Władysław Moes

Władysław Moes (Władysław Gerard Jan Nepomuk Marya Moes; 17 November 1900 – 17 December 1986 ) was a Polish nobleman and claims to be the inspiration for Tadzio in Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice.

Władysław Moes was born in the Moes Palace near Wierbka, in southern Poland. He was the second son of six children of Aleksander Juliusz Moes (1856 - 1928), a large land and factory owner and benefactor, and his wife Countess Janina Miączyńska (1869 - 1946) Suchekomnaty Coat of Arms, and he was also the grandson of Christian August Moes (1810 – 1872), an important Polish industrialist of Dutch origin.^[1] In May 1911, he spent the holidays at the Lido in Venice, in the Grand Hotel des Bains. There he attracted the attention of the German writer Thomas Mann, who used him for the inspiration of Tadzio – a character of his novel Death in Venice, published in 1912. In 1920 he took part as a volunteer uhlan in the Polish-Soviet War. Later he ran the property estate inherited from his father. In 1935 he married a noblewoman - Anna Belina-Brzozowska (1911 - 1978) Belina coat of arms, and had two children, Aleksander (1936 - 1955) and Maria (1946 -).

In 1939 after the German invasion of Poland, Moes was taken prisoner of war and sent to Oflag where he spent almost six years. With the establishment of the communist regime in Poland he was deprived of his entire property. He was forced to earn his living mainly as a translator in the Iranian Embassy. In 1964 Moes gave an interview to Andrzej Dołegowski, the Polish translator of Mann’s works, which was published in the German magazine Twen and revealed that he himself was the inspiration of the writer’s character:

I am that boy! Yes, even then in Venice I was called Adzio or sometimes Władzio… But in the story I am named Tadzio… this is how the Master understood it… In the story I found everything described exactly, even my clothes, my behavior – good or bad – and the rough jokes I played on the sands with my friend.^[2]

During the last years of his life he often stayed with his daughter in France. He died in Warsaw and was buried in the graveyard of Pilica, Silesian Voivodeship in the Moes family plot.^[3] He was also the uncle of Polish film and television actor Jerzy Moes.

References

• Gilbert Adair: The Real Tadzio: Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice' and the Boy Who Inspired It. 2001. Carroll & Graf.