A Human Matter (Rzecz ludzka)

Abstract

About the Author: Mieczysław Jastrun (1903–1983), a poet, essayist, and prose writer, was born in Korolówka (in former Eastern Galicia) to a Jewish family as Mojsze Agatsztein. At the age of seventeen he changed both his religion and his surname, and never fully accepted his Jewish origin. He studied Polish, German philology, and philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Jastrun made his literary debut in the prewar period with his poem The Big Wagon (Wielki Wagon), which was published in the monthly magazine Skamander in 1925. He worked as a Polish language teacher, translator, magazine editor (Wiadomości Literackie, Ateneum, Gazeta Literacka), and also lectured on contemporary poetry at the University of Warsaw. After the beginning of World War II, he escaped to Lviv occupied by the Soviets, and in 1941 returned to Poland spending his time in illegality and hidings. In 1964, he signed “Letter 34”, a protest letter by writers and scholars in defence of freedom of speech.