IWASZKIEWICZ, JAROSLAW

born Feb. 20, 1894, Kalnik, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now in Ukraine] died March 2, 1980, Stawisko, near Warsaw, Pol. Polish poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright, a highly gifted and prolific man of letters. Iwaszkiewicz studied law at the University of Kiev from 1912 and at the same time attended the music conservatory. In 1918 he settled in Warsaw, where he cofounded Skamander, a group of lyrical poets. From 1923 to 1925 he was private secretary to Maciej Rataj, the Sejm (Parliament) speaker, later joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1932 to 1935 he was a member at the Polish legations in Copenhagen and Brussels, returning afterward to writing. As a poet he was already well known for a few collections of verse. During World War II Iwaszkiewicz lived quietly with his wife Anna (ne Lilpop) at their country house in Stawisko. After the war he avoided participating in political activities. He agreed, however, in 1953 to be chairman of the Polish Committee to Defend Peace and to serve as a nonparty member of the Sejm. He twice presided over the Polish Writers' Union (194549 and 195980). From 1955 he was editor in chief of Twrczosc (Creation), a monthly literary periodical. Iwaszkiewicz's poems, published in Oktostychy (1919), Ksiega dnia i ksiega nocy (1922; The Book of Day and the Book of Night), and Wiersze zebrane (1968; Collected Poems), among others, are frequently lyrical evocations of the Polish landscape. His prose production, which took such varied forms as essays, plays, biographies, short stories, novels, and translations, includes the short-story collection Opowiadania (1954; Stories) and the novel Slawa i Chwala, 3 vol. (195662; Fame and Glory), an examination of the turbulent Polish society from 1914 to 1945.