Aleksander Wat (1900-1967)
A Polish writer and poet of Jewish origin, and a translator from Russian, French, and German, Wat was among the founders of Polish Futurism. He died on 29 July 1967 in France after a protracted illness. Wat’s life and works epitomise the experience of a twentieth-century artist who, initially entangled in the leftist avant-garde, ultimately became a victim of the Communist regime.

Wat was born to a Jewish family; his father was Rabbi Mendel Michał Chwat, and his mother, Rozalia, was née Kronsilber. In 1918, Wat completed his secondary education at Warsaw’s Roch Kowalski Gymnasium before studying philosophy at the University of Warsaw, where he came under the profound influence of Professor Tadeusz Kotarbiński. That same year, he co-founded a group in Warsaw with the poet and prose writer Anatol Stern; they hosted eccentric literary evenings and quickly became leading figures of Polish Futurism. During this period, he produced numerous poems published in literary magazines and declared his commitment to „freeing words” and breaking free from the constraints of spelling, grammar, and punctuation. This was when his first poetry collection emerged; Ja z jednej strony i Ja z drugiej strony mego mopsożelaznego piecyka („Me from One Side and Me from the Other Side of My Pug Iron Stove”, 1919) drew upon key motifs from European classical and Christian culture and heroic epics, which were nonetheless marked by grotesque and anti-aesthetic elements. In 1924, together with the painter Henryk Berlewi and the poet Stanisław Brucz, Wat established the design office „Reklamo-Mechano” to apply avant-garde poetics and stylistics to commercial advertising texts.

In the mid-1920s, with the decline of Futurism as an artistic movement, Wat turned to translating French, German, and Russian literature, including The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. In 1927, he published a collection of grotesque fantasy stories entitled Bezrobotny Lucyfer („Lucifer Unemployed”). Concurrently, he developed an interest in social issues and politics, and his acquaintance with Marxist journalist Andrzej Stawar gave rise to his leftist sympathies. This led to collaboration with other intellectuals sympathetic to Communism, including Władysław Broniewski and Bruno Jasieński. Together, they launched Miesięcznik Literacki („The Literary Monthly”), an unofficial organ of the Polish Communist Party. The publication was shut down two years later, and its editorial team was arrested. Wat’s alignment with Communism also brought about a creative crisis, as his style failed to adhere to the principles of socialist realism. After the outbreak of the Second World War, he relocated to Lwów (present-day Lviv, Ukraine), where he initially welcomed the incorporation of Western Ukraine into the USSR. At that time, he contributed to The Red Banner, a newspaper published by the Soviet occupation authorities. In January 1940, War and other Polish writers were arrested by the Soviets; he was held in Lwów, Kiev (modern-day Kyiv, Ukraine), and Moscow before being deported deep into the USSR, to Kazakhstan. Released under an amnesty in November 1941, he was reunited with his wife and son. In Alma-Ata (present-day Almaty, Kazakhstan), he served as the regional delegate of the Polish government-in-exile. Wat remained in Soviet Russia until 1946, but he never accepted Soviet citizenship, and his experiences in NKVD prisons left him disillusioned and permanently severed from Marxist ideology.

Upon his return to Poland, Aleksander Wat briefly served as Editor-in-Chief of the State Publishing Institute PIW (1946-1948). From 1947 to 1949, he co-edited Odrodzenie, the first socio-cultural weekly in post-war Poland. Wat was outspoken in his criticism of the emerging Communist system, and he worked to introduce literature outside the confines of socialist realism into the journals he managed. Although he contributed to Kuźnica and Twórczość literary magazines and took an active role in Poland’s post-war literary life, the mounting restrictions on creative freedom eventually silenced him. In January 1953, Wat was struck by a severe illness known as Wallenberg’s bulbar syndrome, which caused intense headaches and rendered him unable to work. Seeking treatment abroad, he travelled to Sweden in 1954 and southern France, where he stayed from 1955 to 1957. Despite his illness, he continued to write. After many years of creative silence, he published a collection titled Wiersze („Poems”) in 1957, which explored the multifarious, metaphysical pain he endured as he grappled with his condition. The publication garnered widespread interest and acclaim, earning Wat a prize from the Nowa Kultura weekly in Poland.

The writer sought solace and relief from his illness in France. Wat and his wife developed a deep affection for Paris and Provence (Cabris), where he composed a series of poems later included in Wiersze śródziemnomorskie („Mediterranean Poems”). In 1963, Wat decided to remain in exile and settled in the West. He published in the Paris-based Kultura, was a frequent guest on Radio Free Europe’s Polish section, and received a fellowship at the Center for Slavic and East European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. However, his illness aggravated, and writing became increasingly arduous. During his time abroad, he gave a series of interviews to Czesław Miłosz, which became the basis for the book Mój wiek („My Century”).

In 1965, he returned to France. However, he travelled to Mallorca for therapeutic purposes, where he completed his final collection, Ciemne świecidło („Dark Lustre”). Throughout this period, he suffered from excruciating headaches, which eventually led him, on 29 July 1967, to take his own life by overdosing on painkillers. Ultimately, the illness prevailed.