Kazimierz Tetmajer

Tetmajer, Kazimierz 

(also Przerwa Tetmajer, Tetmajer-Przerwa). Born Feb. 12,1865, in Ludzimierz, Podhale; died Jan. 18,1940, in Warsaw. Polish writer.

Tetmajer graduated from the faculty of philosophy of Jagiellonian University in 1889. His poetry collections of the 1890’s made him the most popular poet of the Mloda Polska movement. Along with some fine poems, Tetmajer’s masterpiece was the cycle of short stories On the Rocky Heights of Podhale (1903–10), which employs folk themes and masterfully reproduces the Podhale dialect. The historical novel Tatra Legends (vols. 1–2, 1910–11), which depicts the peasant uprisings and the wars of the mid-17th century, is close to this cycle in theme and spirit. Tetmajer’s novel The End of an Epic (vols. 1–4, 1913–17), which deals with the Napoleonic War of 1812, criticizes the cult of Napoleon in Poland. Many of Tetmajer’s prose works have been translated into Russian.

Beginning in the early 1920’s, a serious mental illness curtailed Tetmajer’s career as a writer.

WORKS

Poezje, series 1–8. Krakow-Warsaw, 1891–1924.
In Russian translation:
Sobr. soch., vols. 1–10. Moscow, 1907–11.
Izbr. proza. Moscow, 1956.

REFERENCES

Miller, I. S. “Kazimezh Tetmaier.” In Istoriia pol’skoi literatury, vol. 2. Moscow, 1969.
Jabłońska, K. Kazimierz Tetmajer: Próba biografii. Kraków [1969]. (Contains bibliography.)

I. S. MILLER