Stanisław Przybyszewski

Stanisław Feliks Przybyszewski was born in Łojewo (Lohdorf) near Kruszwica (Kruschwitz) during the partitions of Poland. The son of a local teacher, Józef Przybyszewski, Stanisław attended a German gymnasium in Toruń,[1] graduating in 1889. He left for Berlin, where he first studied architecture and then medicine. It was there that he became fascinated by the philosophy of Nietzsche, began referring to himself as a Satanist and immersed himself into the bohemian life of the city.

In Berlin he lived with, but did not marry, Martha Foerder. They had had three children together; two before he left her to marry Dagny Juel on 18 August 1893 and one during his marriage to Dagny. From 1893 to 1898 he lived with Dagny (formerly a model for Edvard Munch), sometimes in Berlin and at others in Dagny's hometown of Kongsvinger, in Norway. In Berlin they met other artists at Zum schwarzen Ferkel.

In 1896, he was arrested in Berlin on suspicion of the murder of his common-law wife Martha, but released after it was determined that she had died of carbon monoxide poisoning. After Martha's death the children were sent to different foster homes. In the autumn of 1898, he and Dagny moved to Kraków where he set himself up as the leader of a group of revolutionary young artists and as editor of their mouthpiece Życie (Life). He remained a fervent apostle of industrialism and self-expression.

He travelled to Lwów (Lviv) and visited the poet and playwright Jan Kasprowicz. Przybyszewski started an affair with Kasprowicz's wife Jadwiga Gąsowska. Kasprowicz had married Jadwiga, his second wife, in 1893; his first marriage to Teodozja Szymańska in 1886 had ended in divorce after a few months.

Dagny and Stanisław Przybyszewski in 1897/1898

In 1899, Przybyszewski abandoned Dagny and set up house with Jadwiga in Warsaw. Around this time he was also involved with Aniela Pająkówna, one of whose two daughters was Przybyszewski's. Dagny returned to Paris and was murdered by a young friend of hers, Władysław Emeryk, in Tbilisi in 1901.

In 1905, Przybyszewski and Jadwiga moved to Toruń where he attempted rehabilitation from his problems with alcohol. While there, Jadwiga's divorce was finalized and they married on 11 April 1905. Przybyszewski's struggle with alcoholism continued till his death.

In 1906, the couple moved to Munich, thanks to the money obtained through the sale of the manuscript of the play Śluby (The Vows). During the war, they lived for a short time in Bohemia (Czech Lands) and moved to newly re-established Poland in 1919.

In Poznań he applied for the position of director of a literary theatre, but his work with German political brochures during the war prevented the appointment. He got a job working as a German translator for the post office. In 1920, he found work in the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk) with the railways. He lived in Gdańsk until 1924 and managed a Polish bookshop there. Afterwards, he tried to settle in Toruń, Zakopane, and Bydgoszcz — all without success. At last, he found work in Warsaw, in the offices of the President. He lived in rooms in the old Royal Castle.

In 1927, he returned to the Kujawy region and died in Jaronty in November of that year, aged 59.

He wrote a number of successful novels, of which Homo Sapiens, the most popular, has been translated into English.

Przybyszewski is considered to be the precursor of contemporary (twentieth-century) intellectual Satanism. August Strindberg called him "a brilliant Pole" ("der geniale Pole") and said that he "influenced German literature in the last decade of the nineteenth century like few others".

• Culture of Kraków
• List of Polish people
• Stanisława Przybyszewska
• "Trajectory of a Comet: Poland's Arch-Decadent", by Brian R. Banks, in Wormwood, no.6 (Tartarus Press, United Kingdom)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stanisław Przybyszewski.

• Stanisław Przybyszewski at Culture.pl
• Works by Stanisław Przybyszewski at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)