Jan Błoński
Jan Błoński (January 15, 1931 – February 10, 2009) was a Polish historian, literary critic, publicist and translator. He was a leading representative of the Kraków school of literary criticism, regarded as one of the most influential critics of postwar Poland.
Professor of the Jagiellonian University, Błoński was habilitated there for the work entitled Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński and the beginnings of the Polish Baroque. He was the literary editor for the publication of Witold Gombrowicz's collected works in 1986–88 through Wydawnictwo Literackie. He was also the Fellow of Collegium Invisibile. In 1996–2001 he served as juror for the Nike Literary Award. In November 1995 he was awarded the Kraków Book of the Month Award for the collected works of Sławomir Mrożek, his long-time friend from the Stalinist period.[1]
Biography
Jan Błoński was born in Warsaw in 1931. During the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany, he witnessed the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 when some 300,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka and exterminated in a single classified operation.[2] Błoński later wrote that a Jewish boy who escaped, run into him on the street but he didn't help, which many years later brought about a deep feeling of guilt, and inspired his best-known piece of writing published by Tygodnik Powszechny in 1987 under the Polish title "Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto" (the Poor Poles look at the Ghetto) undermining the significance of the rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust.[3]
Błoński finished his Polish studies at the Jagiellonian University in 1952 during the darkest years of Stalinist terror in Poland. After graduation, he worked in the Institute of Literary Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1959–62 (after the Polish October). From 1970 he was employed at the Jagiellonian University. He was a vice-rector for didactic affairs (1981–84), director of the Institute of Polish Studies (1988–91), director of the Department of the Theatre (1977–1980) and the Department of the 20th Century Polish Literature (1995–97). As professor, he also lectured Polish literature at the University of Sorbonne, the University of Clermont-Ferrand and the Paris University IV. He died on 10 February 2009 in Kraków.[4]
References
- ↑ "List of Fellows". Collegium Invisible ci.edu.pl, Warsaw. Retrieved 25 April 2011.
- ↑ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Retrieved March 6, 2013.
- ↑ Jan Błoński. "Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto". Tygodnik Powszechny. p. 7. Archived from the original (Internet Archive) on February 14, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2013.
- ↑ Jerzy Jarzębski (First published in Gazeta Wyborcza, 38/2009). "Prof. Jan Błoński" (PDF file, direct download 1.03 MB). In memoriam. Jagiellonian University. pp. 14–16. Retrieved March 6, 2013. Check date values in:
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External links
- Holocaust scholar Jan Blonski dies, JTA, February 12, 2009
- Pożegnanie Jana Błońskiego (Goodbye to Jan Błoński - series of articles) (Polish)
- Jan Błoński, "Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto" at the Wayback Machine (archived February 14, 2009) with links to subsequent pages. (Polish)
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