BRUNO JASIENSKI

BRUNO JASIENSKI

(Wiktor Bruno Zysman)

(1901 - 1939)

B. Jasienski was a poet, novelist and playwright; he was born in a provincial town Klimontow (near Sandomierz), the son of the local doctor. His father was famous for treating peasants for free and saving the lives of those who could not afford medical services. His altruistic attitude made his collaboration with the local authorities difficult but his deep concern for the poorest members of the community made all his children very sensitive to this issue for the rest of their lives. Between 1914-1918 Jasienski lived with his family in Moscow where he moved after attending the gymnasium in Warsaw. During his stay in Warsaw he had already written some juvenile poems and translated selected Russian fables by Krylov which he published in a school magazine Drugak. In Moscow he attended Polish schools but came into contact with the revolutionary literary avant-garde of Russia and became fascinated with the futurist artists' life style and their experimental works. After his return to Poland in 1918 he studied Polish Literature briefly at Cracow University and became very active in the Polish literary avant-garde. Together with other poets such as Stanislaw Mlodozeniec and Tytus Czyzewski (also a painter) he joined a newly founded futuristic literary club "Barrel-organ" (Katarynka). The name of the group referred to "low art" aimed at the ordinary reader, who was identified not with the majority but with an active minority in society. The sudden death of his younger sister Renia in 1921 had a significant impact on his life and her name would reappear in many of his poems written during this time. Jasienski also dedicated to her the most significant works he wrote later. She became an important image, nearly a myth in many of his poems, and her life - due to Jasienski's imagination - gained an unexpected and unusual continuity in a poetic form.

Jasienski was one of the originators of Polish futurism, writing influential programmes and manifestos, which were published in a futurist magazine Turning Point (Zwrotnica) and/or presented at one of the scandalous poetry reading evenings organised at first mainly in Cracow. In 1920 the Cracow-based futurists joined their colleagues from Warsaw (Anatol Stern and Aleksander Wat) and all offered their "shows" (prototype of a developed much later artistic form known as 'happenings') in other Polish cities such as Warsaw, Lodz and Zakopane. In 1923 (issue 6 of Turning Point) , Jasienski rather unexpectedly announced the end of futurism in Poland. His work "The Legs of Isolda Morgan" (Nogi Izoldy Morgan), called provocatively a "novel", was supposed to illustrate a "crucial moment of the futurist consciousness of his times". Jasienski's early Polish writing is a characteristic mixture of the sentimental and the decadent, of traditional verse and outrageous, grotesque imagery, easily found in his poetry and prose.

During the same, crucial year of 1923 Jasienski witnessed a major workers' rebellion in Krakow and decided to join the Polish Communist movement. He gave public lectures on Marxist philosophy and discussed revolutionary strategies for a struggle with the class enemy. Persecuted by the police for his communist sympathies, and disappointed with the critical reception of his work, Jasienski left Poland for France in 1925. There, he became an active member of the French Communist Party. His stay in Paris was a time of financial hardship for him and his wife Kara. Jasienski spent many hours in libraries researching historical materials on the Peasant Uprising of 1848 led by Jakub Szela. Apart from his historical topics he also carried out intensive research on Polish folklore and especially on folk songs. This study resulted a year later in the completion of one of his most significant poems "Song of Jakub Szela" (Slowo o Jakubie Szeli).

Meanwhile, the collection of anti-Communist and anti-Soviet short stories L'Europe galante by Paul Morand gained enormous popularity in Paris. A story I'm Burning Moscow was considered the most provocative and was widely discussed and commented upon by French critics and the public. As a response to this literary event, Jasienski wrote in French an anti-utopian novel I'm Burning Paris describing the outbreak of the plague during a social revolution in Paris (the idea closely resembling the famous novel by Camus The Plague). In 1929 he was deported from France for disseminating dangerous political propaganda. Reluctant to return to Poland and after spending a few weeks in Germany, Jasienski emigrated to the Soviet Union where he was welcomed as a hero and given high positions in the literary departments of the party and the Soviet Writers' Union. He began to write in Russian ("the language of Lenin" whom he so admired). In 1931 he completed his first and only play Mannequins Ball (Bal manekinow) and wrote other works in Russian such as "Nose," (Nos); "Bravery" (Mestwo); "The Main Culprit" (Glowny winowajca), all were collections of stories and one novel Man Changes His Skin (Czlowiek zmienia skore). He was nominated the editor-in-chief of the Polish proletarian magazine Culture of Masses (Kultura mas) and the international journal - published in four languages -International Literature. He had offered his support to Mayakovsky at the time when his Russian friends deserted him and literary critics consciously ignored his work. However, in 1937 he was arrested and died soon after (probably in 1939) on the way to the GULAG.

His major works include:

A Boot in a Buttonhole (But w butonierce, 1921) collection of poems

Song of Hunger (Piesn o glodzie, 1922)

The Legs of Izolda Morgan (Nogi Izoldy Morgan, 1923) "novel"

Song of Jakub Szela (Slowo o Jakubie Szeli, 1926)

I'm Burning Paris (Je brule Paris, 1928)

The Mannequins' Ball (Bal manekinow, 1931) play

Man Changes His Skin (Czlowiek zmienia skore, 1934) novel

Further reading:

Wiesiek Powaga, The Dedalus Book of Polish Fantasy. Dedalus Ltd., 1996

Bruno Jasienski, The Mannequins' Ball. Trans. and intro. Daniel Gerould. Amsterdam: HOAP Pub., 1998.