Jerzy Kronhold

(1946–2022) – a poet, director and cultural activist.

He took Polish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and studied directing at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw. He debuted in 1965 in the ‘Łódzka Wiosna Poetów’ (Łódź Spring of Poets) almanac, and his first proper volume, ‘Samopalenie’ (Self-Immolation, 1972), came out with Wydawnictwo Literackie.

He co-created the Krakow Teraz Group, which included New Wave poets Stanisław Barańczak, Adam Zagajewski and Julian Kornhauser. In the 1970s, he organised poetry rallies in Cieszyn, a vital forum for poets of his generation to exchange thoughts. He also had ties to the theatre; he worked as literary director of the Stanisław Wyspiański Śląski Theatre in Katowice.

In the 1980s, he ran the Julian Przyboś second-hand bookstore in Cieszyn, becoming a central figure in the local cultural scene. He was an activist in the democratic opposition. With Mirosław Jasiński, Warcisław Martynowski, Janusz Okrzesik and Jarosław Rybski he was a spokesman for Polish/Czech/Slovak Solidarity, He initiated marches for the environment, as a result of which they stopped the building of a coking plant in Stonava (1989).

In the 1990s, he began work in diplomacy: he was twice consul general of Poland to Ostrava (1991–96, 2007–11) and director of the Polish Institute in Bratislava (2000–6). For his literary and social work, he has received numerous badges, including the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Restituta Polonia (2008), the Gold Service Cross (2005), the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity (2015) and the Golden Laurel of Skills and Competence (2010).

His poetry, which the critics often place on the fringes of the mainstream of the New Wave, is subtle, intimately lyrical, reflective and rooted in local culture. Unlike Barańczak’s intellectual, language-based work and Zagajewski’s sublimity in universal themes, Kronhold used the language of emotions, sensitivity and everyday life. In his poems we can find motifs of love, passing of time, faith, locality and memory, as well as motifs from the landscape of Cieszyn Silesia and its spiritual heritage.

After a long pause in publishing, he returned in 2000 with ‘Wiek brązu’ (The Bronze Age), which was lauded by critics and readers both. In his next books – including ‘Epitafium dla Lucy’ (Epitaph for Lucy), ‘Szlak jedwabny’ (The Silk Road), ‘Skok w dal’ (Leap into the Distance) and ‘Długie spacery nad Olzą’ (Long Strolls on the Olsza) – he joined personal experience with poetic reflections on time, death and memory. In his later poetry, spirituality and reconciliation with the passing of time sit alongside irony and poetic self-awareness.

For Leap into the Distance (2016) he received the City of Warsaw Literary Award (2017) and the Krystyna and Czesław Bednarczyk Award (2018), and was nominated for all the major poetry prizes in Poland: the Nike, Silesius Poetry Award, Wisława Szymborska Award and K. I. Gałczyński Orpheus Award. His volumes have often been finalists for the Gdynia Literary Award, Julian Tuwim Award and Kazimierz Hoffman KOS Award.