Aleksander Wat
Aleksander Wat, born in 1900 in Warsaw, Poland, was a prominent Jewish poet, writer, and intellectual associated with the Polish Futurism movement. He studied philosophy at Warsaw University and published his first collection of poems in 1920. Throughout the 1920s, Wat explored themes that challenged traditional moral and religious concepts, culminating in his diverse body of work, which included poetry and short stories. His political activism led to imprisonment due to his Communist beliefs, and he faced significant personal turmoil during World War II when he and his family fled the Nazis and endured separation and hardship.
After the war, Wat became an outspoken critic of Socialist Realism and converted to Catholicism in 1953, despite suffering from chronic health issues resulting from a stroke. His later poetry and prose delved into themes of faith, doubt, and the manipulation of language under Communist regimes. In 1963, Wat moved to Paris, where he continued to write until his tragic suicide in 1967. His legacy has been revived over the years, with increased interest in his work and contributions to literature, particularly regarding the experiences of Eastern European dissidents and the exploration of universal human conditions.
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Aleksander Wat
Writer
- Born: 1900
- Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland
- Died: 1967
- Place of death: Paris, France
Biography
Aleksander Wat was born Aleksander Chwat in Warsaw, Poland, in 1900, one of six children of a prominent Jewish family. He attended Warsaw University, where he excelled in philosophy and was especially interested in the ideas of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Arthur Schopenhauer. In 1920, he published his first book of poems, Ja z jednej strony i ja z drugiej strony mego mopsozelaznego piecyka, a product of automatic writing that put him in the vanguard of Polish Futurism.
He married his wife, Ola, in 1927, and also published a collection of short stories, Bezrobotny Lucyfer i inne opowieśce (1927; Lucifer Unemployed), 1990), that negated the universal concepts of morality, religion, and love. From 1929 through 1932, he edited The Literary Monthly, a Communist periodical, and was jailed for his opinions. In 1939, he and his family fled the Nazis, and he was separated for a time from his wife and nine-year-old son, Andrzei. The family reunited in Soviet-controlled territory where Wat worked as a journalist before being imprisoned again; his wife and son were sent to Kazakhstan. While in prison and near death from illness and hunger, Wat had a vision of God, Satan, and cosmic unity that affected the rest of his life by leading him to develop a spirituality combining Judaism and Christianity and renouncing Communism.
Wat was freed in 1941 by an act of general amnesty. He searched for his family and was reunited with them only to be exiled with his family at the Soviet border with China. He and his family were finally able to return to Poland in 1946. Two years later, despite the threat of retaliation, Wat began a sustained campaign against Socialist Realism. In 1953, he converted to Catholicism and had a massive stroke that resulted in Wallenberg’s Syndrome, irreversible nerve damage that triggered bouts of excruciating pain for the rest of his life.
In 1956, the political climate relaxed enough for Wat to publish two collections of poetry, Wiersze (1957) and Wiersze srodziemnomorskie (1962; Mediterranean Poems, 1977). Both are autobiographical collections that are grounded in the religious and political trauma endured by Eastern European dissidents, but the poems also portray the universal human condition. Their themes are those of Wat’s mature works: struggles with faith, doubt, suffering, and language in relation to truth. His prose treats historical reality even more directly and traces the growth of Communism, particularly in its use of language to manipulate the truth and control people’s minds.
In 1963, Wat left Poland for Paris, and the following year he was invited by the Center for Slavic and East European Studies of the University of California, Berkeley, to be a writer in residence. To ease one of Wat’s crippling bouts of pain, the center’s director suggested that he and Slavic professor Czeslaw Milosz meet and tape conversations about Wat’s life and work. This resulted in Mój wiek: Pamiętnik mówiony (1977; My Century: The Odyssey of a Polish Intellectual, 1988).
In 1967, Wat committed suicide in his Paris residence. His wife continued to transcribe his work from his notes and recordings and published a volume of his poems, Ciemne swiecidlo, in 1968. The 1980’s saw renewed interest in his work and in 2000 the National Library in Poland exhibited memorabilia chronicling his life and work.