He graduated from a Łódź secondary school (1914), and studied law and philosophy at the University of Warsaw from 1916 to 1918. He collaborated with the periodical Pola esperantisimo (1911-1914), where he published translations of Polish poems into Esperanto. As a poet, he debuted with the poem Prośba / Request in Kurier Warszawski (1913). From 1915, he translated from Russian as well as working with the Łódź cabarets Bi-Ba-Bo and Nowosci, and with the Urania theatre.
He contributed to the Warsaw student periodical Pro Arte et Studio from 1916 to 1919. In 1918, he was among the founders of the Pikador literary cabaret, and then co-founder (1919) and leading representative of the poetic group Skamander, and a regular contributor to the monthly Skamander (1920-1928, 1935-1939) and the weekly Wiadomości Literackie (from 1924). He published his works in Zdrój (1919), Naród (1920-1921), Kurier Polski (1920-1923) and Pani (1922-1925).
He was very active as a writer of cabaret texts and song lyrics (usually signed with a pen-name) for the cabarets Miraż (1916-1919), Czarny Kot (1917-1919), Argus (1918), Sfinks (1918), Qui Pro Quo (1919-32), Banda (1932-34), Cyganeria (from 1924), Stara Banda (1934-1935), Cyrulik Warszawski (1935-39). He collaborated with the satirical magazines Cyrulik Warszawski (1926-33) and Szpilki (1936-39), and also published his satirical texts in Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny (1929-1933). He prepared the April Fool’s Day issues of Kurier Polski together with Antoni Słonimski and Jan Lechoń (1920-1925) and wrote satirical political puppet shows with them as well (1922-1930). In 1925-1926 he published the illustrated magazine To-To with Mieczysław Grydzewski and A. Borman. He collaborated with Polish Radio from 1927 (he was artistic manager of the humour section from 1935). He was an editor at the monthly Szpargały from 1934. He was a founding member of the ZAiKS Association of Authors and Composers from 1919 (it was legalized in 1921), and a member of the board from 1932. A member of the Trade Union of Polish Writers (ZZLP) from 1920, he was also a member of the PEN Club.
He spent World War II in exile – in Romania, France, Portugal and Brazil, from where he travelled to New York in 1942. In 1939-41 he collaborated with the émigré weekly Wiadomości Polskie, but broke off the collaboration due to differences in views on the attitude towards the Soviet Union. In 1942-46 he worked with the monthly Nowa Polska published in London, and with leftist Polish-American newspapers. He became affiliated with leftists in the Polish section of the International Workers Organization from 1942. He was a member of the Association of Writers From Poland and a member of the board in 1943.
He returned to Poland in 1946 and settled in Warsaw. He conducted literary, translation and editorial work. He published his works in Kuźnica (1945-1946), Odrodzenie (1945-1949), Przekrój (1945-1953), Szpilki (1946-1953). He was the artistic director of the Nowy Theatre from 1948 to 1949, and its literary manager in 1951. He took part in the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace in Wroclaw in 1948. In 1949-1953, he collaborated with the monthly Problemy, and from 1950 with Nowa Kultura. He was awarded the Gold Laurel of the Polish Academy of Literature (PAL) for outstanding work in 1935, the literary prize of the city of Łódź in 1928 and 1949, an honorary doctorate from Łódź University, the Polish PEN Club’s award for his translations of Pushkin in 1935, and a state award in 1951.
In the initial period of his creativity (the volumes Czyhanie na Boga / Lying in Wait for God (1918), Sokrates tańczący / The Dancing Socrates (1920), Siódma Jesień / The Seventh Autumn (1922), Wierszy tom czwarty / Poems, Volume Four (1923)), he expressed rebellion against the form of poetry typical of the Young Poland period (decadent moods and language mannerisms), instead propagating optimism and vitality, urbanism, introducing the city and its everyday life into poetry. He created a new lyrical hero – the urban resident, he brought poetic works closer to living everyday speech, with its vulgarisms and trivialities. He often incorporated such forms of expression as genre picture and conversation poetry into his poems. Just like all the Skamander poets, he aimed to popularise poetry and create a different model of its functioning than an elite and formalistic one.
In later years – from the volume Słowa we krwi / Words in Blood (1926) through Rzecz czarnoleska / The Czarnolas Matter (1929), Biblia cygańska / Gypsy Bible to Treść gorejąca / Burning Content (1936) – elements of bitterness appeared and intensified in his output, and the poet reached for classic models (Jan Kochanowski) as well as those originating in Romanticism and Norwid’s poetry. Anxiety came to the fore in both his personal poems and his socially oriented pieces. At the same time, Tuwim’s increasingly skilful handling of form, his virtuosity in using words and images, became – in combination with his love of the great tradition – the source of a special poetic philosophy that focused on the issue of the word-sign and its relation to the designate, leading issues of language towards the fairy-tale etymology of words, their ‘poetic alchemy’.
Satirical works are a separate part of Tuwim’s output – rich, complex and multi-faceted, written from the moment of his debut. This is a non-uniform trend, both in terms of genre formula and due to the diverse nature of the works and the purposes for which they were written. Satires on everyday life were based on negating old models of morality as being a symptom of backwardness and promoted the role model presented by the liberal intelligentsia of Warsaw. As the author of political satires, Tuwim evolved from a negation of certain elements of the political reality to complete negation of the governing elites when they began assuming increasingly rightist positions in the 1930s, bringing them close to groups with anti-Semitic and fascist programmes. The most important achievement of Tuwim the satirist was his 1936 Bal w operze / The Ball at the Opera, making use of the poet’s previous experience with satire and introducing elements of the grotesque and expressionism.
Still, before the outbreak of World War II, Tuwim wrote poems for children, infused with his poetic artistry, combining lyricism with humour (often of the pure-nonsense variety), making use of diverse qualities of language (Lokomotywa / The Locomotive, Słoń Trąbalski / Trąbalski the Elephant, Zosia Samosia). During the war, the poet worked on his lyrical-epic poem Kwiaty Polskie / Polish Flowers, published in 1949, an invocation of the tradition of the Romantic digressive poem which, however, achieved the standard of Tuwim’s pre-war poetry only in some passages.
Tuwim’s poetry was extremely popular with readers and critics – in a survey by Wiadomości Literackie from 1935 asking ‘Who would you elect to the Academy of the Independents if such an academy existed?‘, he came first. He was attacked by younger writers (especially from avant-garde circles, who accused his work of sentimentalism and traditionalism) and also, for completely different reasons, by antagonists from nationalist circles – they reproached him for his family’s Jewish origin as well as were outraged by those works of his which carried a blatant pacifist message, such as Do generałów / To the Generals and Do prostego człowieka / The Common Man.
Tuwim also translated numerous works, mainly from Russian – including The Tale of Igor’s Campaign (BN 1928, new version 1950), works by Pushkin (The Bronze Horseman 1931, the volume Lutnia Puszkina / Pushkin’s Lute 1937), classical works of Russian drama (including Gogol’s The Inspector-General 1929), the poems of Lermontov, Mayakovsky, Blok, Pasternak and others (published in the anthology Z rosyjskiego [From Russian] vol. 1-3, 1954). He also translated Horace, W. Whitman, H. Longfellow, A. Rimbaud.
He was a collector of interesting titbits on culture and customs, publishing his findings in books such as Czary i czarty polskie oraz wypisy czarnoksieskie / Polish Magic and Fiends, and a Wizard Reader (1923), Polski słownik pijacki i antologia bachiczna / Polish Drunkard Dictionary and Bacchic Anthology (1935), the three-volume cycle Cicer cum caule, czyli groch z kapusta / Cicer cum Caule, or Hotchpotch (1958-63).
His historical-literary interests yielded the anthologies Cztery wieki fraszki polskiej / Four Centuries of Polish Epigrams (1937, with a preface by A. Brückner), Polska nowela fantastyczna / The Polish Fantasy Story (1949), Ksiega wierszy polskich XIX wieku / A Book of Polish 19th century Poems (vol. 1-3, 1954) edited with J.W. Gomulicki, a collection of sketches illustrated with a rich selection of poetic curiosities – Pegaz deba, czyli panopticum poetyckie / Pegasus Rearing, or a Poetic Panopticum (1958), humorous sketches, satires, jokes and parodies in pure-nonsense style, written with Slonimski and published in the volume W oparach absurdu / In the Fumes of Absurdity (1958). He wrote stage adaptations (including Gogol’s story The Overcoat), musical vaudevilles – such as Żołnierz królowej Madagaskaru / The Soldier of the Queen of Madagascar based on S. Dobrzański (1936), or Labiche’s An Italian Straw Hat (1948).
Works:
- Czyhanie na Boga / Lying in Wait for God, Warsaw 1918
- Sokrates tańczący / The Dancing Socrates, Warsaw 1920
- Pracowita pszczółka. Kalendarz encyklopedyczno-informacyjny na r. 1921 / The Busy Bee. An Encyclopaedic and Informative Calendar for 1921 (written with Antoni Słonimski), Warsaw 1921
- Siódma Jesień / The Seventh Autumn, Warsaw 1922
- Wierszy tom czwarty / Poems, Volume Four, Warsaw 1923
- Czarna msza. Z cyklu satanistycznego / Black Mass. From a Satanist Cycle, Warsaw 1925
- Tysiac dziwów prawdziwych / A thousand real Curiosities, Warsaw 1925
- Słowa we krwi / Words in Blood, Warsaw 1926
- Tajemnice amuletów i talizmanów / The Secrets of Amulets and Talismans, Warsaw 1926
- Polityczna szopka cyrulika warszawskiego / The Political Puppet Theatre of a Warsaw Barber (written with Marian Hemar, Jan Lechoń, Antoni Slonimski), Warsaw 1927
- Rzecz czarnoleska / The Czarnolas Matter, Warsaw 1929
- Szopka Polityczna / Political Puppet Theatre (written with Hemar, Lechoń, Słonimski), Warsaw 1930
- Szopka Polityczna / Political Puppet Theatre (written with Hemar, Lechon and others), Warsaw 1931
- Biblia cygańska i inne wiersze / Gypsy Bible and Other Poems, Warsaw 1933
- Jarmark rymow / Rhyme Market, Warsaw 1934
- Bal w operze / The Ball at the Opera, (written in 1936, excerpts published in various magazines, published in its entirety in “Szpilki” 1946, separate edition Warsaw 1982)
- Treść Gorejąca / Burning Content, Warsaw 1936
- Lokomotywa. Rzepka (według starej bajeczki). Ptasie Radio / The Locomotive. The Turnip (based on an old fairy tale). The Bird Broadcast, Warsaw 1938
- O panu Tralalińskim i inne wierszyki / Mr. Tralalinski and Other Poems, Warsaw 1938
- Słoń Trąbalski / Trąbalski the Elephant, Warsaw 1938
- Zosia samosia i inne wierszyki / Zosia Samosia and Other Poems, Warsaw 1938
- Kwiaty polskie / Polish Flowers, Warsaw 1949
- Cicer cum caule, czyli groch z kapusta / Cicer cum caule, or Hotchpotch, Warsaw 1958
- Pegaz dęba, czyli panopticum poetyckie / Pegasus Rearing, or a poetic panopticum, Warsaw 1958
- W oparach absurdu / In the Fumes of Absurdity (with: Slonimski), Warsaw 1958
“Dzieła” [Works] vol. 1-5, Warsaw, Czytelnik 1955-1964
Selections:
- Poezje [Poems], Warsaw, Czytelnik 1956, afterword: Artur Międzyrzecki
- Wybór poezji [Selection of Poems], Warsaw, PIW 1961, selection: Antoni Słonimski
- Wiersze wybrane [Selected Poems], Wroclaw, Ossolineum 1964 – BN I No. 184
- Wybór poezji [Selection of Poems], Warsaw, Czytelnik 1965, selection: Ryszard Matuszewski
- Poezje wybrane [Selected Poems], Warsaw, LSW 1968, selection and introduction: Juliusz Wiktor Gomulicki
- Wiersze zebrane [Collected Poems], Warsaw, Czytelnik 1971, vol. 1-2, editor: A. Kowalczykowa
- Pisma zebrane [Collected Works] vol. 1-4, Warsaw, Czytelnik 1986-1993 (editors: A. Kowalczykowa, T. Januszewski, J. Stradecki, A. Balakier) {C}
- Nowy wybór poezji [New Selection of Poems], Warsaw, PIW 2002 (afterword and editor’s note: J.W. Gomulicki)
Author: Bartłomiej Szleszyński, Department of Polish Philology, University of Warsaw, April 2003
