Józef Czapski was interned at the Soviet POW camp Starobielsk in 1939 (where he gave lectures on Proust, published as an NYRB Classic under the title Lost Time). He was one of the few Polish officers to survive the war; thousands were shot in the Katyń forest massacre alone. In the title essay, Czapski remembers his fellow prisoners with short portraits. In other essays he explores his fascination with Russian literature and culture; in some he ponders the practice of painting; and in the long biographical essay, "Recollections," he recounts his youth before the war when he was by turns pacifist, Christian idealist (he was a big Tolstoy fan), nationalist, painter, writer, and solider. Memories of Starobielsk, translated by Alissa Valles, goes on sale today. On Thursday at 7:30 pm ET there’s an online event with Valles, Irena Grudińska Gross, Anka Muhkstein, and Eric Karpeles (author of Almost Nothing: The 20th-Century Art and Life of Józef Czapski).
English translation[edit]
The Inhuman Land is the first work of Czapski's translated into English and was published in London in 1951. Because it is a first-hand account of contemporaneous negotiations with the Soviets over the missing Polish officers it became an important document until Russian guilt for the massacres was acknowledged. In the post-war period Czapski was also among the eyewitnesses of the situation of Polish prisoners in Soviet captivity and testified on the matter before the United States Congress.[8]
His Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp was translated into English in 2018.[9]
Józef Czapski 約瑟夫·查普斯基
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Józef Czapski
Czapski in uniform, January 1943
Born 3 April 1896
Prague, Austria-Hungary
Died 12 January 1993 (aged 96)
Maisons-Laffitte, France
Nationality Polish
Occupation artist, writer, critic
Known for co-creating Kultura monthly, survivorship and eyewitness testament of the Katyn massacre
Notable work The Inhuman Land,
Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp
Józef Czapski (3 April 1896 – 12 January 1993) was a Polish artist, author, and critic, as well as an officer of the Polish Army. As a painter, he is notable for his membership in the Kapist movement, which was heavily influenced by Cézanne. Following the Polish Defensive War, he was made a prisoner of war by the Soviets and was among the very few officers to survive the Katyn massacre of 1940. Following the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement, he was an official envoy of the Polish government searching for the missing Polish officers in Russia. After World War II, he remained in exile in the Paris suburb of Maisons-Laffitte, where he was among the founders of Kultura monthly, one of the most influential Polish cultural journals of the 20th century.
Contents
1Life
1.1Early life
1.2Polish-Soviet War
1.3Paris Committee and Second World War
1.4Emigration
1.5Private life
2English translation
3The Jozef Czapski Pavilion
4Notes and references
5External links
6Further reading
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