"JERZY GIEDROYC - PRINCE OF EMIGRANTS" is a joint exhibition project of the Society for the Protection of the Archive of the Literary Institute in Paris [Towarzystwo Opieki nad Archiwum Instytutu Literackiego w Paryzu] and the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Museum of Polish Refugees [Muzeum Wychodzstwa Polskiego im. Ignacego Jana Paderewskiego] in Warsaw, mounted within the framework of
THE YEAR OF JERZY GIEDROYC.
"For me, exile is a struggle - not for restoring and maintaining what once was, but for certain fundamental matters. For me, Poland's independence was just such a fundamental matter," Giedroyc was once quoted as saying.
The several dozen panels on display present the Editor's path through life. Among them hangs a detailed chronicle of
Jerzy Giedroyc's life from his birth in 1906 in Minsk Litewski to his death at Maisons-Laffitte in 2000. Also on view, a number of large-format reproductions of the Editor's own statements about the process of creating "Kultura" and about the magazine's many collaborators. These are interspersed with excerpts from Giedroyc's AUTOBIOGRAFIA NA CZTERY RECE / AUTOBIOGRAPHY FOR FOUR HANDS that seem to summarize the book's message and with quotes about Jerzy Giedroyc from the likes of
Czeslaw Milosz,
Stanislaw Lem,
Ryszard Kapuscinski, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Adam Michnik and
Andrzej Wajda.
The arranged interiors included in the exhibition hint at the atmosphere that reigned at the "Kultura" House. One of these installations is devoted to the magazine's "housemates" - Zofia and Zygmunt Hertz,
Jozef and Maria Czapski, and Henryk Giedroyc. In an installation replicating the Editor's own office visitors might hear the voice of Jerzy Giedroyc, while that representing the "winter garden" at Maisons-Laffitte is built around a table that for decades served as a meeting place for the writers, poets and painters of the "Kultura" circle.
The next section of the exhibition is devoted precisely to "The 'Kultura' Circle."
As Jerzy Giedroyc once wrote,
One of the things I wanted to do most urgently was to form a circle of 'Kultura' authors."
This circle included such luminaries as
Andrzej Bobkowski,
Jozef Czapski,
Witold Gombrowicz,
Zbigniew Herbert,
Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski,
Marek Hlasko, Konstanty Jelenski, Stefan Kisielewski,
Leszek Kolakowski,
Stanislaw Lem,
Czeslaw Milosz, Juliusz Mieroszewski,
Slawomir Mrozek,
Jerzy Stempowski,
Kazimierz Wierzynski... Excerpts from articles they published in "Kultura" appear on a number of display panels.
In 1964, Zygmunt Hertz wrote about the "Raft of Kultura" in a letter to Czeslaw Milosz:
"I understand perfectly that this raft one can swim to, this raft to which you swam, as did Gombrowicz, Straszewicz and Hlasko, was very important for this reason. I don't know, however, if or when this raft might be needed again..."
The "Raft of Kultura" was what Polish exiles sought out in the water and swam to for decades. It proved an important waypoint for people like
Jan Lebenstein,
Roman Polanski,
Slawomir Mrozek, Leopold Unger,
Zbigniew Herbert, Jacek Bierezin,
Kazimierz Brandys,
Wojciech Karpinski, Jacek Kaczmarski and many others.
As a magazine, "Kultura" reached readers in almost one hundred countries dispersed over five continents. It traveled to the farthest points of the globe where Polish emigrants had ventured in their own time (including South Africa, Tanzania, The Ivory Coast, Uruguay and Mauritania). For more than half a century, the Literary Institute was also an important center of activity for those working for the liberation of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine and for democracy in Russia.
To this day, the "Biblioteka 'Kultury'" ['Kultura' Library] imprint has appeared on 533 published volumes, including Witold Gombrowicz's DZIENNIKI / DIARIES, Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski's INNY SWIAT / ANOTHER WORLD, Czeslaw Milosz's ZNIEWOLONY UMYSL / THE CAPTIVE MIND, Andrzej Bobkowski's SZKICE PIORKIEM / DRAWING-PEN SKETCHES, Boris Pasternak's DOCTOR ZHIVAGO and Alexander Solzhenitsyn's THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO and CANCER WARD.
Accompanying the exhibition is a film series focusing on Jerzy Giedroyc and the founders of "Kultura."
The exhibition also incorporates a plethora of photographs. These include images from the Archive of the Literary Institute in Paris, as well as photos taken at Maisons-Laffitte by Ignacy Szczepanski and, in October of 1998, by Piotr Wojcik (Agencja "Gazeta").
Organization:
Towarzystwo Opieki nad Archiwum Instytutu Literackiego w Paryzu
ul. Hankiewicza 1, room 0103, 02-103 Warsaw
tel./fax (+48 22) 824 38 00, 824 35 88Place: Muzeum Wychodzstwa Polskiego im. Ignacego Jana Paderewskiego
Lazienki Krolewskie - Podchorazowka
ul. Agrykoli 1, 00-460 Warszawa