Forty biography house

House of Writers. There is an unusual house in Krakow, located on Krupnich Street, in architectural terms, it is not much different from its neighbors.

His secret is tenants. If you install memorial boards to every famous writer who lived here, worked, or came here on business, then there is not enough space on the facade. In this house, she left a mark, without exaggeration, almost all of the Polish literature of the second half of the twentieth century. Unlike Soviet analogues - residential writer houses “Word” in Kharkov and “Rolelit” the abbreviation from “Literature Worker”.

He was erected in the year, back in the days of Austria-Hungary, by order of the lawyer Adolf Lamensdorf. The owner with his family settled in one of the apartments, and leased the rest. The then residents are people of different professions and various prosperity. Someone could afford to be luxurious in apartments with a square of square meters, and someone rented a more modest meter apartment.

In the interwar period, the house was put up for sale, and the apartments gained new owners. However, the Second World War began, and everything has changed. Former House of Writers in Krakow. Under the Germans they redeveloped: instead of kitchens, they equipped bathrooms in luxury rooms even two. Five and a half years later, in January, Krakow was occupied by the Red Army.

The building on Brucks, 22 turned into a hotel for Soviet officers. Then almost fifty Polish writers were looking for a roof over his head. Most of up to a year lived in Warsaw, but their houses burned during the German occupation. Others fled from Eastern Galicia, not wanting to stay under the Soviet boot. There were also recently released prisoners of concentration camps, who, for various reasons, had nowhere to return.

You can still hear a business story about how this building was given to writers can be heard at the house in Krakow to this day. The initiative group went to the famous "House under the Globe", where the Krakow city authorities were temporarily located. The writer Adam Vazhik, who held some important position there, advised his colleagues to look at the house at the Trunichi, but the sentry, who was on duty at the entrance to the officer hotel, did not let out of strangers, and did not even look at the written permission, signed by Vajik and sealed.

One of the visitors so allowed the situation: he gave several coins to street boys and asked them to arrange a noise around the corner: “Fire! The sentry, hearing screams, rushed to check what was happening, and the writers, meanwhile, went inside. The commandant, to whom they got, turned out to be a pleasant person and, after listening to them, not only allowed to inspect the house, but also announced the date when the officers leave the hotel and go further to the west.

Only now Adam Vazhik did not live in Krakow before, he just came from Lublin. How does he know which house is better to choose for colleagues? According to the less anecdotic version, he arrived in Krakow as the organizer of the local branch of the Union of Polish writers. The solution of the housing issue was included in his competence. And he chose a house for Krupnichs, 22 comedian and satirist Tadeusz Kvyatkovsky, a native and permanent resident of the royal city.

He knew this house, because before the war there was a popular confectionery, where he was hiding in coffee with sweets. Vazhik and Kvyatkovsky, taking with him a literary critic of Kazimezh Chakhovsky, future chairman of the Krakow branch of the Union, went to a big one. One way or another, on February 14, the house turned to the disposal of writers. It housed a branch of the Union of Writers, residential premises and a dining room.

At first, Spartan conditions in approximately 30 apartments of former German hotel rooms settled with the families of 40 writers. This gave the grounds to one of the residents, the famous poet Constant Ildens Galchinsky, as a joke to call the building “House of Forty Bardes”. True, someone sarcastically “glued” an alternative shortcut-“literary collective farm”. Inside the house of writers.

Frame from the documentary film "The House of Writers, or the collected business." Source: Barton Film further the composition of the residents changed. Someone received a separate housing in Krakow, someone decided to return to Warsaw or go to Lodz, where it could be taught in a film school. The freed premises were provided to new writers. In M, the next “literary collective farmer” was the poet and playwright Tadeusz Ruzhevich, in M ​​- the poet of Vislava Shimborskaya, the future Nobel laureate, in M ​​- the playwright and writer Slavomir Mrozhek, who later became one of the most famous Polish writers in the world.

Slavomir Mrozhek, Valtasar's autobiography was on the last, fifth floor. The whole apartment consisted of one room, and very small: five meters by three. And in no way it was impossible to place things more than necessary. The bed was on the left, the cabinet was on the right. Behind the bed there was a chair, one chair, a table and a tiled stove. There was a microscopic sink outside the coal, and a mirror above it.

On the stairwells, printed cars were pounding behind the doors of the apartments.The manuscripts were scattered on publishers most often it was Krakow Wydawnictwo Literackie, the editorial offices of newspapers and magazines and theaters, turning into books, articles, performances. Jerzy Andzheevsky wrote in these walls the novel “Ashes and Diamonds”, filmed later by Andgea Weida.

The film received worldwide recognition and is considered one of the most outstanding achievements of Polish cinema. Vislava Shimborskaya - poetic collections “That's why we live”, “Questions asked to ourselves”, “Calls for Yeti” and “Favorites”. Stanislav Digat is the debut novel “Boden Lake”, then the novel “Farewell” and the play “Entertainment”. Constant Ildens Galchinsky is one of his most popular poems “Covered Blinds”.

Slavomir Mrozhek - satirical stories and stories, and here he made his debut as a playwright, performances on his plays went throughout Poland. Tadeusz Ruzhevich - poetic collections “Anxiety”, “Red Glove” and the satirical collection “In a spoonful of water”, from which censorship seized several pages. Casimege Barnaus - famous comedies that willingly put the capital and provincial theaters.

This list can be continued for a long time. Censorship and the vain eye of power Stefan Kiselevsky, the writer atmosphere in the House of Writers every year was increasingly different from the atmosphere behind its walls. On the streets, in newspapers, in politics, it became increasingly threatening: brutal pressure on the church, demonstrative processes over priests, death sentences to representatives of the real and imaginary opposition.

Communist times did not contribute to freedom of speech - all works passed through censorship. They were not settled on the cereals so that they would not make friends with the "wards." In the house opposite the writer, where the popular cafe is now, there was a police station. At least so I informed the sign. The people who came out of there were dressed in civilian.

The writers concluded: this is the department of the security service. The neighborhood is symbolic: Musa under the subservient eye of special services. Whether the writer's apartments were heard is unknown. In the "House of Soroka Bardes" one could hear not only the knock of printing machines. Musical passages were periodically heard from Stefan Kiselevsky, because he was also a famous composer.

But in the apartment of Adam Matsedonsky, the printing machine came to life only occasionally: the poet changed the pen to a pencil, and became famous just as a satirist. It was during the residence in the House of Writers that he received an international prize "Europe" at the festival of small forms in Rome. A peculiar violator of the discipline was known as Jadwig Vitkevich, the widow of the writer and artist Stanislav Vitkation.

Bridge lover, she periodically arranged card parties. The manager of Adam Polevka threatened to evict her, especially since the authorities negatively referred to the work of her late husband. In the end, the woman was tired of threats, and she searched for an article in the manuscripts, from which - however, with a very free interpretation - it followed that he criticized capitalism.

The field calmed down and lagged behind. Many writers who did not live on Krupnichi, 22, regularly went here on business - into the Union of Writers on the second floor. Among them were the famous science fiction writer Stanislav Lem and the poet Cheslav Milos, the future Nobel laureate. The poet Jan Bzhesh, the author of satirical songs for the cabaret and children's stories about Pan Dvat, stayed here in the year as a delegate to the Congress of the Writers' Congress.

The writer's club on the ground floor of the mansion was located a writer's dining room, which after repair in M ​​turned into a club of writers. Here, the inhabitants of the house arranged poetic duels, washed the published books, celebrated birthdays, and so on. Quite quickly, the club became a peculiar alternative center for the cultural life of Krakow - the famous guesters, having worked in concert halls an official program, eagerly rode a large, 22, where they performed in an informal setting.

And without censorship. Club of Writers. Source: Barton Film the first swallow on the club stage was the American jazz quartet of Dave Brubek. Not only the inhabitants of the house gathered to listen to overseas guests in the year, but also the famous Krakow jazzmen - Kshishtof Comeda, Andrzej Kuevilievich and others. As a result, the Americans and the Poles performed in turn, and the festival of music, communication and treats continued until the morning.

Another highlight of the club is Eva Demar. The pop star, the founder of the genre of “song poetry”, was here her career. For two years, the scene of the club of writers served as a constant and only place of her performances. Thanks to so many celebrities, the Club of Writers was considered an elite, cult place. The legends about the local events went along Krakow.