Wladyslaw Reymont Popular Books

Wladyslaw Reymont Biography & Facts

Władysław Stanisław Reymont (Polish: [vwaˈdɨswaf ˈɾɛjmɔnt], born Rejment; 7 May 1867 – 5 December 1925) was a Polish novelist and the laureate of the 1924 Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known work is the award-winning four-volume novel Chłopi (The Peasants). Born into an impoverished noble family, Reymont was educated to become a master tailor, but instead worked as a gateman at a railway station and then as an actor in a troupe. His intensive travels and voyages encouraged him to publish short stories, with notions of literary realism. Reymont's first successful and widely praised novel was The Promised Land from 1899, which brought attention to the bewildering social inequalities, poverty, conflictive multiculturalism and labour exploitation in the industrial city of Łódź (Lodz). The aim of the novel was to extensively emphasize the consequences of extreme industrialization and how it affects society as a whole. In 1900, Reymont was severely injured in a railway accident, which halted his writing career until 1904 when he published the first part of Chłopi. Władysław Reymont was popular in communist Poland due to his style of writing and the symbolism he used, including socialist concepts, romantic portrayal of the agrarian countryside and toned criticism of capitalism, all present in literary realism. His work is widely attributed to the Young Poland movement, which featured decadence and literary impressionism. Surname Reymont's baptism certificate gives his birth name as Stanisław Władysław Rejment. The change of surname from "Rejment" to "Reymont" was made by the author himself during his publishing debut, as it was supposed to protect him, in the Russian sector of partitioned Poland, from any potential trouble for having already published in Austrian Galicia a work not allowed under the Tsar's censorship. Kazimierz Wyka, an enthusiast of Reymont's work, believes that the alteration could also have been intended to remove any association with the word rejmentować, which in some local Polish dialects means "to swear". Life Reymont was born in the village of Kobiele Wielkie, near Radomsko, as one of the nine children of Józef Rejment, an organist. His mother, Antonina Kupczyńska, had a talent for story-telling. She descended from the impoverished Polish nobility from the Kraków region. Reymont spent his childhood in Tuszyn, near Łódź, to which his father had moved to work at a wealthier church parish. Reymont was defiantly stubborn; after a few years of education in the local school, he was sent by his father to Warsaw into the care of his eldest sister and her husband to teach him his vocation. In 1885, after passing his examinations and presenting "a tail-coat, well-made", he was given the title of journeyman tailor, his only formal certificate of education. To his family's annoyance, Reymont did not work a single day as a tailor. Instead, he first ran away to work in a travelling provincial theatre and then returned in the summer to Warsaw for the "garden theatres". Without a penny to his name, he then returned to Tuszyn after a year, and, thanks to his father's connections, he took up employment as a gateman at a railway crossing near Koluszki for 16 rubles a month. He ran away twice more: in 1888 to Paris and London as a medium with a German spiritualist and then again to join a theatre troupe. After his lack of success (he was not a talented actor), he returned home again. Reymont also stayed for a time in Krosnowa near Lipce and for a time considered joining the Pauline Order in Częstochowa. He also lived in Kołaczkowo, where he bought a mansion. Work When his Korespondencje (Correspondence) from Rogów, Koluszki and Skierniewice was accepted for publication by Głos (The Voice) in Warsaw in 1892, he returned to Warsaw, with several unpublished short stories and just a few rubles. Reymont visited the editorial offices of newspapers and magazines, and eventually met other writers who became interested in his talent including Świętochowski. In 1894 he went on an eleven-day pilgrimage to Częstochowa and turned his experience there into a report entitled "Pielgrzymka do Jasnej Góry" (Pilgrimage to the Luminous Mount) published in 1895, and considered his classic example of travel writing. Rejmont sent his short stories to different magazines and, encouraged by good reviews, decided to write novels: Komediantka (The Deceiver) (1895) and Fermenty (Ferments) (1896). No longer poor, he would soon satisfy his passion for travel, visiting Berlin, London, Paris, and Italy. Then, he spent a few months in Łódź collecting material for a new novel ordered by the Kurier Codzienny (The Daily Courier) from Warsaw. The earnings from this book Ziemia Obiecana (The Promised Land) (1899) enabled him to go on his next trip to France where he socialized with other exiled Poles (Jan Lorentowicz, Żeromski, Przybyszewski and Lucjan Rydel). His earnings did not allow for this kind of life of travel. However, in 1900 he was awarded 40,000 rubles in compensation from the Warsaw-Vienna Railway after an accident in which Reymont was severely injured. During the treatment he was looked after by Aurelia Szacnajder Szabłowska, whom he married in 1902, having first paid for the annulment of her earlier marriage. Thanks to her discipline, he marginally restrained his travel-mania, but never gave up either his stays in France (where he partly wrote Chłopi between 1901 and 1908) or in Zakopane. Rejmont also journeyed to the United States in 1919 at the (Polish) government's expense. Despite his ambitions to become a landowner, which led to an unsuccessful attempt to manage an estate he bought in 1912 near Sieradz, the life of the land proved not to be for him. He would later buy a mansion in Kołaczkowo near Poznań in 1920, but still spent his winters in Warsaw or France. Nobel Prize In November 1924 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature over rivals Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw and Thomas Hardy, after he had been nominated by Anders Österling, member of the Swedish Academy. Public opinion in Poland supported this recognition for Stefan Żeromski, but the prize went to the author of Chłopi. Żeromski was reportedly refused for his allegedly anti-German sentiments. However, Reymont could not take part in the award ceremony in Sweden due to a heart condition. The award and the check for 116,718 Swedish kronor were sent to Reymont in France, where he was being treated. In 1925, somewhat recovered, he went to a farmers' meeting in Wierzchosławice near Kraków, where Wincenty Witos welcomed him as a member of the Polish People's Party "Piast" and praised his writing skills. Soon afterward, Reymont's health deteriorated. He died in Warsaw in December 1925 and was buried in the Powązki Cemetery. The urn holding his heart was laid in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw. Reymont's literary output includes about 30 extensive volumes of prose. There are works of reportage: Pielgr.... Discover the Wladyslaw Reymont popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Wladyslaw Reymont books.