Stanisław Przybyszewski
Stanisław Przybyszewski was a Polish writer and influential figure in the European Modernist movement, born on May 7, 1868, in Kujawy, Prussia (now Poland). Initially studying architecture, he shifted to medicine at Berlin University but became more engaged in bohemian circles in Berlin and Oslo, where he befriended notable artists such as Edvard Munch. His marriage to Norwegian pianist Dagny Juell marked a significant personal milestone. Przybyszewski was a radical thinker and active in liberal politics, contributing to leftist publications and facing imprisonment for his socialist affiliations.
Throughout the 1890s, he produced various literary works, including his novel "Homo sapiens" and the psychological treatise "Zur Psychologie des Individuums," which critiqued societal repression. Although he gained early acclaim in Poland, his notoriety declined due to a tumultuous lifestyle characterized by personal scandals and moral controversies. Nevertheless, he continued to write and even traveled with an acting troupe, promoting his plays across Russia. Later years saw him involved with the Polish expressionist movement and holding minor government positions until his death on November 23, 1927. Przybyszewski's legacy lies in his embodiment of Modernist ideals and his role in championing progressive cultural values in Poland and beyond.
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Subject Terms
Stanisław Przybyszewski
Novelist
- Born: May 7, 1868
- Birthplace: Kujawy, Prussia (now in Poland)
- Died: November 23, 1927
- Place of death: Jaronty, Poland
Biography
Stanisław Przybyszewski was born in Kujawy, Prussia (now in Poland), on May 7, 1868, one of numerous offspring of an impoverished schoolmaster. To escape his family’s debilitating economic condition, Przybzybewski advanced himself by successfully completing a German grammar school, which enabled him to attend the department of architecture at Charlottenburg Polytechnic in Berlin. However, shortly after his arrival, Przybyszewski switched his concentration to study medicine at Berlin University.
More important than Przybyszewski’s medical studies, however, were his radical extracurricular activities. He quickly became associated with bohemian society in the suburbs of Berlin and subsequently the Norwegian bohemian society in Oslo. His frequent trips to Oslo led to his friendship with Edvard Munch, the Norwegian painter, who introduced Przybyszewski to Dagny Juell, a Norwegian pianist whom he married in 1893. Moreover, his connection with the bohemian societies of Europe brought him in the circle of Europe’s principal figures of Modernism, which included writers August Strindberg, Richard Dehemel, Ola Hansson, and others; these figures profoundly influenced Przybyszewski’s career and life. Przybyszewski also engaged in liberal politics. He helped edit the leftist newspaper Gazeta robotnicza, which was published in the Polish language, from 1892 until 1983. In 1893 he was imprisoned because of his contacts with socialist leaders in Berlin, causing his subsequent expulsion from Berlin University.
Przybyszewski spent the remaining 1890’s writing, completing a novel, Homo sapiens (1895-1896), and a play, Das grosse Glück, which was later published in Totentanz der Liebe (1902). His two-volume psychological treatise, Zur Psychologie des Individuums, was published in 1892. The book maintains that modern society represses freedom, describing how contemporary artists, such as philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and composer Frederic Chopin sought freedom in their work. Przybyszewski returned to his native Poland as a hero and assumed the editorship of Życie, a reformative Polish review of the Prussian Empire; the review lasted for two years, but confirmed Przybyszewski’s function as one of Poland’s top propagators of native Polish culture.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Przybyszewski’s popular fame was deteriorating. His riotous lifestyle, marked by several adulterous affairs in which several illegitimate offspring were produced, his deliberate ruin of the marriage of the popular Polish poet, Jan Kasprowicz, and his wife’s suicide-murder in 1901, supplemented by his literary works of moral perversity, were factors in Przybyszewski’s decline. Nevertheless, Przybyszewski continued to write and spread his influence. From 1903 to 1905, Przybyszewski traveled with an acting troupe throughout Russia, staging his dramas. In 1905, Przybyszewski married Jadwiga Kasprowiczowa. In 1906, he moved to Munich, Germany, and continued to travel throughout Europe. In 1918, he returned to Poland, where he was in constant contact with the revolutionary Polish expressionist movement in Poznan.
Because of his prior fame, Przybyszewski spent the final years of his life in Poland drifting from one innocuous governmental administrative position to another. He died on November 23, 1927, in Jaronty, Poland. Much of Przybyszewski achievement lies not with the literature he wrote but with his promotion of the progressive tenets of the Modernist movement in Europe through his unconventional lifestyle; he was the actual embodiment of his Modernist views.