Aleksander Vat - My century: the odyssey of a Polish intellectual

ALEKSANDER WAT (19001967), the nom de plume of Aleksander Chwat, was born in Warsaw, the descendant of an old and distinguished Jewish family which counted among its members the great sixteenth-century cabalist Isaac Luria. He attended Warsaw University, where he studied philosophy, psychology, and logic, and formed strong ties with the literary avant-garde, publishing a first book of poems, Me from One Side and Me from the Other Side of My Pug Iron Stove, in 1920 and, some years later, a collection of stories entitled Lucifer Unemployed. Wat edited a variety of influential journals and helped to disseminate the work of Mayakovsky and the futurists in Poland, before forming an allegiance with the Communist Party and confining his writing to journalism. In 1939 he fled east before the advancing German army and was separated from his wife and young son. The family reunited in Lww, then under Soviet control, where Wat found work on a newspaper, only to be placed under arrest. Imprisoned in the Soviet Union for the better part of two years, during which time he converted from Judaism to Christianity, Wat again rejoined his family, who had been exiled to Kazakhstan, in 1942. They returned after the war to Poland, where Wat began to write poetry again while serving as editor of the state publishing house. In 1963, he left his native country for France. Wat was invited in 1964 to the University of California, Berkeley, where he taped a series of conversations about his life and times with his countryman the poet Czeslaw Milosz. Edited by Milosz, these were published posthumously as My Century.

CZESLAW MILOSZ was born in Lithuania in 1911. Over the course of his long and prolific career he has published works in many genres, including criticism (The Captive Mind), fiction (The Issa Valley), memoir (Native Realm), and poetry (most recently New and Collected Poems, 19312001). He is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980.

This is a New York Review Book

Published by The New York Review of Books

435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

Copyright 1977 by Paulina Wat and Andrzej Wat

Translation copyright 1988 by Richard Lourie

All rights reserved.

My Century is an abridgement and translation of the work that was published in Polish as Mj Wiek by Book Fund Ltd., London, 1977

Cover illustration: Aleksandr Rodchenko's endpaper design for Red Army, 1939/Rodchenko & Stepanova Archives

Cover design: Katy Homans

The Library of Congress has cataloged the earlier printing as follows:

Wat, Aleksander.

[Mj wiek. English]

My century: the odyssey of a Polish intellectual / Aleksander Wat; foreword by Czeslaw Milosz; [edited and] translated by Richard Lourie.

p.cm.(New York Review Books classics)

Translation originally published: Berkeley: University of California

Press, c 1988.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-59017-065-2 (alk. paper)

1. Wat, Aleksander. 2. Poets, Polish20th centuryBiography.

I. Lourie, Richard, 1940II. Title. III. Series.

PG7158.W282A3613 2003

891.8'517dc22

2003023592

ebook ISBN: 978-1-59017-542-2

v1.0

For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series, visit www.nyrb.com or write to:

Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

MY CENTURY

THE ODYSSEY OF A POLISH INTELLECTUAL

ALEKSANDER WAT

Edited and translated from the Polish by

RICHARD LOURIE

Foreword by

CZESLAW MILOSZ

NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS

New York

JAPANESE ARCHERY

1.

The hand tells the bowstring:

Obey me.

The bowstring answers the hand:

Draw Valiantly.

The bowstring tells the arrow:

O arrow, fly.

The arrow answers the bowstring:

Speed my flight.

The arrow tells the target:

Be my light.

The target answers the arrow:

Love me.

2.

The target tells arrow, bowstring, hand and eye:

Ta twam asi.

Which means in a sacred tongue:

I am Thou.

3.

(Footnote of a Christian:

O Mother of God,

watch over the target, the bow, the arrow

and the archer).

ALEKSANDER WAT

Translated by Richard Lourie

CONTENTS

Biographical Notes

Map

Title

Chronology

Foreword, by Czeslaw Milosz

Introduction, by Richard Lourie

MY CENTURY

1. The Early Twenties. Structure of Polish Society. Futurism. Jan Hempel. Wadysaw Broniewski. Bruno Jasieski.

2. The Problems of Autobiography. The GGA Manifesto and Antipoetry.

3. Demonism and Exorcism. The Literary Monthly. Fraternit Ou La Mort.

4. Going Over To Communism.

5. Mayakovsky in Warsaw. Paul Eluard. A Theatrical Montage for the National Exhibition in Pozna. Berlin in 1928.

6. Paris in 1928. Jan Hempel. Power Struggles in the Soviet Union. Witkacys Novels. Poland After Pisudskis Coup.

7. Witkacy. The Soviet Embassy. Mayakovsky.

8. Russia. Communism. Patriotism.

9. The Literary Monthly: Articles and Attacks.

10 . The Literary Monthly. Isaac Deutscher. First Arrest. Politics and Bedroom Farce.

11. Central Prison. Broniewski the Egotist. Contact with the Working Class as Editor and Cell Mate.

12. Communists in Prison: Workers and Future Statesmen. Release From Prison. Hitler Takes Power. Fascism Or Communism.

13. The Thirties. Lightning Bolts From Russia. Splits in the Party. Anti-Semitism.

14. Disbanding of the Polish Party. The Essence of Stalinism. Gebethners Publishing House. Death of My Mother. Omens.

15. War. Flight To Lww. The Red Army. A New Writers Union. The Red Banner. Self-criticism.

16. Lww. Wanda Wasilewska. Broniewski. Soviet Writers. Signs That I Will Be Arrested.

17. Lww. Articles for the Red Banner. Digression on Mongolia As a Peoples Republic. My Jewishness. Provocation and Arrest.

18. Count Bielski. My Cell in Zamarstynw Prison.

19. Religion in Prison. tre and Paratre. Literature in Prison. Social Bonds. Poles and Ukrainians.

20. A New Spiritual Leader in the Cell. Charisma and Hierarchy. Inner Life in Prison. An Informer. The Punishment Cell. Broniewski As Hero.

21. Kiev in Autumn. Transit Prison in Kiev. Children in Prison. Graffiti. To Moscow by Train.

22. In Lubyanka. Dunayevsky and Other Cell Mates. The Iron Barrier. Polish Catholicism. Soviet Law. Jews.

23. Reading Proust in Lubyanka. Machiavelli and Stalin. Rinventer Le Pote.

24. Dunayevskys Thoughts About Russia. A High NKVD Official. Dunayevskys Story; Or, The Abyss. The Flow of Time in Prison.

25. The Weight of Words. The Research Office at Lubyanka. Intellectual Snobbery and Family Egoism. Einsteins Theory and Prayer.

26. Platos Republic. Time and St. Augustine. Early Spring in Moscow and Music.

27. Bach and Nature. A Visit To Erfurt. Dunayevskys Mania. The Mongolian Doctor. Questioned by a High Party Official. The Writing Cubicle. The Germans Invade Yugoslavia.

28. New Cell Mates. The Ezhov Terror. A Former Polish Intelligence Agent. Taitz. Beria. Kirsanov. Gog and Magog.

29. Evacuation. With Broniewski Again. A Four-Day Train Ride. The Careers of Univermag Directors. Saratov. Steklov. Erlich. The First Urks.

30. Cell Mates in Saratov. The Professor. The Georgian. Germans. A Digression on Bedbugs.

31. The Heretical Monk. Soldiers. A Digression on the Erotic and Personal Life. The Devil Appears. Conversion. On Judaism and Christianity. Hunger and Sickness. A Meeting.

32. Tell People in Poland How Old Steklov Died. In the Hospital. A Second True Human BeingDubin. Leaving Prison.