Władysław Broniewski, a fascinating figure and the patron of the street where I've been spending more time lately. When I realized that even during my Polish studies, Broniewski wasn't particularly prominent, I reached for a book*.

You probably know the curse attributed to the Chinese: "May you live in interesting times."
I think he's one of those figures who were touched by this wish. On one hand, there's "Bayonet to Arms," which many of us can still probably recite at least in part, and on the other hand, the despised "Homage to the October Revolution" and "Word about Stalin."
Then there's "Charades" sung by Muniek Staszczyk, and yet another side with "Anka," a cycle compared to Kochanowski's "Laments," as it was written under similarly tragic circumstances.

Broniewski, a legionnaire, member of the Polish Military Organization established by Józef Piłsudski, participant in the Polish-Bolshevik war, recipient of the Virtuti Militari, decorated four times with the Cross of Valor, prisoner of Lubyanka, soldier in Anders' Army, who through Iran and Iraq made it to Palestine, returned to Poland in 1945.
A poet now forgotten, for years regarded as a herald of communism and the go-to poet of People's Poland.

He believed in socialism but not in authority. Perceived as its favorite, he worried whether Jerzy Giedroyć would shake his hand when he visited him in Maisons-Laffitte. Despite everything, a patriot.

He was more than aware of his own talent and role in the country's poetic life.
When Bolesław Bierut proposed that Broniewski write lyrics for a new national anthem, he, reportedly quite drunk, brought Bierut a note that read: "Poland Has Not Yet Perished" and added that although he was the one and only who could write a new anthem, he wouldn't do it, because it would be like “tearing the head off the Polish eagle”.

Five days after his daughter Joanna's death, Broniewski was forcibly taken to the psychiatric hospital in Kościan in a straitjacket. In 1954, whether someone was sick or healthy could be decided by the authorities, making it easier for doctors to diagnose the poet with "asymptomatic schizophrenia" - and this diagnosis might be the best evidence of the poet's perfectly healthy, though not always sober, mind.

In 2006, an album was released with songs based on Władysław Broniewski's poems. Besides Muniek Staszczyk and Pustki, they are performed by Pidżama Porno, Meble, Paresłów, and several other off-mainstream bands. In their interpretation, Broniewski's poems sound absolutely extraordinary.

*Book by Mariusz Urbanek "Broniewski. Love, Vodka, Politics," Warsaw 2011.