Laughs, Lies, & Literature: Poland’s Best Literary Hoaxes
How can Polish literature be described in a concise way? Well, most foreign sources would mention a tragic history and a conflicted path. This solemn image has perhaps also been partially cultivated by some of Poland’s most renowned writers, including Czesław Miłosz, who successfully created the myth of the morbidly serious Polish poet who knows real life.
You very likely don’t find this description too appealing. But don’t worry – there’s much more to this picture. Polish literature is incredibly diverse, and one thing Polish writers have always been exceptionally good at is making spectacular mischief and the best jokes. Need proof?
Tuwim & Słonimski invented ‘The Onion’ way before ‘The Onion’ was invented
A copy of the Onion is seen in a news rack 5 May 2009 in San Francisco, California, photo: Sullivan/Getty Images
Julian Tuwim and Antoni Słonimski were members of a Polish experimental poetry group called Skamander. Extremely popular in the interwar period (the peak being the early and mid-1920s), members of Skamander became some of the most crucial organisers of literary and cultural life in Warsaw – much of their activity was connected with cabarets and poetry meetings in the legendary Pod Picadorem café in Warsaw.
Julian Tuwim and Antoni Słonimski, two writers who gained recognition not only for their innovative poetry but also for highly absurd literary experiments. They were given the opportunity to create April fools issues of Kurier Poranny, a popular daily in interwar Poland. Each year they would allow their whimsical minds to run free: the issues could include absurd poetry, fictional reviews, classified ads, news, book excerpts, advertisements and agony-aunt columns. Słonimski described the results in the following manner:
All these almanacs, brochures, extraordinary supplements and readings that discredited the gravity of words taught the reader to be sensitive to gibberish, to remain suspicious in relation to clichés; they also showed black on white that the very same letters that comprised our issues could be used to print complete rubbish in actual newspapers.
A few of their best entries would no doubt entertain even modern-day readers: meticulously ordered alphabetical lists of days of the week, months, and seasons; a plea for all professional skiers to add the suffix ‘-ski’ to their last name, a news item about a statue of Admiral Nelson built out of meat chops which were subsequently doused with sauce in the presence of the king and so forth.
Gałczyński created a 15-century Scottish poet everyone believed in
Covers of the monthly magazine ‘Skamander: a monthly poetic magazine’, R.3, z.19, April, 1922, R.13, z.102/104, January/March, 1939, photo: Polona National Library
Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński is one of the most ambiguous figures of Polish 20th-century literature. His literary career was marked by a tragic juxtaposition of his love for purely nonsensical humour and his unclear associations with the ruling regime.
His life itself was ambiguous; he loved altering his biography, presenting numerous versions of his descent and origins. As Czesław Miłosz wrote in The Captive Mind, another mystery about the poet was his extraordinary knowledge of foreign languages. He was familiar with Latin, German, French and English poetry and could easily read in all of these languages. It was unclear how he managed to learn all of them – as Miłosz wrote, it would be out of character for Gałczyński to sit quietly at a desk over extended periods of time. These two things – his love of fiction-making in real life and his fluency in foreign languages – allowed him to pull off a truly spectacular hoax.
In the interwar period, Gałczyński was studying classics and English at the University of Warsaw. He decided to give an oral presentation (although some sources claim it was an essay, or even an MA thesis, this is dubious as no written record survived) about a 15th-century Scottish poet, Morris Gordon Cheats. Gałczyński presented a detailed analysis of his works, including numerous quotations, which he recited beautifully. The only issue was that Morris Gordon Cheats never existed. This did not, however, stop his fellow students from engaging in a discussion about his literary achievements. Allegedly, even the professor, a famous and eminent English scholar, Andrzej Tretiak, was convinced that what Gałczyński said was accurate. The mystification must have been beautifully crafted – tricking a renowned philologist into believing in the genuineness of 15th-century poems that were actually written five centuries later by a non-native speaker required immense skill.
Kwiatkowski & the wisdom of East Asian peoples
Remigiusz Kwiatkowski, 1951, photo: Benedykt Jerzy Dorys
Remigiusz Kwiatkowski, rather forgotten nowadays, was a poet and translator of East Asian literature. In 1920 Kwiatkowski published what allegedly was a collection of East Asian aphorisms. The book, called Parsol noś i przy pogodzie (Carry an Umbrella Even in Fine Weather), is now known to be at least partially apocryphal, with such sayings as ‘you should carry an umbrella even in fine weather’, ‘peace is rice and war is hunger’ or ‘never hit a woman, even with a flower’. However, Kwiatkowski got the last laugh – he was never held accountable for his prank.
Better than what Gombrowicz could write?
Witold Gombrowicz, photo: Miguel Grinberg/archive by Klementyna Suchanow/Fotonova/East News
A serialized potboiler by Zdzisław Niewieski started publication in 1939 in two Polish tabloids. The crime novel was incredibly popular not only among mass readers but also among members of Warsaw’s jet-set of the time. As one member of this group said, ‘Reading Possessed makes one realise how much gibberish there is in Ferdydurke. I’m convinced that Gombrowicz wouldn’t be able to write such a novel’. The comparison stems from the huge popularity of Ferdydurke among critics a year prior to the release of Possessed.
What the author of these words didn’t know – actually, which nobody knew until 1969 – was that Witold Gombrowicz (who wrote Ferdydurke) was the actual author of the novel. Inspired by the achievements of authors producing literature that was incredibly easy to swallow for nearly everyone, Gombrowicz decided to give mass literature a shot and write a perfectly readable work. His chief motivation was doubtlessly the money he could make but also perhaps curiosity – would an acclaimed author be able to write a perfectly good bad novel? He achieved his end yet revealed the authorship only a year before his death, 30 years later.
Gombrowicz’s final (post-mortem) joke was the reception of the work once it was published and signed with his actual name – it suddenly sparked numerous debates among literary scholars, including a real battle between Maria Janion and Jerzy Jarzębski.
Jerzy Kosiński’s sense of humour
Front page of the newspaper ‘Kurier Poranny’, 1939, no. 272,1939, no. 242, photo: Polona National Library
Although Polish authors have to be given credit for their ingenuity in engaging in literary mischief, they could also be on the receiving end of such mischief. One such example is the stunt of Chuck Ross, an American… cable TV salesman.
Ross dreamed of becoming a writer, and after being rejected by several publishing houses, he decided to prove that the rules of the publishing market and not his writing skills were the problem. He sent the first 20 pages of Jerzy Kosiński’s Steps to four publishers, including to the publishing house that originally released the National Book Award–winning piece – Random House. They all rejected it without recognising the excerpt. The interesting thing about this story is Ross’s choice. Kosiński was a controversial figure, and the authenticity of his words – both his works and commentary on them – has often been questioned.
Given these circumstances, Kosiński’s reaction to Ross’s stunt was truly bizarre. Instead of appreciating the joke or commenting on the functioning of the publishing market, he solemnly wrote, ‘[Steps] depends very much on a cumulative effect. I can see myself rejecting it […]. It would have been much more interesting if he had submitted the whole work […]. I’ve never submitted a fragment of my work to anyone’. Gombrowicz, Gałczyński or Tuwim probably would have recognised the humour of the episode.
