Baczyński, a romantic fighter for freedom

Polish Poetry Unites is a new video series for anyone interested in literature, history and reading. In each episode Edward Hirsch, a distinguished American poet, and the president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, will introduce a celebrated Polish poet to American audiences.

Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, one of the most important Polish Poets of the 20th century, is not widely known in the USA, as he is very difficult to translate. Regretfully, says Edward Hirsch. Baczyński and his wife joined the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. They got separated. He was killed on the 3rd day of the uprising in the center of Warsaw, and his wife Barbara was killed 3 weeks later just a few days after discovering that she was pregnant. She probably never learned that her husband had died, and Krzysztof never learned that Barbara was expecting. The three of them are together now, buried in the same grave at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.

“Their love was a great love,” says Hirsch.

Footage of places connected with Baczyński’s life in Warsaw is seen as Hirsch talks about the Polish poet: the building where he was born, the school he went to, the marker at the spot where he died, shot by a German sniper, and the family grave which is frequently visited by school children.

Baczyński was only 23 when he died, but left behind his prose and many poems, drawings and paintings, as he was also a talented artist.

In the short documentary film, which follows Edward Hirsch’s introduction, an engineer, Anna Kurkowska-Mielczarek is featured, talking about her life in the context of Baczynski’s poem—“A Poet’s House”—a fragment of his poetic novellas called The Poet’s Wedding. For her, the poem symbolizes the ideal atmosphere for a home, one that doesn’t translate into material things. She feels like she grew up in such an atmosphere in the house of her parents. Feelings from the past are often hard to describe, yet often can be found in poetry, which is what happened to Anna Kurkowska-Mielczarek.

Moderator: Edward Hirsch
Writer and Director: Ewa Zadrzyńska
Cinematography: Jacek Mierosławski
Editor: Anna Jędrzejewska
Curator and Executive Producer: Bartek Remisko

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