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As one door closes, another opens

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I meet Ksawery Pruszyński
Julia Hartwig Poet
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I met Pruszyński in a very unusual way. Of course, I knew who he was and what he wrote but on one occasion, I was invited by the ambassador's deputy to... to lunch – to dinner – and at this lunch there was Ważyk, Bieńkowski and Pruszyński among the Poles, and that was where we met. It was very entertaining because there was a conversation around the table after which I made for... because we got up to have some coffee and he quickly sat down beside me on the next chair and never left my side for the rest of the time. And that is how it started. At that point, he wasn't yet the envoy to The Hague, it wasn't until later that he joined the UN and left for the United States and then he came back to The Hague, by which time our relationship was very animated as he used to come to Paris which was easy and I used to travel to The Hague and to Amsterdam. I spent one Christmas there and met his children – he was divorced – and at the same time I came to know Holland a bit, which is an absolutely beautiful country. In fact, I dream of going there again and I don't know why I haven't done this yet.

Poznałam Pruszyńskiego w taki sposób zupełnie nieoczekiwany, bo oczywiście wiedziałam kto to jest i co pisze, ale pewnego razu zostałam zaproszona przez... przez zastępcę ambasadora na... na lunch – na obiad – i na tym lunchu – to miał być taki polski lunch – na tym lunchu był Ważyk, Bieńkowski i Pruszyński z Polaków i właściwie to tak się stało, że... żeśmy się tam poznali. A bardzo było zabawnie, bo przy stole była jakaś rozmowa, poczem ja się udałam, bo siadaliśmy do... do kawy i on bardzo szybko umieścił się koło mnie – właściwie na krześle obok – i już nie odstąpił mnie do końca. No i taki był właściwie początek. On wtedy... wtedy jeszcze nie był posłem w Hadze, tylko wyjechał potem do ONZ-etu, do Stanów Zjednoczonych, potem tu wrócił w Hadze i wtedy te stosunki były już bardzo ożywione, ponieważ on przyjeżdżał do Paryża, to nietrudno, a także jeździłam do... do Hagi i do Amsterdamu. I tam spędziłam kiedyś jakieś... jakieś Boże Narodzenie, poznałam jego dzieci, bo on był rozwiedziony i... no i przy okazji poznałam trochę Holandii, która jest miejscem zupełnie cudownym. Właściwie marzę o tym – nie wiem dlaczego nie realizuję tego – żeby jeszcze raz pojechać do Holandii.

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: Holland, Netherlands, Hague, , USA, UN, United Nations, Paris, Amsterdam, Ksawery Pruszyński, Adam Ważyk, Zbigniew Bieńkowski

Duration: 1 minute, 30 seconds

Date story recorded: June 2010

Date story went live: 14 June 2011