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1

SPATIF Leona Schillera

100%

Chojnacka A.

Pamiętnik Teatralny

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2012

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vol. 61

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issue 1-2(241-242)

143-210

EN

The Society of Polish Theatre and Film Artists (Stowarzyszenie Polskich Artystów Teatru i Filmu: SPATiF) was a continuation of the Polish Stage Artists Union (Związek Artystów Scen Polskich; ZASP) established by and for actors and directors in 1918. Leon Schiller had been its active member since the beginning. ZASP had made it its goal to evaluate and improve its members’ professional qualifications, and took care of various organisational and artistic matters. During the Second World War, the union organised help for actors in need and took part in some activities of the Polish underground. In 1945, as more and more of Poland’s territory was being freed from the Nazi oppression, new theatre companies and local trade union organisations were being formed. The Communist government, however, aimed at bringing all trade unions into submission. Thus, in 1949, a decision to dissolve six trade unions of artists, including ZASP, was made. Soon afterwards, they were all replaced by a single Trade Union of Arts and Culture Workers (Związek Zawodowy Pracowników Sztuki i Kultury) which was controlled by the Central Council of Trade Unions (Centralna Rada Związków Zawodowych), with party dignitaries holding the reins. Actors and directors were right to conclude that the new union would not represent their interests properly and decided to establish their own organisation. The process of its formation was controlled by the party. SPATiF was established at the Formation Conference held on 11 and 12 of July 1950. Schiller became its first president and right at the start presented an extensive programme. He proposed repertories with Romantic drama, professional and ideological training courses, organisation of a central library, publishing of theatrological literature and the society’s own periodical, and organisation of artistic councils in theatres. The assumption was that the society would have real influence on decisions concerning theatre. Yet SPATiF was not a trade union, and it was ignored by the government. The Managerial Board of SPATiF organised local branches of the Society but focused its activity on Warsaw. The organisation managed to collect a substantial number of books for its library; it organised numerous lectures, discussions, courses, meetings with artists from abroad, and actors’ jubilees. The Society engaged in important cultural and political events, i.e. general election to Sejm in 1952 or the Tenth Anniversary of the People’s Republic of Poland celebrations. It provided social help for its members and their families, and funded the Shelter for Veteran Artists in Skolimów. Despite numerous efforts of the President and the whole SPATiF, it had been impossible to establish any satisfactory principles of cooperation between the Society and the Central Management of Theatres Office, the Ministry of Culture and the Trade Union of Arts and Culture Workers. Schiller died on 25 March 1954. His duties were taken over by Vice-President Marian Wyrzykowski. The first General Meeting of the Society Members took place in 1955. Neither then nor later did the relations between SPATiF and the government improve.

2

Powojenne listy Leona Schillera

100%

Chojnacka A.

Pamiętnik Teatralny

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2014

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vol. 63

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issue 1-2(249-250)

14-46

EN

Throughout his life, Leon Schiller conducted extensive professional and private correspondence. Many of his letters perished; most of those written before the war were lost along with the whole private archive of the artist during the Second World War, and only a part of those from the post-war period found their way to document archives and museum collections. More than a hundred of the preserved letters have already been published. Now we are publishing sixteen letters from 1946–1953. Schiller corresponded with his sister Anna Jackowska for dozens of years from the moment he left the family home in 1908. He wrote about his professional and family matters, recounted his impressions from his journeys, and talked about his theatre projects, dilemmas and feelings. The letters to Jackowska are very personal. From the post-war period only five of these have survived: two letters from 1946, two others from 1948 and one from 1952. The ones from the second half of the 1940s show great enthusiasm. The director is making sweeping individual plans, but also wants to organise the whole theatre life in the country.

3

Interesy Leona Alfonsa de Schillera-Schildenfelda

100%

Degler J.

Pamiętnik Teatralny

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2014

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vol. 63

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issue 1-2(249-250)

5-13

EN

Little is known about Leon Schiller’s ancestors. Biographers say that they came from Carinthia, which until the First World War belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1745 Empress Maria Theresa ennobled Johann Matthäus Schiller, a postmaster from Loitsch, investing him with the cognomen “von Schildenfeld”. In 1772 the Schillers settled in Galicia, and soon became Polonised. At the beginning of the 1890s, Leon Alfons Schiller-Schildenfeld, Leon’s father, moved from Zaleszczyki to Cracow where he founded his firm, Dom AgencyjnoKomisowy. And this is pretty much all that was known about his activities. A postcard sent by him to a well-known French engraver on 13 September 1900 has become an inspiration for research that would add to this scant knowledge. It turns out that Leon Alfons Schiller was a valued business partner. In 1899, along with a well-known merchant and rich industrialist, Stanisław Gurgul, he bought a defunct factory of gingerbread and food products at Jarosław. In November of 1905, he formed a commercial company with Bolesław Bilikiewicz, which carried out its business until 1913. He hoped that his son would become its coowner. However, despite the fact that Leon Schiller completed the Course for High School Graduates at the Trade Academy in Cracow (Kurs Abiturientów Akademii Handlowej w Krakowie) on 30 June 1912 and underwent the respective on-the-job training, he did not want to take over his father’s business. From an early age, he was fascinated with theatre. In February of 1909, during his stay in Paris, he met Edward Gordon Craig and published his essay “Two Theatres” in Craig’s periodical, The Mask. He performed as a singer in cabarets of Cracow, Warsaw, and Paris. He left Cracow for good in 1917 and took the position of musical director at the Polski Theatre in Warsaw, where he debuted as a director on 22 December 1917. Leon Alfons de Schiller-Schildenfeld gained gratitude of the Cracow public as a founder and president of an insurance organisation that served the needs of the poor. During the First World War, he took on the responsibilities of the City Provisions director and became a member of the management board of Kasa Kupiecka. At the end of his life he moved with his wife to Wroczyn, a village owned by their daughter’s husband, Tadeusz Gustaw Jackowski, where he passed away on 3 July 1931.

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SPATIF Leona Schillera

Powojenne listy Leona Schillera

Interesy Leona Alfonsa de Schillera-Schildenfelda