Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński

Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński ( born January 23, 1905 in Warsaw, † December 6, 1953 in Warsaw) was a Polish poet.

Life

Gałczyński began to study English Literature in Warsaw, but operation not seriously studying. After a dissertation on a non-existent English poet he was therefore relegated. Similarly unsuccessful was his military service, he started as an officer candidate and ended as a soldier.

He began with satirical poems, which he published in the journal " Quadriga " the eponymous Polish group. Following a stint as censorship civil servant, he worked for two years at the Polish Consulate in Berlin. Since 1934 he worked as a freelance writer. He wrote poems, plays, songs, as well as advertising slogans. Also without hesitation, he wrote for the National Catholic magazine " Prosto z mostu ".

Gałczyński 1931-1933 was cultural attaché at the Polish Embassy in Berlin. There he wrote the poem "Inge Bartsch, aktorka, po przewrocie zaginiona wśród tajemniczych okoliczności " ( Inge Bartsch, actress, lost after the coup in enigmatic circumstances) - in memory of the lost actress.

In 1939 he was drafted into military service, came in German captivity and lived in various camps, including at Stalag IV B of Miihlberg / Elbe. After liberation by the Americans, he remained first in Paris, but in 1946 went back to Poland. In Krakow, he worked at the magazine Przekrój, a popular but relatively harmless entertainment journal. There, the satirical theater was reading The Green Goose. This theater was not meant for realization on a stage. It was a collection of whimsical "pseudo pieces " in which recurring protagonists were the follies of life in Poland at that time. In this form, he was able to achieve genuine social criticism in communist Poland. In Przekrój his "Letters to the violets " appeared.

Gałczyński spent his summer favorite in the old forester's house Pranie on Nidzkie Lake in Mazury. There was built in 1980 his museum ( coordinates 53 ° 36 ' 29.02 "N, 21 ° 30' 3.62 " O53.60806111111121.501005555556 )

As the most famous poem Gałczyńskis applies " Zaczarowana dorożka " ( Enchanted Droschkenkutsche ) from the year 1946.

In his last years, Gałczyński devoted mainly larger sealing works:

• Wielkanoc Jana Sebastiana Bacha (Johann Sebastian Bach's Easter Festival ) ( 1950)
• Niobe (1951 )
• Kronika Olsztyńska ( Allensteiner Chronicle ) ( 1952)

Gałczyński also translated Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" in 1952.

Gałczyński was a master of the absurd humor: " dom bez sera jest jak pies bez gramofonu " ( A house without cheese is like a dog without Grammophon ) - an allusion to the His Masters Voice label.

Gałczyński had the ability to juggle with the words, as in the jocular " Strašna zaba, Wiersz dla sepleniących " (about " The sreckliche Fross, a poem for lisping " )