Tymon Terlecki. Kronika życia i działalności (1905-2000)

• Authors: Edward Krasinski , Nina Taylor-Terlecka

Title variants

EN

Tymon Terlecki. A Chronicle of His Life and Work (1905–2000)

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Tymon Terlecki was born on 10 August 1905 in Przemyśl, Galicia, in the part of Austro-Hungarian Empire gained by the partition of Poland, as a subject of Emperor Franz Josef I. Since the autumn of 1911 he attended a six-grade Popular School. In the September of 1914, after the outbreak of the First World War, his family was evacuated to Neufeld in Moravia. In 1915, Terlecki moved to Lvov and studied at two Lvov middle schools. In the autumn of 1924, he began studying Polish philology at King John Casimir University in Lvov, but having contracted tuberculosis had to take two breaks from his course of study and get treatment in Zakopane. In 1930, he started publishing literary criticism and theatre reviews, mostly in Słowo Polskie daily; he also actively participated in the artistic and literary life of Lvov and cooperated with the radio. In June 1932, Terlecki was awarded a PhD diploma for his dissertation on the poet and writer Ryszard Berwiński (1819–1879), written under the tutelage of Professor Juliusz Kleiner. In 1932–1934, Terlecki lived in Paris and studied at the Sorbonne and College de France on scholarship from the French government. He travelled to Spain and visited England, Belgium and the Netherlands. On his return to Poland, Terlecki lived in Warsaw where he lectured Drama History at the State Institute for Dramatic Art (Państwowy Instytut Sztuki Teatralnej), and since 1936 edited two periodicals: Teatr, and the exemplary theatrological quarterly Scena Polska. He also collaborated with Tygodnik Ilustrowany weekly, Pion and Życie Sztuki. In July 1939, Terlecki went for treatment to France and upon the outbreak of the Second World War joined the Polish Army. In the military camp in Coëtquidan, Brittany, he became editor of Polska Walcząca weekly, the official organ of the Polish Armed Forces in the West, which he then edited in Paris and, after evacuation to England, in London from June 1940 until the end of 1948. In London, he became an initiator of the literary, artistic and scientific life of Polish emigrants, and organised unions of Polish artists and writers abroad. He edited two fundamental collective works: Straty kultury polskiej 1939–1944 (Glasgow, 1945), and Literatura polska na obczyźnie 1940–1960 (London, 1964–1965), and initiated a series of monographs on Polish poets and writers (Adam Mickiewicz, Stanisław Wyspiański, Joseph Conrad, Zygmunt Krasiński, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Henryk Sienkiewicz), published in 1955–1967. He wrote essays, literary portraits, reviews and socio-political comments for JerzyGiedroyc’s Kultura and, even more frequently, for Mieczysław Grydzewski’s Wiadomości where Terlecki had been publishing his theatre reviews regularly since 1946. Since 1948, he was also lecturing at the Polish University Abroad (Polski Uniwersytet na Obczyźnie). Living in London, Terlecki authored and published a number of important essays and books: Polska a Zachód. Próba syntezy (1947), Paryż (1952), Krytyka personalistyczna (1957), Egzystencjalizm chrześcijański (1958), Ludzie, książki i kulisy (1960), Pani Helena. Opowieść biograficzna o Modrzejewskiej (1962). In 1964, Terlecki was invited to teach Polish Literature classesas a visiting lecturer at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago, and after two semesters accepted a permanent teaching position as professor of Polish literature, which he held until 1972. After retirement, he taught at seminars and lectured as a senior visiting professor at the State University of Illinois at Chicago Circle (1972–1977). During the Chicago period, Terlecki participated in numerous conferences, published articles on Polish literature and the theatre, as well as on ethnical and national diversity; he visited many educational and research centres, giving lectures in Jerusalem, Detroit, New York City, Washington DC, Montreal, Buffalo, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. Terlecki constantly observed the scientific, literary and artistic life in his home country, which he was not allowed to visit; he received guests from Poland and promoted them in Great Britain and the United States. In the summer of 1972, Terlecki went to Paris for a three-month scholarship of the American Council for Learned Societies to do research on Wyspiański and Craig. In 1973 he was finally granted US citizenship; until then, as a stateless person, he had had only a British travel document. In June 1978, he returned to London and continued his activities in the scientific and literary life of the Polish emigrants. He resumed teaching at the Polish University Abroad. At the turn of 1981 and 1982, he toured the US and Canada, giving lectures on literature and theatre at universities and academic institutions (among which were Ann Arbor, Harvard, and Columbia University). In 1983, he published in Boston an English monograph, Stanisław Wyspiański, in Twayne’s World Authors Series. He also wrote a series of entries about Polish writers for the Encyclopaedia Britannica (since 1967) and Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature (New York, 1980). With his wife, Tola Korian (1911–1983), actress, singer and polyglot translator, he was a passionate traveller. He visited France and Spain on numerous occasions. As a participant of the International Folk Music Council he went to Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Canada, Jamaica, Norway, and Ghana, and published many accounts of his travels. He visited Switzerland and Portugal as well. Since the middle of the 1980s, other books by Tymon Terlecki have been published, not only in the West but also in Poland, now free of censorship. These publications included: Szukanie równowagi. Szkice literackie i publicystyczne (London, 1985), Opowieść o dwóch miastach: Londyn – Paryż (London, 1987), Spotkania ze swoimi (Wrocław, 1999), Emigracja naszego czasu (Lublin, 2003), Zaproszenie do podróży (Gdańsk, 2006). He was a man of great moral rectitude and a versatile writer: a literature and theatre historian, essayist, critic writing about poetry, art, philosophy, culture, and socio-political matters, a sociologist and anthropologist. He was an esteemed university lecturer, radio theoretician, author of several dozen radio dramas and innumerable Free Europe Radio programmes. He translated T. S. Eliot, Mauriac, Valery, Thomas and Koestler (Ciemność w południe, Paris, 1949), edited numerous periodicals, literary texts, collective works, and monographs. He was a social and political activist, and ideologist of the emigration’s independence, to which he devoted numerous articles attempting to define the political and intellectual status of this group of castaways. He received numerous awards for his literary work, among which were: the Union of Polish Writers Abroad Award (London, 1953), from the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Prize (New York, 1973), the Testimonial Award of the Polish Arts and Letters (Chicago, 1971), the Stanisław Vincenz Award (Cracow, 1985), and the Literary Award of Kultura (Paris, 1995). He was a member of many scientific societies in Poland and abroad. In May 1990, he suffered a severe stroke, and in July 1991 moved with his second wife, Nina Taylor, to Oxford where he died on 6 November 2000.

Keywords

EN

Terlecki Tymon

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Sztuki PAN
• Journal: Pamiętnik Teatralny
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 60
• Issue: 3-4(239-240)
• Pages: 18-200

Contributors

author

Edward Krasinski

• Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk, ul. Długa 26/28, 00–950 Warszawa

author

Nina Taylor-Terlecka

• c/o Redakcja ‘Pamietnik Teatralny’; Instytut Sztuki PAN, ul. Długa 26/28. Warszawa, Poland