation due to his unhappy love life

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Jan Brzechwa, c. 1945-1950, photo: audiovis.nac.gov.pl / NAC

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The writer Kazimierz Brandys once asked Brzechwa how he managed to survive the occupation as a Jewish writer. Brzechwa answered, ‘Very simply – I had nothing to do with the occupation. I was in love’. Just like Vladimir Nabokov, who due to lovesickness did not notice the October Revolution, Brzechwa did not pay heed to the hardships of the occupation, since his chosen one did not immediately reciprocate his affections.

Brzechwa’s beloved, Janina Serocka, a woman of dazzling beauty, was married to a barber, who, besides cutting and shaving, was engaged in some not-particularly-legal business. Brzechwa, who before the war had been married twice and had countless love interests, completely lost his head and behaved like a little boy around Serocka. On the day Paris fell, he took poison (fortunately the dose was not fatal), and during a fateful conversation with Serocka in a café, he fainted. In the end she gave into his pressure, however she didn’t intend to divorce her husband. Brzechwa even visited a psychic, trying to influence his beloved with magic spells. But when Serocka’s husband was detained by the Gestapo, Brzechwa, seeing the despair of his love, went to Gestapo headquarters and, risking his life, nobly tried to secure the release of his romantic rival.

After the war, poetry prevailed over the art of hairstyling – Janina Serocka divorced her barber and married Brzechwa. At first, Brzechwa’s literary friends laughed at the beautiful but rustic woman behind her back, but they grew to like her and considered her one of their own. And soon, influenced by her famous husband, Janina Serocka-Brzechwa even began to write her own stories.

8. The Academy of Mr. Kleks is a book with a false bottom

Thumbnail — Обложка русского издания книги Яна Бжехвы "Академия пана Кляксы", фото: пресс-материалы издательства

Brzechwa wrote The Academy of Mr. Kleks (sometimes translated as The Academy of Mr. Inkblot), one of the most delightful children’s books in world literature, during the war. The book, as he’d later admit, was an escape from the terrible reality around him, and it helped him persevere. Unsurprisingly, some of the realities of the occupation are reflected in the fairy tale, though they are not so easy to find behind the fascinating plot and light, sunny tone. Nevertheless, experts have sought and found parallels to reality. Indeed, if you look closely, the academy of the ingenious chemist and mathematician Ambrose Kleks is in many ways reminiscent of the brilliant experiments of Janusz Korczak. And the invasion of wolves into Mateusz’s kingdom reflects the attack by Germany on Poland. It also is symbolic that several misfortunes, perpetrated by a doll that Mr. Kleks brought to life, befall the academy on 1 September – the day the Second World War began. In the book The Triumph of Mr. Kleks, which offers new adventures of the heroes so beloved by readers, Brzechwa went with the same technique; the fairy tale layer of the story was intended for children, and the satirical one was for adults.

9. Brzechwa was so popular that the poet was not only imitated, but even sometimes pretended not to be himself

In Łódź, where many writers and artists went to live after the war, Brzechwa was the soul of the ‘Pickwick Club’, an informal union of Polish intelligentsia who gathered at restaurant of the Savoy Hotel. The poet Igor Sikirycki recalled how one day Brzechwa pointed out a man who was signing the author’s new books for children, posing as him. ‘But this is an imposter!’ Sikirycki insisted, indignantly demanding to know of Brzechwa, ‘Why don’t you stop him?’. ‘He doesn’t bother me,’ Brzechwa smiled in reply, ‘I don’t like signing books, but this gentleman, as far as I know, has excellent handwriting. Also, he is clearly trying to please not so much the children as their young mothers – I will not deprive him of this pleasure’.

10. In Poland under the communist regime, Brzechwa participated in the ‘battle for trade’

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Illustrations by Jan Marcin Szancer for Jan Brzechwa's tale 'The Woodpecker Told the Owl', photo: book.hipopotamstudio.pl

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Once at the popular Łódź café Fraszka, by the Czytelnik publishing house, Brzechwa had dinner with the artist Eryk Lipiński and the co-operation agent Tadeusz Janczyk. The latter, having knocked back yet another drink, suggested the poet write a poetic tale promoting the idea of cooperative trade – in Poland under the communist regime the ‘battle for trade’ and the fight against private initiative was just beginning to unfold. They shook hands, and few months later Brzechwa published the book The Woodpecker Told the Owl. In the work, the woodpecker tells the owl that animal shoppers are constantly being deceived in the forest’s private shops owned by the wolf Barnaby and the lynx Basilia. In response, the inhabitants of the forest create a cooperative store, where anyone can bring something to sell: someone – an egg; another – bacon; and another – down and feathers for pillows. In this way, Brzechwa demonstrated the superiority of cooperative trade over private business: ‘No one will be tricked here / and you won’t be weighed down. / All who work for a common cause / are those who boldly believe each other’.

11. Though not being an oppositionist, Brzechwa often helped those who fell under the repressive steamroller of the communist system

pl_fo_brzechwa_jan_portret_en__w210 — Jan Brzechwa at a meeting with Soviet writers, August 1961, photo: Danuta Lomaczewska / East News

Under the communist regime, Brzechwa invariably remained loyal to the new government; he was even a member of the Polish Communist Party. It’s hard to judge how sincere he was – most likely, Brzechwa, who dealt with plenty of grief during the occupation, simply wanted the opportunity to calmly go about his business. At the same time, he repeatedly publicly emphasized that he owed much to Poland under socialism – over the ten years following the war, Brzechwa published 61 books in Poland with a total circulation of two and a half million copies, and by 1964 the total circulation of his books reached 8 million copies.

However, the writer often helped victims of the system. One day, he was approached by a crying middle-aged woman, who the Polish state security was blackmailing into cooperation, threatening to further punish her son, a former Home Army soldier who was imprisoned. Brzechwa decided to help the unfortunate woman, and every week they wrote secret reports (which would not harm anyone) together for the state security service that were so absurd and delusional that the special services themselves refused the woman’s help, and her son was released.

Socialist critics accused Brzechwa of racism and involvement in an ‘imperialist conspiracy’

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Still from Krzysztof Gradowski's film 'The Academy of Mr Kleks', photo: Festiwal Filmowy w Gdyni

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Kadr z filmu "Akademia Pana Kleksa" Krzysztofa Gradowskiego, fot. Festiwal Filmowy w Gdyni

Despite the huge number of copies sold and whole-hearted love of young readers, critics in Poland under the communist regime declared open war on Brzechwa. For example, Kaczka-Dziwaczka was accused of ‘aristocratic asociality’. The magazine Przekrój, one of the few publications that defended the poet, with caustic irony wrote about how in June 1947, at the 1st All-Polish Congress of Children’s Literature, ‘several hundred literary ladies spent three days discussing only Brzechwa’. The poet, they alleged, promoted views that had no place in a socialist society.

Editors and censors kept pace with the critics. Brzechwa told his friend Irena Szymańska about one publishing house that demanded Brzechwa accompany his poem The Needle Danced with the Thread with an image of a dressmaker, since the absence of a person in the poem disrespected human labour, which is unacceptable under socialism. Editors also insisted that the poet change the moral of the poem The Beetle, because they perceived the ladybug’s reluctance to marry the beetle (‘If you, beetle, wish to marry / you ought to take a beetle for your wife’) as racism. Additionally, the ending of the tale The Herring (‘Alas there is no sense at all / in friendship between a herring and a salmon’), in the opinion of censors, contradicted the idea of internationalism and the friendship of peoples, arousing considerable suspicion of the poet’s involvement in an imperialist conspiracy.

13. Brzechwa combined within himself the features of an epicurean & a workaholic

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Jan Brzechwa with children from a school in Błonie, Warsaw, 1963, photo: Wiesław M. Zieliński / East News

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Jan Brzechwa, wśród dzieci ze szkoły w Błoniu, Warszawa, 1963, fot. Wieslaw M. Zielinski / East News

With all his incredible busyness and fantastic efficiency, Brzechwa lived in such a way that he might be called – like Oscar Wilde – ‘the king of life’. He loved good food and expensive cigarettes, stylish notebooks, lighters, and fountain pens. He liked and knew how to dress elegantly. He had a weakness for beautiful women and enjoyed great success with them. His habit of giving flowers to women was legendary. Zofia Ernst, a translator of Italian literature, recalled how during their trip to Italy together, a conductor would come to them with a bouquet of flowers at each station – Brzechwa had bought two dozen bouquets in advance and made an agreement with the Italian railway to present them. He was also passionate about playing cards – games of bridge, poker, preference, and king would sometimes drag on until morning at Brzechwa’s Warsaw apartment. The writer knew how to make money, but at the same time possessed an even more important talent – the ability to spend this money well and wisely. Contemporaries recalled that when Brzechwa would find himself at a restaurant in large company, the waiter would intuitively approach him with the bill at the end of the night. The author Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz wrote that Jan Brzechwa was the most pleasant person he had ever met in his life.

14. Brechwa was one of the authors of the script for ‘The Two Who Stole the Moon’

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A still from the film 'The Two Who Stole the Moon', directed by Jan Batory, 1962; [pictured: Lech Kaczynski, Tadeusz Wozniak and Jarosław Kaczynski; photo: Studio Filmowe Kadr / Filmoteka Narodowa

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In 1962, the children’s fairy tale film The Two Who Stole the Moon, directed by Jan Batory and based on the eponymous story by Kornel Makuszyński, was released in Polish cinemas. Jan Brzechwa worked on the script for this movie alongside Batory. This film, about the adventures of two young daredevils who decide to steal the moon and sell it at a high price, is notable mainly for the fact that the leading roles were rather convincingly played by the twin brothers Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński – the future president and prime minister of Poland.

15. Thanks to Brzechwa, in Poland alcohol was no longer served without snacks

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Gustaw Holoubek in Wojciech Jerzy Has's film 'Loop', based on the story by Marek Hłasko, photo: National Film Library / www.fototeka.fn.org.pl

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In the late 1950s, Brzechwa wrote a column in Przekrój magazine titled The Merry Gastronomic Observatory of Jan Brzechwa, in which he shared recipes in verse and his thoughts on the organization of food service. In one of the issues, he once wrote that in order to improve the culture of drink, waiters should be prohibited from serving vodka without snacks – let the patron order at least some bigos or herring, so that even after abundant libations, he can stay on his feet. Soon, almost all of the bars in Poland indeed posted signs saying ‘Konsumpcja do alkoholu obowiązkowa’ (Purchase of food with alcohol is required).

_{Originally written in Russian, translated by KA, Dec 2020}

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