Zbigniew Herbert (; 29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998) was a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist. He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. While he was first published in the 1950s (a volume titled Chord of Light was issued in 1956), soon after he voluntarily ceased submitting most of his works to official Polish government publications. He resumed publication in the 1980s, initially in the underground press. Starting in the 1960s, he was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. His books have been translated into 38 languages.
Herbert was one of the main poets of the Polish opposition to communism. Starting in 1986, he lived in Paris, where he cooperated with the journal Zeszyty Literackie. He came back to Poland in 1992. On 1 July 2007 the Polish Government instituted 2008 as the Year of Zbigniew Herbert. In 2013, the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award was established in honour of the poet and his literary legacy. He received the 1963 Kościelski Prize (Geneva), 1965 Jurzykowski Prize, 1965 Austrian State Prize for European Literature, 1973 Herder Prize (Austria), 1979 Petrarca-Preis (Germany), and 1991 Jerusalem Prize (Israel).
Biography
1924–1956 Zbigniew Herbert was born on 29 October 1924 to Boleslaw Herbert and his wife Maria, Kaniak. Herbert's Austrian ancestor came to Galicia from Vienna around the turn of the 18th and 19th century. The poet's father was a soldier in the Polish Legions during World War I and a defender of Lwów; he was a lawyer and worked as a bank manager. Herbert's grandmother was Armenian;Armenian grandmother, Maria Balabanov Herbert, poem dedicated Fri. Grandma. She was also mentioned in the article Armiańska babcia, published in Zeszyty Literackie 2 (94) 2006. his grandfather was an English language teacher.
Herbert claimed to be a distant relative of the 17th-century Anglo-Welsh poet George Herbert.
Before the war Zbigniew Herbert attended the Państwowe VIII Gimnazjum i Liceum im. Króla Kazimierza Wielkiego we Lwowie (during the Soviet occupation the name was changed to High School nr 14). After the German and Soviet invasion and subsequent occupation of Lwów, he continued his studies at the secret meetings organized by the Polish underground, where he graduated and passed the school leaving exam (matura) in January 1944. At the same time, (following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939) he got involved in conspiratorial action with the AK. During the occupation, he worked as a louse-feeder in the Rudolf Weigl Institute that produced anti-typhus vaccines; he also worked as a salesman in a shop with metal articles. He began Polish philology studies at the secret University of Jan Kazimierz in Lwów but had to break them off as a result of moving to Kraków (spring 1944, before the invasion of the Soviet Red Army in Lwów). Lwów after the war became a Ukrainian Soviet city, no longer within Polish borders. Its previous Polish population had been expelled. The loss of his beloved hometown, and the following feeling of being uprooted, were important motifs in his later works.
At first, he lived in Proszowice, near Kraków (May 1944 – January 1945). Herbert studied economics in Kraków and attended lectures at the Jagiellonian University and at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1947, after three years of study, he got his Trade Academy diploma. He lived in Sopot (from 1948), where his parents moved in 1946. He worked different jobs; in the Polish National Bank (NBP) in Gdynia (1 March – 30 June 1948), as a sub-editor of the journal Przegląd Kupiecki, and in Gdańsk department of the Polish Writers' Union (ZLP). He met Halina Misiołkowa there (their relationship lasted until 1957). In 1948 he became a member-candidate of the ZLP but resigned in 1951; however, he joined the union again in 1955.
While living in Sopot, he continued his law studies at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where he received a Master of Law. In the same year he was carried on the list on the second year of Philosophy at NCU in Toruń, where he was inter alia a student of his later master, Henryk Elzenberg. In 1949 Herbert moved to Toruń, and worked in the District Museum and in primary school as a teacher.
In Autumn 1951 the poet moved to the University of Warsaw, where he continued studying philosophy for some time. At first, he lived alone in very poor conditions in suburban Warsaw, Brwinów, but then (December 1952 – January 1957), he lived in Warsaw itself on Wiejska Street in a room rented by 12 people. Subsequently, Herbert moved to an official flat on Aleje Jerozolimskie.
He tried to live from his writing. However, since he did not follow the official socrealistic style of literature and was unwilling to write political propaganda this proved to be unsuccessful. He published theatrical and musical criticisms and reports from exhibits which ignored the criteria of socrealistic art. In 1948 the weekly magazine Tygodnik Wybrzeża published his cycle Poetyka dla Laików (Poetry for Lay People). Herbert also published a few of his reviews in the journal Słowo Powszechne in 1949 under his real name and a year later under a pen name, Patryk. The same happened with his publishing in Tygodnik Powszechny. In 1952 Przegląd Powszechny, published a few of his reviews under a pen name – Bolesław Hertyński.
He published under the pen name Stefan Martha in Dziś i Jutro, the PAX Association magazine (1950–1953). These periodicals represented a different styles of Catholicism. Pax sought to 'collaborate' with the communist government, while Tygodnik Powszechny took a more oppositional stance (it was legal but its circulation was limited). Herbert definitely finished his cooperation with PAX in 1953. Przegląd Powszechny was closed and Tygodnik Powszechny was transferred to PAX after it refused to publish an obituary of Joseph Stalin's death. In this situation Herbert decided that his cooperation with PAX was impossible.
During this time, he also earned money from biographies and librarian registrations. From January until July 1952, he was a paid blood donor. He also again had to undertake work unconnected with writing. He worked as a timekeeper in the (disabled teachers' retirement co-operative) Inwalidzka Spółdzielnia Emerytów Nauczycieli 'Wspólna Sprawa (from 1 October 1953 till 15 January 1954), and also as a senior assistant in the (peat industry central bureau) Centralne Biuro Studiów i Projektów Przemysłu Torfowego Projekt Torf (19 January – 31 November). Thanks to the help of Stefan Kisielewski, Herbert worked as a manager of the office of the Chief Management in the Union of Socialist Composers (ZKP) from September 1956 till March 1957.
1956–1981
The year 1956 in Poland marked the end of Stalinism and as a result also of social realism as the only and obligatory style in art and literature. This enabled Herbert's debut as a poet. Thanks to this, his material position also improved. In 1957 supported by Jerzy Zawieyski he received a small studio to live in (in Warsaw) one of the flats distributed for young writers by the Polish Union of Writers (ZLP). He also was granted a scholarship (US$100) that allowed him to go on his first trip abroad.
Herbert was attached to his homeland, but at the same time was deeply disgusted by all effects (political, economical, cultural etc.) of the communist rules enforced by the Soviet Union on Poland (arguably the best artistic expression of this disgust is contained in his poem "The Power of Taste"). Therefore, a will to escape from this gloomy reality and see "a better world" was one of important driving forces behind his passion for traveling. Even though he spent a great deal of time abroad he never wanted to choose the life of an émigré. Despite administrative difficulties imposed by the communist regime with regard to longer stays abroad he always tried to extend his Polish passport while abroad so that the possibility of coming back home was always open. His first lively impressions from his trips and reflections triggered by the direct contact with the cultural heritage of the Western Europe were enclosed in the essay "The Barbarian in the Garden" (Barbarzyńca w Ogrodzie, 1962). He also says in his poem The Prayer of Mr. Cogito – The Traveller (Modlitwa Pana Cogito – podróżnika) travelling allowed him to get to know better the world beautiful and of such variety.
Herbert's trips cost as little as possible, as a poet's finances (from not stable sources: prizes, honorariums for the readings etc.) were very limited. This way of life contributed to his weak health condition in the future; however, he traveled through Vienna to France (May 1958 – January 1959), he visited England (January – March 1959), Italy (June – July 1959) and then France again. He came to Poland in May 1960. The result of that journey was the essay Barbarzyńca w ogrodzie (The Barbarian in the Garden).
In Autumn 1960 Herbert travelled to England and Scotland. In December 1963 he went to Paris. In January 1964 he was given the Kościelski Prize in the Polish Library in Paris, which allowed him to extend his stay in the West. In 1964 he spent the summer in Italy (July – August) and in Greece (October 1964). Then he came back to France and at the end of that year he returned to Poland.
From 1965 till 1968 he was a member of the editorial team at the monthly magazine Poetry. In 1965-1966 he was a literary manager of the Juliusz Osterwa Theatre in Gorzów Wielkopolski.
In October 1965 he was awarded with The Lenau Prize, and he went Vienna to receive it. This period also marks a growing international esteem for Herbert as a man of culture. He becomes a member of Academy of Arts in West Berlin and Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He stayed in Austria till spring 1966.
Herbert traveled across Germany, and then stayed longer in France (June 1966 – September 1967). He then went back to Germany, visiting the Netherlands and Belgium. On 29 March 1968, he married Katarzyna Dzieduszycka at a Polish consulate in France. At the end of April, the Herberts returned to Berlin. In the summer of 1968, Herbert visited the US (invited by the Poetry Center). He went to New York, California, The Grand Canyon, New Mexico, New Orleans, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. At that time, the translation of his works was published in the U.S., which made Herbert one of the most popular contemporary poets in English literary circles. While traveling across the country, he gave several talks in New York, Berkeley and Los Angeles. After visiting the U.S., Herbert went back to Berlin, where he lived until September 1970 (with some short breaks to Poland and a holiday in Italy). In 1969, he took part in Dei Duo Mundi – The Festival of Two Worlds. From September 1970 to June 1971, the Herberts again stayed in the U.S., where the poet gave lectures as a visiting professor at California State University, Los Angeles.
From autumn 1971 to spring 1973, not having his own flat, he lived in Artur Międzyrzecki's flat in Warsaw. In 1972, he became a member of the board of the Polish Literary Association (ZLP). At that time, he got involved in pro-democracy actions initiated by writer circles – he was one of the signatories of 'List 17' ('Letter of 17') which supported civil rights of the members of an openly anti-communist organization, The Movement (Ruch). He was also an organizer of protests against censorship. In 1972 he joined the Pen Club .