Translating Marek

Marek Zulawski: artist, journalist, my father

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A birthday miracle, 1981

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Mont Blanc postcard banner

Marek Zulawski would have been 107 today. Here’s what he was doing exactly 34 years ago...

The day of my 73rd birthday: 13 April 1981.

At precisely 6am, in the small attic room of the Hotel Touring in Chamonix, while you, Maria, were still sleeping, I furtively, like a villain, slipped out of bed and quietly, silently, drew back the curtains. As the window was exposed, I suddenly saw pristine whiteness.

Mount Blanc rose up straight ahead of me, above the highest roofs of the surrounding homes, like an incomprehensible giant, too tall for anyone to even believe it existed.… Keep reading

Always look on the bright side of death, 1977

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Brompton Cemetery by scotbot on Flickr

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Marek Zulawski’s death, an appropriate day to share this passage he wrote about a friend’s funeral. Marek was a man who kept himself in prime health until his unexpected parting in 1985 – it seems his heart couldn’t keep up with the rest of him. The translated excerpt below is at once a meditation on age, death, virility and, of course, Marek’s own vanity.

(The banner image is a CC photo of Brompton Cemetery, taken by Scott Wylie)

Brompton Cemetery. Stefan Osiecki’s funeral.

From a distance, I could already see a group of people eagerly surrounding a fresh hole, on the bottom of which rests a coffin.… Keep reading

A dream about living under Nazi occupation

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Portrait of Kazimiera Zulawska by Witkacy, 1924

Kazimiera Zulawska, Marek’s mother, was born on this day, 22 February, in 1883. In this excerpt from Study for a Self-Portrait, we get a glimpse of her stalwart attitude when she and Wawrzyniec (her youngest son) were hiding Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

It’s 1941.

The German bombers have flown away, the sirens have gone quiet – a strange silence has fallen. For the moment, London has put its head back on the pillow. Only the fire engines continue putting out flaming houses, while rescue teams search for anybody alive under the rubble. Otherwise, most of the city’s inhabitants sleep.… Keep reading

Wawrzyniec Zulawski: mountaineer, composer, author, brother

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Wawrzyniec Zulawski: mountaineer, author, composer

Today, Valentine’s Day 2015, marks what would have been the 99th birthday of Wawrzyniec Zulawski (pronounced “Vav-zhin-yetz”, or simply translated as Laurence), affectionately known as Wawa by all those who knew him (the much easier “Va-va”). I thought it would be a good opportunity to post up this section of Marek’s memoirs in which he talks about his brother’s passion for mountaineering, an activity that consumed his life in more ways than one.

When not climbing, Wawrzyniec was a composer and author, inspired by the peaks he scaled, as well as the director of ZAIKS, Poland’s copyright overseers. During the Nazi occupation, Wawrzyniec and his mother Kazimiera sheltered hundreds of Jews, and together they were awarded the title of Righteous Among The Nations.

… Keep reading

“40 years wiser, 40 years stupider”: Marek on getting old, 1980

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Marek and Maria Zulawski in 1984

 Today’s excerpt follows on from last week’s in which Marek nearly died on the Baltic Sea. Recalling that episode leads him to mull over just how much life he really does have left after all these years.

The second volume of Study for a Self-Portrait is dedicated to my mother, but it’s only in the more intimate sections where he addresses her as directly as this. They had gotten married earlier that year and were together until death did them part in 1985.

Back then, I was how old?

20.

In other words, half a century ago. More even.

Today, fear has come back to me again and I don’t know how to deal with it.… Keep reading

How to swear like a sailor, 1928

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Who doesn't love swearing? Both English and Polish, plus many other languages, offer endlessly creative ways to say the most lurid and offensive things that actually just end up delighting and amusing due to their oddness. That being said, I felt obliged to censor the c-word in the story beneath, just in case you were reading this before the watershed...

Marek was a mere 20 years old in the story below. In Study for a Self-Portrait, he follows up the anecdote with some related thoughts from his 70-year-old perspective - I'll put these up in the next blog.

The Temida II slowly turns round as if stuck in a glass bubble.… Keep reading

Romance at the outbreak of World War II: meeting Halina Korn

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Halina Korn and Marek Zulawski in St Malo, France, 1940

Halina Korn (born Halina Korngold) was Marek’s second wife, and a respected painter and writer in her own right. They were married for decades until her death on 2 October 1978 – precisely 36 years ago today. Other parts of Study for a Self-Portrait delve into the darker parts of their relationship, particularly Halina’s depression, but I thought I’d introduce her with this lively country-hopping section that includes how she and Marek first met. I particularly like the part about their life in London during the Battle of Britain. - AZ

It was autumn 1938. Yes, a year before the war.… Keep reading

How Marek ended up living in London in 1936

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Foggy Tower Bridge by MsSaraKelly on Flickr

Life is chaos. It's a cacophony upon which we try to impose a sense of order, often for the sake of our own sanity.

When I read the excerpt below, I was unsurprised to find my father had ended up a Londoner by accident, not design. It was through another series of accidents that he met my mother, that I was born in London and that now I'm writing these very words.

Some people struggle to accept that we primates stumble through existence. They insist that everything is controlled and planned out. One of the gloomier versions of this type of worldview is that everything is manipulated by some shadowy ill-meaning cabal, often labelled as the Illuminati or New World Order.

… Keep reading

Malevich and the birth of Minimalism, 1975

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The 'Malevich: Revolutionary of Russian Art' exhibition at the Tate Modern, 2014

I visited the impressive Malevich retrospective at the Tate Modern recently, and thought I’d see if Marek had a few words on the man. I found this dense extract which talks about Malevich’s role in the minimalism of modern art. The gallery visit he describes near the end left me with the distinct impression he’d be shaking his head at a lot of today’s art were he still alive… - AZ

There is no doubt that, independent from art as a deliberate activity of man, there exist artistic phenomena which move us with their monumental simplicity. The desert, oceans, ploughed fields, steppes, the heavens and earth.… Keep reading

The prophecies of Jerzy Zulawski, Poland’s HG Wells, 1969

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Man Landed on the Moon, collage by Peter Mackey (Flickr: silverback40)

In this excerpt, Marek writes about his father, the science-fiction author Jerzy Zulawski, after watching one of the most famous televised moments of the 20th century: the first man on the moon (it was Neil Armstrong, fact fans). I've done a partial translation of On The Silver Globe but Jerzy's books have never been published in English.

What English readers can see though is the anarchic film adaptation that Andrzej Zulawski directed based on the first two parts. It's one of the most 'out there' films you might see and has a fascinating story behind it too. - AZ.

Today, the 21st of July 1969, man has put his foot on the Moon for the first time.… Keep reading