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Exposed to culture from an early age
Julia Hartwig Poet
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Właśnie w tym okresie, właśnie zadebiutowałam mając 15 lat. W Lublinie wychodził... wychodziło takie pismo młodzieżowe „Słońce” – którego byłam jedną... jedną z redaktorek, bardzo poważną, z warkoczykami, dwoma kucykami – i tam zamieściłam swoje pierwsze wiersze. Przy czem jeden z tych wierszy ktoś przesłał Józefowi Czechowiczowi, który w tym czasie także był w Lublinie i był takim... takim, no bardzo, bardzo lubianym i bardzo szanowaną postacią, a sam właściwie troszkę się... chodził leniwie po tym Lublinie, ale wszyscy go rozpoznawali, podobnie jak drugiego poetę – to był Józef Łobodowski, zupełnie inny temperament, inna poetyka. Ale chciałabym tu powiedzieć, że wychowałam się w mieście, w którym sprawy kultury były bardzo doceniane – że elita, nawet tacy ludzie, którzy byli właścicielami jakichś dużych sklepów na przykład albo lekarze, ksiądz, który był od... od spraw etnografii znakomity – i to było bardzo piękne. Ja się z tym zetknęłam właśnie poprzez brata, z którym łączyły mnie także bliskie związki z naturą, właściwie między innymi on wtedy także bardzo dużo natury fotografował, a ja pisałam sporo wierszy w których natura odgrywa dużą rolę. Ale na przykład na obecnym etapie tego już prawie nie mam, to są wiersze bardziej refleksyjne, inaczej pisane, zupełnie inne spojrzenie na świat. W tym okresie już chyba nic takiego szczególnie ciekawego nie było. Mój mąż... mój ojciec się ożenił i ja byłam razem z nimi, moje rodzeństwo wyfrunęło już z domu, wszyscy się zajęli swoimi zawodami albo nauką. To znaczy właśnie medycyna – mój brat i moja siostra, która chodziła do takiej Wyższej Szkoły Pielęgniarskiej imienia Florence Nightingale w Warszawie; a po drugiej stronie właśnie ten mój brat i ja... my twórczo... stanowiliśmy stronnictwo artystyczne, jak żeśmy się śmieli.

It was at this time that I made my debut, aged 15. In Lublin, there was a publication for the youth called Słońce, and I was one of the editors – terribly serious with my hair in two pigtails – and it was there that I published my first poems. Someone sent one of those poems to Józef Czechowicz who was also in Lublin at that time, and he was very well liked and well respected. He used to stroll lazily around Lublin, but everyone recognized him and another poet as well, Józef Łobodowski, who had a totally different temperament, completely different poetics. I'd like to say here that I was brought up in a city where matters relating to culture were greatly appreciated – the elite, even people like owners of department stores for instance, or doctors or the priest, who had an outstanding knowledge of ethnography – all of this was beautiful. I came into contact with this through my brother with whom I shared an interest in nature; in fact, he took a lot of nature photographs while I wrote many poems in which nature played a significant role. However, at this stage of my writing, this is barely present any more: my poetry is more reflective, differently put together – a totally different outlook on life. I don't think there was anything else particularly interesting from this period. My husband… my father married, and I was with them, my siblings had already flown the nest, everyone focused on their profession or on studying. I mean specifically medicine – my brother and my sister who attended The Florence Nightingale Advanced School of Nursing in Warsaw, and then there was my brother and myself who made up the artistic wing. This was a great source of amusement for us.

Born to a Polish father and a Russian mother, Julia Hartwig (1921-2017) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and author of children's books. She studied at the University of Warsaw, the Catholic University in Lublin and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Czesław Miłosz called her 'the grande dame of Polish poetry'. Julia Hartwig was one of the few poets in Poland who made masterly use of poetic prose. She translated poems by Apollinaire, Rimbaud, Max Jacob, Cendrars and Supervielle, and published monographs on Apollinaire and Gerard de Nerval. She also translated from English, and published a large anthology of American poetry which she co-edited in 1992 with her late husband, the poet Artur Międzyrzecki.

Listeners: Andrzej Wolski

Film director and documentary maker, Andrzej Wolski has made around 40 films since 1982 for French television, the BBC, TVP and other TV networks. He specializes in portraits and in historical films. Films that he has directed or written the screenplay for include Kultura, which he co-directed with Agnieszka Holland, and KOR which presents the history of the Worker’s Defence Committee as told by its members. Andrzej Wolski has received many awards for his work, including the UNESCO Grand Prix at the Festival du Film d’Art.

Tags: Słońce, Lublin, The Florence Nightingale Advanced School of Nursing, Warsaw, Józef Czechowicz, Józef Łobodowski, Edward Hartwig

Duration: 2 minutes, 22 seconds

Date story recorded: June 2010

Date story went live: 10 May 2011