The Escape from Yasnaya Polyana (Ucieczka z Jasnej Polany) and Shakespeare (Szekspir)

Abstract

About the Author: Adolf Rudnicki (1909–1990) was born as Aron Hirschhorn (also Hirszhorn) in Żabno near Tarnów. Many sources list a false date (1912) and place of birth, probably due to Rudnicki’s own efforts to “[blur] the traces of biographical identification” (Wróbel, 2004, p. 18). In 1928 he joined the army, and in the 1930s he moved to Warsaw, where he joined bohemian circles. During the interwar period he published in numerous literary periodicals and made his literary debut in 1930 with the short story The Death of the Operator (Śmierć operatora), which he published under the pseudonym Rudnicki. Two years later, he published his first novel, Rats (Szczury). In 1939, he took part in the September campaign (the defensive war against the German invasion of Poland) and was taken prisoner, but managed to escape to Lviv, where he stayed until 1942. After leaving Lviv, he lived in Warsaw on the Aryan side of the city. As Piotr Kuncewicz recalls, Rudnicki spent a short time, by his own choice, in the ghetto (Finezje literackie, 1997, part I), where he was involved in a conspiracy and took part in the Warsaw Uprising. In 1944 he moved to Lublin, and later to Lodz, which was an important centre for literary and artistic life after the war.