Stanisław Przybyszewski

Stanisław Feliks Przybyszewski (7 May 1868 – 23 November 1927) was a Polish novelist, dramatist, and poet of the decadent naturalistic school. His drama is associated with the Symbolism movement. He wrote both in German and in Polish.

Przybyszewski was born in Łojewo. The son of a local teacher, Józef Przybyszewski, he did not do well in high school and often fought with his classmates. He changed schools, finally matriculating in 1889, and left for Berlin where he first studied architecture and then medicine. It was there that he became fascinated with the philosophy of Nietzsche and Satanism and plunged into the bohemian life of the city.

In Berlin he lived with, but did not marry, Martha Foerder. They had had three children together; two before he left her to marry Dagny Juel on 18 August 1893, and one during his marriage to Dagny.

From 1893 to 1898 Dagny and he lived at times in Berlin, and at times in Dagny's home-town of Kongsvinger, in Norway. In Berlin they met other artists at Zum schwarzen Ferkel.

In 1896 he was arrested in Berlin for the murder of his common-law wife Martha, but released after it was determined that she had died of carbon monoxide poisoning. After Martha's death the children were sent to different foster homes.

In the autumn of 1898, he and Dagny moved to Kraków where he set himself up as the leader of a group of revolutionary young artists, and as editor of their mouthpiece Życie (Life). He remained a fervent apostle of industrialism and self-expression.

He travelled to Lemberg (Lviv) and visited the poet and playwright Jan Kasprowicz. Przybyszewski started an affair with Kasprowicz's wife Jadwiga Gąsowska. Kasprowicz had married Jadwiga, his second wife, in 1893; his first marriage to Teodozja Szymańska in 1886 had ended in divorce after a few months.

In 1899 Przybyszewski abandoned Dagny and set up house with Jadwiga in Warsaw. Around this time he was also involved with Aniela Pająkówna, one of whose two daughters was Przybyszewski's. Dagny returned to Paris and was murdered by a young friend, Władysław Emeryk, in Tbilisi in 1901.

In 1905 Przybyszewski and Jadwiga moved to Thorn (Toruń) where he attempted rehabilitation from his problems with alcohol. While there, Jadwiga's divorce was finalized, and the couple married on 11 April 1905. Przybyszewski was to struggle with alcoholism for the rest of his life.

In 1906 the couple moved to Munich, the trip paid for by the sale of the manuscript of the play Śluby (The Vows). During the war they lived for a short time in Bohemia (Czech Lands), and moved to newly re-established Poland in 1919.

In Poznań he applied for the position of director of a literary theatre, but his work with German political brochures during the war prevented this. He got a job working as a German translator for the post office. In 1920 he found similar work in Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk) with the railways. He lived in Danzig until 1924, and managed a Polish bookshop there. After Danzig he tried to settle in Toruń, Zakopane, and Bydgoszcz — all without success. Finally he found work in Warsaw, in the offices of the President. He lived in rooms in the old Royal Castle.

In 1927 he returned to the Kujawy region, and died in Jaronty in November of that year, aged 59.

He wrote a number of successful novels, of which Homo Sapiens, the most popular, has been translated into English.

The Yellow Coat, a feature film about his life and work, written and directed by Kordian Piwowarski, is scheduled to be released in 2014.

Works

• Zur Psychologie des Individuums (1892)
• De Profundis (1895)
• Vigilien (1895)
• Homo Sapiens (1896)
• Die Synagoge des Satan (1897); Synagoga szatana (1899 Polish edition)
• Satans Kinder (1897)
• Das große Glück (1897)
• Epipsychidion (1900)
• Androgyne (1900)
• Totentanz der Liebe (1902)
• Erdensöhne (1905)
• Gelübde (1906)
• Polen und der heilige Krieg (1915)
• Von Polens Seele. Ein Versuch (1917)
• Der Schrei (1918)
• Moi współcześni (1928)

• The Eternal Fairy-Tale
• The Golden Fleece
• The Snow (Schnee, 1903)