page_title: Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz / Biography
caption_attribution_description: Български: Подкова Лешна. Polski: Willa Iwaszkiewiczów w Stawisku (zabytek nr rejestr. 1108/764) Русский: Подкова-Лесьна.
context_page_description: Jarosław Leon Iwaszkiewicz, also known under his literary pseudonym Eleuter, was a Polish writer, poet, essayist, dramatist and translator. He is recognized for his literary achievements, beginning with poetry and prose written after World War I. After 1989, he was often presented as a political opportunist during his mature years lived in communist Poland, where he held high offices. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. In 1988, he was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations for his role in sheltering Jews during World War II.
context_section_description: Iwaszkiewicz was born in Kalnyk in Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine). After the death of his father (an accountant), he and his mother lived in Warsaw in 1902–1904, and then moved back to Kiev Governorate. He graduated from a secondary school in Kiev in 1912 and enrolled at the Law Faculty of Kiev University.
  In 1914, he travelled in Sicily and North Africa with his friend and distant cousin Karol Szymanowski, a composer for whose opera King Roger he later provided the libretto. After World War I, in October 1918 Iwaszkiewicz came to Warsaw, where he joined a group of young artists associated with the Pro Arte et Studio magazine. He had his public debut as a poet at the Pod Picadorem café on 29 November. With Julian Tuwim and Antoni Słonimski, he founded the Skamander group of experimental poets in 1919.
  He was appointed to be secretary of Maciej Rataj, marshal of the Sejm of the Second Polish Republic and served in that capacity in 1923–1925. Iwaszkiewicz worked for a magazine called Wiadomości Literackie ('The Literary News') in 1924–1939; he also published his works in numerous periodicals, including  Gazeta Polska (1934–1938) and Ateneum (1938–1939). He was secretary to the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts (Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych) and from 1925 a member of the Polish PEN Club. From 1927 with the Foreign Ministry, first appointed the head of the art promotion section of the Press Department and later sent as secretary of the Polish mission to Copenhagen (1932–1935) and Brussels (1935–1936). He was a member of The Trade Union of Polish Writers (Związek Zawodowy Literatów Polskich, ZZLP) and in 1939 voted its vice-president.
  During World War II, Iwaszkiewicz participated in the Polish Underground State's activities, working in the Department of Education, Science and Culture of the Government Delegation for Poland. He collaborated with Prof. Stanisław Lorentz in his efforts to protect and rescue Poland's works of art. Iwaszkiewicz and his wife Anna had extensive contacts within the Jewish-Polish intelligentsia circles and assisted their former neighbors, friends and acquaintances in a variety of ways during the German occupation of Poland. Iwaszkiewicz family's Villa Stawisko residence served as a hiding place for many Jews and Poles who faced the threat of being arrested by Nazi Germans, especially after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. At one time, more than 40 people were sheltered in the mansion. During the war, Stawisko also functioned as a center of Polish underground literature and art.
  In 1945–1946, 1947–1949 and 1959–1980, Iwaszkiewicz served as head of the Polish Writers' Union. In 1945–1949 and 1955–1957 he was literary manager of the Polish Theatre in Warsaw. From March 1947 to December 1949, he published the Nowiny literackie ('Literary News') magazine. Beginning in 1956, for many years he was chief editor of the monthly Twórczość ('Creativity'). Vice-president of the Polish PEN Club in 1950–1965.
  Iwaszkiewicz was an organizer of the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace held in Wrocław in 1948 and a delegate to the World Peace Congress in 1950.
  He served as a nonpartisan member of parliament from 1952 until his death in 1980. In his last three terms, he was the Senior Marshal of the Sejm. Iwaszkiewicz wrote of his deeply socialist convictions, but was ambivalent and privately bitter about the political reality of the Polish People's Republic, within which he officially functioned. Nevertheless, he was greatly impressed by the appreciation note that he received from Bolesław Bierut on the 40th anniversary of Iwaszkiewicz's literary career. In 1956, he was thrilled by the Polish October events. After a conversation with Edward Ochab in 1961, Iwaszkiewicz wrote: "They blame me for not having done anything as a member of the Sejm, but then they want me to be a deputy again". He continued his lifelong habit of making many foreign trips.
  Iwaszkiewicz wrote novels and short stories, poems, dramatic works, essays and columns, and tran
caption: Villa Stawisko in Podkowa Leśna houses the Anna and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz Museum
exif: {}