Zygmunt Szweykowski (7 April 1894 in

Krośniewice Krośniewice is a town in Kutno County, Łódź Voivodeship, Poland, with 4,258 inhabitants (2020). Transport The European routes E30 and E75 used to intersect in the town until a bypass was built around the town in 2010. The main railway betw ...

– 11 February 1978 in

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint Joh ...

) was a historian of

Polish literature Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland over the centuries have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Lati ...

who specialized in 19th-century Polish

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the fo ...

Life

In 1932-39, Szweykowski held a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...

ship at the Free Polish University (''Wolna Wszechnica Polska'') in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

and

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of ca ...

."Szweykowski, Zygmunt," ''Encyklopedia powszechna PWN'' (PWN Universal Encyclopedia), vol. 4, p. 370. During the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

occupation of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, he participated, at the risk of his life, in underground university teaching in Warsaw. From 1946 he held a chair at Poznań University. In 1950 he was inducted into the

Polish Academy of Learning The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning ( pl, Polska Akademia Umiejętności), headquartered in Kraków and founded in 1872, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of scie ...

, and in 1951 into the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society o ...

. Szweykowski studied the 19th-century Polish

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself ...

. His books in this field included ''Powieści historyczne Henryka Rzewuskiego'' (The Historical Novels of

Henryk Rzewuski Henryk Rzewuski (3 May 1791 – 28 February 1866) was a Polish nobleman, Romantic-era journalist and novelist. Life Count Henryk Rzewuski was a scion of a Polish magnate family in Ukraine. He was the son of Adam Wawrzyniec Rzewuski, a Russian s ...

, 1922) and ''Trylogia Sienkiewicza'' ( Sienkiewicz's ''

Trilogy A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, and video games, and are less common in other art forms. Three-part wor ...

'', 1961). His specialty, however, was the writings of

Bolesław Prus Aleksander Głowacki (20 August 1847 – 19 May 1912), better known by his pen name Bolesław Prus (), was a Polish novelist, a leading figure in the history of Polish literature and philosophy, as well as a distinctive voice in world li ...

. His books on Prus include ''Tworczość Bolesława Prusa'' (The Art of Bolesław Prus, 1947; 2nd ed., 1972) and ''Nie tylko o Prusie: szkice'' (Not Only about Prus: Sketches, 1967). Beginning in 1948, Szweykowski produced monumental editions of Prus' collected ''Pisma'' (Writings). He also edited Krystyna Tokarzówna's and Stanisław Fita's exhaustive ''Bolesław Prus, 1847-1912: Kalendarz życia i twórczości'' (Bolesław Prus, 1847-1912: a Calendar of isLife and Work), Warsaw, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1969.

Works

* ''Powieści historyczne Henryka Rzewuskiego'' (The

Historical Novel Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other t ...

s of

, 1922) * ''"Lalka" Bolesława Prusa'' (

' '' The Doll'', 1927) * ''Twórczość Bolesława Prusa'' (The Creative Writing of Bolesław Prus, 1947, 1972) * ''"Trylogia" Henryka Sienkiewicza. Szkice'' (

Henryk Sienkiewicz Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz ( , ; 5 May 1846 – 15 November 1916), also known by the pseudonym Litwos (), was a Polish writer, novelist, journalist and Nobel Prize laureate. He is best remembered for his historical novels, espe ...

's ''

'': Sketches, 1961) * ''Nie tylko o Prusie'' (Not Only about Prus, 1967) * ''"Trylogia" Sienkiewicza i inne szkice o twórczości pisarza'' (

Sienkiewicz Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz ( , ; 5 May 1846 – 15 November 1916), also known by the pseudonym Litwos (), was a Polish writer, novelist, journalist and Nobel Prize laureate. He is best remembered for his historical novels, especi ...

's ''

'' and Other Sketches about the Writer's Works, 1973)

Notes

References

*"Szweykowski, Zygmunt," ''Encyklopedia powszechna PWN'' (PWN Universal Encyclopedia), vol. 4, Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1976, p. 370. {{DEFAULTSORT:Szweykowski, Zygmunt 20th-century Polish historians Polish male non-fiction writers 1894 births 1978 deaths 20th-century Polish male writers

Life

Works

See also

Notes

References