Poland All works

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PoetryLamentsTrenyJan Kochanowski · 1580A cycle of elegies for a lost child, in which grief tests the humanist wisdom of the man who writes it.Literature
PoetryWojna domowa z Kozaki i Tatary, Moskwą, potym Szwedami i z WęgrySamuel Twardowski · 1681not translated into EnglishAn epic in verse on the Cossack, Tatar, Muscovite and Swedish wars that ravaged Poland in the middle of the seventeenth century.Literature
TheatreMałżeństwo z kalendarzaFranciszek Bohomolec · 1766not translated into EnglishA comedy of superstition: an almanac decides everything in a household, including marriages.Literature
PoetryErotykiFranciszek Dionizy Kniaźnin · 1779not translated into EnglishA collection of love poetry from the Polish Enlightenment, between rococo play and imitation of the Ancients.Literature
PoetryFables and ParablesBajki i przypowieściIgnacy Krasicki · 1779Very short fables, where the lesson lies in the last line and is never explained.Literature
TheatreCud mniemany, czyli Krakowiacy i GóraleWojciech Bogusławski · 1794not translated into EnglishA village opera: the love story of a young couple near Kraków, thwarted by a stepmother and by a quarrel with the highlanders.Literature
PoetryMarya: A Tale of UkraineMariaAntoni Malczewski · 1825A Romantic poem of the eastern frontier: a secret marriage, and a father who will not accept it.Literature
TheatreRevengeZemstaAleksander Fredro · 1834A comedy of the provincial lesser nobility: two neighbours set against each other by a shared wall, and thwarted love affairs.Literature
PoetryPan TadeuszPan Tadeusz, czyli ostatni zajazd na LitwieAdam Mickiewicz · 1834An epic of the life of the Lithuanian nobility on the eve of the Russian campaign, written in exile.Literature
TheatreThe Undivine ComedyNie-Boska komediaZygmunt Krasiński · 1835A romantic drama of an aristocratic poet caught up in an imaginary social revolution.LiteraturePublic domain
TaleKlechdy, starożytne podania i powieści ludu polskiego i RusiKazimierz Władysław Wójcicki · 1837not translated into EnglishA collection of legends, tales of heroes and fairy tales from the Polish and Ruthenian countryside.Literature
PoetryDon Juan PoznańskiRyszard Wincenty Berwiński · 1844not translated into EnglishA poem that keeps breaking off to settle scores with an entire province.Literature
NovelThe HeathenPogankaNarcyza Żmichowska · 1846The story, told before friends, of the woman for whom a young man gave up everything.Literature
NovelAn Ancient TaleStara baśńJózef Ignacy Kraszewski · 1876A novel that opens a vast cycle on Polish history and brings back to life the pagan world of the Slavs before the founding of the state.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelThe DollLalkaBolesław Prus · 1890A wealthy merchant exhausts himself trying to enter a world that despises him, in the capital of a country that no longer exists.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelHomo SapiensHomo sapiensStanisław Przybyszewski · 1896A decadent novel of the Berlin bohemia of the end of the century, written in German, in which an intellectual dissects his own desires.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelQuo VadisQuo vadis?Henryk Sienkiewicz · 1896A historical novel about the first Christians of Rome under Nero, read in Poland as an allegory of its own subjugation.LiteraturePublic domain
TheatreKordianJuliusz Słowacki · 1899A Romantic drama written in exile after the failure of the November 1830 uprising, and conceived as a response to Mickiewicz's Les Aïeux.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelZającAdolf Dygasiński · 1900A naturalist novel of the Polish countryside: an old hare, hunters and poachers through the seasons.LiteraturePublic domain
TheatreThe WeddingWeseleStanisław Wyspiański · 1901A verse drama of Young Poland, born from the marriage of a Kraków writer to a peasant woman, which presents a society incapable of taking action.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryW mroku gwiazdTadeusz Miciński · 1902not translated into EnglishA collection of Young Poland turned towards the storms of the soul, in which gnosis, occultism and mysticism nourish a poetry of darkness.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelPałubaKarol Irzykowski · 1903not translated into EnglishA Young Poland novel that stops at each chapter to examine what it has just told and to undo its hero's romantic ideal.LiteraturePublic domain
TheatreThe Morality of Mrs DulskaMoralność pani DulskiejGabriela Zapolska · 1906A tragic farce of lower-middle-class manners in Galicia at the beginning of the century, in which a mother of a family cares about appearances more than about anything else.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelThe PeasantsChłopiWładysław Reymont · 1909A village in Russian Poland at the end of the nineteenth century, over four seasons, around an old rich peasant, his young wife and his son.LiteraturePublic domain
Short storiesTales of the TatrasNa skalnym PodhaluKazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer · 1910A modernist collection from the beginning of the century, written almost entirely in the stylised speech of the highlanders of Podhale.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelŻywe kamienieWacław Berent · 1918not translated into EnglishA historical novel written after the Great War, in which the Middle Ages serve to raise the question of the mission of art.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryŁąkaBolesław Leśmian · 1920A collection of ballads, nature poems and love poems, in a language that invents its own words.Literature
NovelGenerał BarczJuliusz Kaden-Bandrowski · 1923not translated into EnglishThe first political novel of reborn Poland, whose hero recalls the commander of the legions.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelThe Spring to ComePrzedwiośnieStefan Żeromski · 1925A political novel written in the wake of independence, which confronts the reborn Poland with the promises it had made to itself.LiteraturePublic domain
Short storiesLucifer UnemployedBezrobotny LucyferAleksander Wat · 1927Philosophical and satirical tales by a young Futurist, on the disoriented Europe of the twenties.Literature
NovelI Burn ParisPalę ParyżBruno Jasieński · 1929A futuristic speculative novel in which plague breaks Paris up into hostile enclaves.LiteraturePublic domain
CinemaA Strong ManMocny człowiekHenryk Szaro · 1929A talentless writer builds his fame on the book he stole from a dying friend.Cinema
Short storiesThe Wilko GirlsPanny z WilkaJarosław Iwaszkiewicz · 1932A man returns to the manor of his youth and the sisters he had loved there.Literature
NovelJealousy and MedicineZazdrość i medycynaMichał Choromański · 1933A psychological novel in which a husband's jealousy is described as an illness.Literature
TheatreThe ShoemakersSzewcyStanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (Witkacy) · 1934A political and grotesque drama about the revolutions to come, completed on the eve of the war.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelNoce i dnieMaria Dąbrowska · 1934not translated into EnglishForty years in the life of a couple who manage an estate on behalf of others, between 1863 and the Great War.Literature
Short storiesThe Street of CrocodilesSklepy cynamonoweBruno Schulz · 1934A collection of poetic prose pieces, between childhood memory and mythology, about a small Jewish town in Galicia before the Great War.LiteraturePublic domain
CinemaThe Dybbukדער דיבוקMichał Waszyński · 1937A promise made between two fathers, forgotten, comes back to claim what is owed on the day of a wedding.Cinema
NovelFerdydurkeWitold Gombrowicz · 1938A grown man, forced back onto the school benches, discovers how others impose a face on him.Literature
PoetryZamknięty echemKrzysztof Kamil Baczyński · 1940not translated into EnglishFirst poems by a very young man, gathered in a notebook under the occupation.Literature
Short storiesMedallionsMedalionyZofia Nałkowska · 1946Eight narratives drawn from post-war depositions, reported without a word of commentary.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelAshes and DiamondsPopiół i diamentJerzy Andrzejewski · 1948A novel of the last days of the war, in which the anticommunist resistance and the communists contend for a provincial town.Literature
Short storiesThis Way for the Gas, Ladies and GentlemenPożegnanie z MariąTadeusz Borowski · 1948Stories by a political prisoner of Auschwitz, who describe the camp from the inside, with no hero and no consoling moral.Literature
CinemaThe Last StageOstatni etapWanda Jakubowska · 1948The Birkenau camp from the women's side, filmed by a director who had been held there.Cinema
TheatreNiemcyLeon Kruczkowski · 1949not translated into EnglishA drama of the immediate post-war period on the responsibility of ordinary Germans in the face of Nazism.Literature
PoetryKwiaty polskieJulian Tuwim · 1949not translated into EnglishA long poem of digressions, written far from the country whose every street it recalls.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryVade-mecumCyprian Norwid · 1953not translated into EnglishA cycle of a hundred poems composed in exile in Paris in the mid-1860s, to renew a Polish poetry judged to be a prisoner of Romanticism.LiteraturePublic domain
EssayThe Captive MindZniewolony umysłCzesław Miłosz · 1953How intelligent men come to serve a doctrine, explained through four cases known to the author.Literature
PoetryWiklinaLeopold Staff · 1954Postwar poems by an old man, published as socialist realism receded, in which war and time are expressed in few words.Literature
PoetryThe Revolution of ThingsObroty rzeczyMiron Białoszewski · 1956First collection of a poet who makes the ordinary and words themselves the matter of the poem.Literature
CinemaAshes and DiamondsPopiół i diamentAndrzej Wajda · 1958On the last day of the war, a young resistance fighter charged with an assassination hesitates between the order he has received and the life opening before him.Cinema
CinemaEroicaAndrzej Munk · 1958Two ironic stories about Polish heroism during the war, between the uprising and a prisoner-of-war camp.Cinema
CinemaHouseDomWalerian Borowczyk · 1958A short film mixing animation and live action, in which the objects of an interior take precedence over the woman who lives there.Cinema
TheatreThe Card IndexKartotekaTadeusz Różewicz · 1960A play in detached scenes, in which a former partisan relives his biography lying on a bed.Literature
NovelSolarisStanisław Lem · 1961A philosophical science-fiction novel on the impossible encounter with an alien intelligence.Literature
CinemaMother Joan of the AngelsMatka Joanna od AniołówJerzy Kawalerowicz · 1961In a convent said to be possessed, an exorcist and a mother superior measure themselves against each other.Cinema
CinemaBirth CertificateŚwiadectwo urodzeniaStanisław Różewicz · 1961Three stories of war and occupation, seen at a child's height.Cinema
NovelTylko BeatryczeTeodor Parnicki · 1962not translated into EnglishA historical novel without a narrator, made of dialogues and letters, between Poland and the Avignon of the popes.Literature
CinemaKnife in the WaterNóż w wodzieRoman Polański · 1962A couple and a hitchhiker on a sailing boat: three characters and the rivalry of two men.Cinema
TheatreTangoSławomir Mrożek · 1964A son wants to restore order in a family that has abolished everything in the name of freedom.Literature
Short storiesZłote oknaAdolf Rudnicki · 1964not translated into EnglishStories of the destruction of Polish Jews, by a writer who survived it.Literature
CinemaThe Saragossa ManuscriptRękopis znaleziony w SaragossieWojciech Jerzy Has · 1965An officer lost in the Sierra Morena hears tales that nest one within another.Cinema
CinemaThe Structure of CrystalStruktura kryształuKrzysztof Zanussi · 1969Two physicists whom life has separated spend a few days together at a country station.Cinema
CinemaSalt of the Black EarthSól ziemi czarnejKazimierz Kutz · 1970August 1920: seven mining brothers from Upper Silesia set out for an uprising that Poland does not support.Cinema
CinemaThe Third Part of the NightTrzecia część nocyAndrzej Żuławski · 1971A man who has lost his family becomes a feeder of laboratory lice in order to survive in an occupied city.Cinema
PoetryWszelki wypadekWisława Szymborska · 1972not translated into EnglishPoems on the chance that decides whether one lives or not, and on the other destinies that might have been.Literature
PoetryBuilding the BarricadeBudowałam barykadęAnna Świrszczyńska · 1974Very short poems on sixty-three days of uprising, written by a nurse thirty years afterwards.Literature
PoetryMr. CogitoPan CogitoZbigniew Herbert · 1974A collection of poems built around an ironic double, on the dignity of man under constraint.Literature
EssayThe Emperor: Downfall of an AutocratCesarzRyszard Kapuściński · 1978Literary reportage on the court of a deposed emperor, told by those who had served him.Literature
CinemaTop DogWodzirejFeliks Falk · 1978A provincial entertainer will do anything to land the ball that will establish him in his town.Cinema
NovelA Minor ApocalypseMała apokalipsaTadeusz Konwicki · 1979A political satire of a day in Warsaw, in which a writer must decide whether he will set himself on fire.Literature
CinemaThe House of FoolsDom wariatówMarek Koterski · 1985A visit to the family turns into a closed-room drama that no one can leave any more.Cinema
CinemaThe DecalogueDekalogKrzysztof Kieślowski · 1989The Decalogue transposed into ten stories about neighbours, in the Warsaw of the late eighties.Cinema
CinemaInterrogationPrzesłuchanieRyszard Bugajski · 1989A woman with no political commitment resists, in prison, the judicial machinery of Polish Stalinism.Cinema
CinemaEuropa EuropaHitlerjunge SalomonAgnieszka Holland · 1990A Jewish teenager lives through the war by passing himself off as someone else, first among the Soviets and then among the Nazis.Cinema