Christian Skrzyposzek

(1943–99) – a prose writer, dramaturg and essayist.

He spent his youth in Tarnowskie Góry, where he graduated from the S. Staszica Secondary School. In 1967, he graduated in Polish Studies from the University of Warsaw.

He made his debut in 1966 with a review of the short-story collection ‘Nie wierzcie tulipanom’ (Don’t Believe the Tulips), titled ‘Kazimierza Koszutskiego literatura o ludziach prostych’ (‘Kazimierz Koszutski’s Literature of Simple Folk’), published in Miesięcznik Literacki (no. 4), and as a prose writer, in 1967, with a fragment of the novel ‘Kabotyn’ (Buffoon), printed in the Kultura weekly (no. 16). Skrzyposzek himself was regarded as an enfant terrible in Warsaw’s literary scene of the day; his Buffoon, readied for print by Czytelnik Publishers in 1968, was rejected by the censors. As a dramaturg, he debuted in 1969 in the Dialog monthly with the play ‘Pat’ (Gridlock), also published in Współczesność and Odra, and, many years later, in Rzeczpospolita and Czas Kultury as well. The same year, he decided to emigrate: he travelled through Vienna, Denmark, and Sweden to arrive in West Berlin, where he lived until his death by suicide in 1999.

Skrzyposzek managed to smuggle out of Poland the outline of a book he went on to work on for twelve years, viewing ‘Wolna Trybuna’ (Free Podium) as his life’s opus magnum. The novel was released in German and in Dutch in 1983 and 1984, respectively. In Polish, Free Tribunal was published in 1985 in a small edition by the West Berlin Pogląd Publishing House, but was not much discussed in the press. Skrzyposzek himself, by now seriously ill (after a series of aneurysms, operations and skull trepanations he had lost control of his legs and his power of speech; although he defied doctors’ expectations by relearning how to walk, he spoke only with the greatest difficulty), he recalled his book’s ‘banishment’; efforts to publish it by the Paris Kultura’s Culture Institute were a failure, as Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, on behalf of the publisher, wanted to purge the book of its vulgar language, which ought to be seen as one of its main traits.

In Poland, Free Podium was only published in 1999 through W.A.B. Publishers. It is considered one of the key novels of the 1980s, boasting many narrators and a labyrinthine structure, based on numerous fictional constructs, sub-plots and characters from literary tradition. We might look at it as a kind of satire, settling the score with the communist system and epoch, as well as an innovative sort of political fiction: in terms of language it is an extremely brave formal experiment – a sophisticated montage of statements by various people coming to a venue specially created by the communist government, where anyone can write what they want, but cannot take it home with them.

In 1996 – in Poland, for the first time – Chrystian Skrzyposzek published a novel, ‘Mojra’ (Moirai). It contains evidently autobiographical elements. The main protagonist, a writer living in Berlin, suffers from an illness that cripples his legs. He hopes for a cure from a healer in a village in the Polish mountains. Moirai has elements of psychoanalysis, it is a moral treatise, a prayer poem, a drama, and has fairy-tale qualities. According to Piotr Śliwiński, Skrzyposzek speaks of a ‘struggle with illness that can be heroic and moving at times, of loneliness, of fear; of love, betrayal and revenge. His novel wants to encompass the whole world – what is visible and invisible, it wants to show the failure of reason and the failure of the heart, it wants to be a romance and a horror, it wants to be intimate and cosmically remote from ordinary human experience. It is meant to be a novelistic “encyclopedia of a new era”.’ Jerzy Borowczyk, in turn, in describing Moirai, wrote: ‘In Skrzyposzk’s case, the point is a positive resonance – the search for “harmony between reason and the emotions”.’

In 1996, Andrzej Titkow directed a biographical documentary film, ‘…według Christiana Skrzyposzka’ (...According to Christiana Skrzyposzka), in which the writer’s harrowing biography is recounted by close family members, acquaintances, and friends from various stages of life. In Titkow’s film, we also find Skrzyposzk’s work: a fragment of his debut play, Gridlock, and his novels Free Podium and Moirai, as read by Krzysztof Gosztyła.