Bruno Schulz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bruno Schulz

Self portrait of Schulz
Born July 12, 1892 (1892-07-12)
Drohobycz
Died November 19, 1942 (aged 50)
Drohobycz
Occupation art teacher, graphic artist, writer
Nationality Flag of Poland Polish
Genres novel, short story
Literary movement Modernism, precursor to surrealism
Notable work(s) Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, The Street of Crocodiles
Influences
Influenced

Bruno Schulz (July 12, 1892 – November 19, 1942) was a Polish schoolteacher, writer, literary critic and graphic artist, who is widely considered to be one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century. Schulz was born in Drohobycz, Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the province of Galicia, to assimilated Jewish parents.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Bruno Schulz was the son of cloth merchant Jakub Schulz and Henrietta, née Kuhmerker.[1] At a very early age, he developed an interest in the arts. He studied at a gymnasium in Drohobycz from 1902 to 1910, and proceeded to study architecture at Lwów University. In 1917 he briefly studied architecture in Vienna. After World War I, the region of Galicia which included Drohobycz became a Polish territory. In the postwar period, Schulz came to teach drawing in a Polish gymnasium, from 1924 to 1941. His employment kept him in his hometown, although he disliked his profession as a schoolteacher, apparently maintaining it only because it was his sole means of income.[2]

The author nurtured his extraordinary imagination in a swarm of identities and nationalities: a Jew who thought and wrote in Polish, was fluent in German, and immersed in Jewish culture though unfamiliar with the Yiddish language.[3] Yet there was nothing cosmopolitan about him; his genius fed in solitude on specific local and ethnic sources. He preferred not to leave his provincial hometown, which over the course of his life belonged to four countries. His adult life was often perceived by outsiders as that of a hermit: uneventful and enclosed.

Schulz seems to have become a writer by chance, as he was discouraged by influential colleagues from publishing his first short stories. His aspirations were refreshed, however, when several letters that he wrote to a friend, in which he gave highly original accounts of his solitary life and the details of the lives of his fellow citizens, were brought to the attention of the novelist Zofia Nałkowska. She encouraged Schulz to have them published as short fiction, and The Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy Cynamonowe) was published in 1934; in English-speaking countries, it is most often referred to as The Street of Crocodiles, a title derived from one of the chapters. This novel-memoir was followed three years later by Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą). The original publications were fully illustrated by Schulz himself; in later editions of his works, however, these illustrations are often left out or are poorly reproduced. He also helped his fiancée translate Franz Kafka's The Trial into Polish, in 1936. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy of Literature's prestigious Golden Laurel award.

The outbreak of World War II in 1939 caught Schulz living in Drohobycz, which was occupied by the Soviet Union. There are reports that he worked on a novel called The Messiah, but no trace of this manuscript survived his death. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, as a Jew he was forced to live in the ghetto of Drohobycz, but he was temporarily protected by Felix Landau, a Gestapo officer who admired his drawings. During the last weeks of his life, Schulz painted a mural in Landau's home in Drohobycz, in the style with which he is identified. Shortly after completing the work, Schulz was bringing home a loaf of bread when he was shot and killed by a German officer, a rival of his protector. Over the years his mural was covered with paint and forgotten.

[edit] Writings

Schulz's body of written work is rather small: The Street of Crocodiles, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass and a few other compositions that the author did not add to the first edition of his short story collection. A collection of Schulz's letters were published in Polish in 1975, entitled The Book of Letters, and a number of critical essays Schulz wrote for various newspapers are also available. Several of Schulz's works have been lost, including some short stories from the early 1940s that the author had sent to be published in magazines, and his final unfinished novel The Messiah.

A new edition of Schulz's stories was published in 1957, leading to French, German, and later English translations. Cynthia Ozick's 1987 novel, The Messiah of Stockholm, contributed to popularizing Schulz's work. Her text concerns a Swiss man convinced that he is the son of Schulz, who comes into possession of what he believes to be a manuscript of Schulz's final project, The Messiah. Schulz's presence also informs Israeli novelist David Grossman's 1989 novel See Under: Love. In a chapter entitled "Bruno," the narrator imagines Schulz embarking on a phantasmagoric sea journey rather than remaining in Drohobycz to be shot.[4]

  • The Street of Crocodiles. New York: Walker and Company, 1963. (A translation by Celina Wieniewska of Sklepy Cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops).)
  • Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass New York: Penguin, 1988. (A translation by Celina Wieniewska of Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą, with an introduction by John Updike.) ISBN 0-14-005272-0
  • The Complete Fiction of Bruno Schulz. New York: Walker and Company, 1989. (Combination of the prior two collections.) ISBN 0-8027-1091-3
  • "Muse & Messiah: The Life, Imagination & Legacy of Bruno Schulz" by Brian R.Banks (Inkermen Press UK 2006)

[edit] Mural controversy

In February 2001, after a long search, Benjamin Geissler, a German documentary filmmaker, discovered the mural Schulz had created for Landau. The meticulous task of restoration was begun by Polish conservation workers, who informed Yad Vashem about the findings. In May of that year representatives of Yad Vashem in Israel were allowed to come to Drohobycz to examine the mural. They removed five fragments of the mural, which had already been restored, smuggled them out of the country, and transported to Jerusalem. Geissler has documented the search, the finding and restoration, as well as the destruction of the mural in the film entitled “Finding Pictures”.[5]

International controversy ensued.[3][6][7] While Yad Vashem claims that parts of the mural were legally purchased, Ukraine has officially stated that they were removed without authority or export licenses. As of 2007, parts of the mural are in storage in Yad Vashem, and their status is being negotiated.[8] The fragments left by Yad Vashem in place have since been restored and, after a tour in Polish museums, are now part of the collection at the Bruno Schulz Museum in Drohobycz.[3]

This gesture by Yad Vashem precipitated much public outrage in Poland and the Ukraine, where Schulz is a beloved figure.[3]

[F]or Poles in particular, Yad Vashem’s actions... suggest that dying because one is a Jew negates the relevance of having lived largely as a Pole—and, harsher still, that Jewishness and Polishness have been deemed fundamentally irreconcilable. In response to mounting international outrage, Yad Vashem posted a public statement on its Website—one of very few official comments on the incident—asserting a "moral right" to Schulz’s work.[3]

[edit] Film Adaptations

Schulz's work has provided the basis for two films: Wojciech Has's The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (1973), drawing from a dozen of his stories and emphasizing the unforgettably dreamlike quality of his writings; and a short stop-motion animated film called Street of Crocodiles (1986) by Stephen and Timothy Quay.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Wójcikowski, Grzegorz. "Rocznica urodzin i śmierci Brunona Schulza". Forum Polonijne 3 (2007): 38. ISSN 1234-2807. 
  2. ^ Schulz, Bruno. The Street of Crocodiles. 1992, page 15.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Who Owns Bruno Schulz?", by Benjamin Paloff Boston Review (December 2004/January 2005)
  4. ^ David Grossman, See Under: Love. Trans. Betsy Rosenberg. New York: Washington Square Press, 1989.
  5. ^ “Finding Pictures”, film by Benjamin Geissler
  6. ^ "Bruno Schulz's Frescoes", by Mark Baker, M.B.B. Biskupski, John Connelly, Ronald E. Coons et al. The New York Review of Books (Volume 48, Number 19 • November 29, 2001)
  7. ^ "All Things Considered", NPR (Monday, July 9, 2001)
  8. ^ מסתמן הסדר שיאפשר הצגת ציורי ברונו שולץ בי-ם - חדשות -הארץ

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:


Persondata
NAME Schulz, Bruno
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Polish novelist and painter
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Drohobycz, Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1942
PLACE OF DEATH Drohobych