I want to be a horse: Satirical stories and plays. The domestication of the absurd Slawomir Mrozek stories

15.06.2019

Proverbs where there are numbers Folk definition of a proverb

Cutugno with his wife. Biography. "I cheated, but I have only one woman of heart!"

Slawomir Mrozhek

Born on June 29, 1930 in the village of Bozhenczyn, Brzesko County, Krakow Voivodeship. date 26 June, cited in all official biographies and encyclopedic articles, arose due to an incorrect entry in the church book, on the basis of which documents were subsequently issued.

Father - Anthony Mrozhek, the son of a poor peasant, had only primary education and miraculously received the post of a postal official, mother - Zofia Mrozhek (nee - Kendzer).

Having entered the architectural faculty of the Krakow Polytechnic Institute, Mrozek left home (later recalled that during this period« slept in friends 'attic, ate soup for the homeless at the nuns' shelter»), also attended the Krakow Academy of Arts.

He began his literary career in a Krakow newspaper"Zennik Polish", where at first stayed« as an editorial boy on the parcels», engaged in current newspaper work, wrote on various topics. The first feuilletons and humoresques were published in 1950. Works published in periodicals compiled a collectionPractical half-shells (1953), came out and the story Little Summer (1956) In 1956 Mrozhek was abroad for the first time, he visited the USSR, was in Odessa.

The recognition of readers that came quickly was not, nevertheless, evidence of the high literary merits of Mrozhek's early prose. By his own admission, the communist ideals absorbed in his youth (which was facilitated by his special character and temperament) were getting rid of for a long time and not easily. The book, which he considers his first serious work, is a collection Elephant (1957). He was a great success. Mrozhek notes:« It was a collection of short, very short, but in all respects poignant stories.<…>Certain phrases from the book turned into proverbs and sayings, which proves how my thoughts were then close and understandable to my compatriots». Then came the compilationsWedding in Atomitsy(1959), The Progressist (1960), The Rain (1962), The Flight to the South (1961).

The literature has repeatedly noted that the work of Mrozhek is associated with predecessors, in particular, V. Gombrovich and S.I. Vitkevich. This is true, but the connection between his prose and the traditions of Polish humor is much more obvious - a fatty, a little sad and invariably subtle. However, Polish wit has such summit achievements as the aphorisms of S.E. Lez, the satirical poems of Yu. Tuwim, and the comic phantasmagoria of K.I. Galchinsky. Mrozhek's stories and humoresques are life situations, as it were, projected into infinity. So, in the story Swan the old watchman, guarding a lonely bird in the park, decides to go to warm up in the pub and takes the bird with him - it cannot sit without protection, and even in the cold. The watchman warms himself up with a glass of vodka and sausages, orders a swan a delicacy in the form of a white roll soaked in warmed beer with sugar. The next day everything repeats itself, and on the third day the swan invitingly pulls the old man by the floor of his clothes - it's time to go to warm up. The story ends with the fact that both the watchman and the bird, which, sitting on the water, swayed, were kicked out of the park, terrifying the walking mothers and children. The plot of the story contains a kind of algorithm for Mrozhek's prose.

Has become important in his life 1959, – he married a woman for whom he had a strong feeling, in the same year, at the invitation of Harvard University, he visited the United States, where he took part in a summer international seminar, led by professor of political science Henry Kissinger. Two months spent overseas radically influenced the consciousness of Mrozhek.

Early 1960- x, he left Krakow and moved to Warsaw, where he was greeted as a literary celebrity. He publishes a lot in periodicals, including the newspaper« Przheglyad kulturalni", Weekly" Relentless man", Magazines" Dialogue "," Pshekrui "," Culture "," Tvorzhchozs ", conducts regular columns, acts not only as a prose writer, but also as a kind of cartoonist. Although Mrozhek himself notes that« that is the art of graphics, to characterize a character with a couple of strokes», his graphics are firmly linked to the word. This is either a funny drawing with a short caption or dialogue, or a small series of pictures, somewhat similar to a comic strip. Neither a picture without text, nor text without a picture can exist separately. For example, the words« Phenomenal football team to arrive in Poland soon» accompanied by a drawing showing the members of this team, and each of them has three legs. The message about a new model of Eskimo sleds with reverse gear is adjacent to the image: sled dogs are tied to the sleds from both ends, and part of the dog team is tied so that it can run only in one direction, and the other part only in the other. It is clear that this is impossible. This light absurdity in pictorial solution is directly related to the tradition of the Polish poster. 1960–1970- NS. The works of Mrozek the artist are collected in publicationsPoland in pictures (1957), Through Glasses of Slavomir Mrozhek(1968), Drawings (1982).

Mrozhek gained the greatest fame as a playwright. His dramatic opuses are usually considered to be formed in 1950-1960s "theater of the absurd", quite conditionally named direction, or rather, to some ethical and aesthetic space in which such different masters as the French Eugene Ionesco ( 1912-1994), Jean Genet (1910-1986), Irishman Samuel Beckett ( 1906–1989), Spaniard Fernando Arrabal (b. 1932), Englishman Harold Pinter (b. 1930). E. Ionesco himself called his dramatic experiments« theater of paradox». This definition fits well to the plays of Mrozhek, where not so much happens that« can't happen», how much by means of theatrical grotesque, by means of forcing artistic means, life situations become extremely aggravated, satirically enlarged. Life as artistic experience revealed XX century, in itself and extremely absurd, and monstrously paradoxical. Plays by Mrozek, both multi-act and one-act, were successfully performed on the stage of Polish theaters, and then theaters around the world. Among the early plays - Police Officers (1958) The sufferings of Peter O "Heya(1959), Turkey (1960), On the High Seas (1961), Karol (1961), Striptease (1961), Death of a Lieutenant (1963).

While still living in his homeland, he gained wide popularity abroad, his books were translated, and plays were staged, which, in turn, increased his fame in Poland. But the desire to change his destiny, to become a European writer, made him decide to leave his native country. 3 or (according to other sources) June 6, 1963 Mrozhek and his wife flew to Rome on a tourist visa. He later recalled:« My plans included creating a precedent - acquiring the special status of a Polish writer living abroad at his own expense and outside the jurisdiction of the Polish state.». The debate with the state lasted five years, in the end the state offered to obtain a long-term foreign passport, while Mrozek was supposed to become a kind of illustration of the creative freedom of the Polish writer, not criticizing the political situation in Poland, but, on the contrary, assuring the West that everything was going well. His plays continued to be staged in his homeland, books were regularly published, because the authorities considered it inappropriate to impose a ban on works that are so popular with readers and viewers. Many did not even know that the author lives abroad. In February 1968 Mrozhek and his wife moved to France and settled in Paris.

This state could last as long as you like, but the events in Prague 1968 and the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia changed everything. Mrozhek issued an open letter condemning this act of aggression, which was published by the world's largest newspapers. The consequences were not long in coming. In an attempt to renew his foreign passports, which had expired, Mrozek, who visited the Polish embassy, was ordered to return to Poland within two weeks. A refusal followed, after which his plays in his homeland were removed from the repertoire, the books were withdrawn from sale, and the few copies remaining in private libraries began to circulate, sold well on"Black market".

In 1969 from a sudden outbreak of illness, Mrozhek's wife died, and years of restlessness and lonely wanderings began for him, he visited, in particular, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, lived in the USA, taught for some time at the University of Pennsylvania, lived in West Berlin for a year ... To summarize, he says:«… I have traveled almost all over the world. And in the professional field, the adventure was a success (including attempts to act as a screenwriter and director in cinema)».

The ban on his compositions in Poland was lifted after only a few years, and thanks to the changed situation in the country and the entry into the political arena of the union"Solidarity", Mrozhek was able to come home after a decade and a half of voluntary exile. By that time, he already had French citizenship, which he could apply for as a political emigrant.

After the defeat of Solidarity came out with a series of harsh and topical essays directed against the Polish authorities and imbued with anti-communist sentiments. The essays were published in the West and circulated in samizdat in Poland. In this regard, the entrance to his homeland was again closed.

In 1987 Mrozhek married a second time, with his Mexican wife he settled in Mexico, where he lived in solitude on a ranch"La Epiphania" did the housework and wrote. According to him, he never got to know the country properly, but realized that there are other, non-European ways of development, a different rhythm of life, different values. In Mexico he createdMy autobiography (1988), here, after the decision was made to return to Poland, he April 13, 1996 began to lead Return diary.

Prose written after leaving for emigration, which divided the life of the writer into two parts, collected in books Two Letters (1973), Stories (1981), Short Letters (1982), Denunciations (1983), Short Stories (1994), Stories and denunciations (1995). After leaving, plays were also written Tango (1964), Tailor (1964), Lucky case(1973), Slaughterhouse (1973), Emigrants (1974), Beautiful View (1998) and others.

Plays and stories have been filmed several times. Among the films where he acted as a screenwriter are television and feature films Police officers (screen version - 1960, 1970, 1971), Striptease (1963), The sufferings of Peter O "Heya(1964), Emigrants (1977), Love (1978), Tango (screen version - 1970, 1972, 1973, 1980), The last cocktail(1993), Cooperative 1 (1996), Revolution (2002).

In 1998 Mrozhek returned to Poland.

To summarize, he does not consider his experience to be special:« I just lived in this world. He survived the Second World War, the German occupation of Poland, Stalinist communism and its continuation, but there is nothing to boast about, millions of people have done the same. There is nothing exceptional in my emigration either ...».

Deliberately avoiding interviews or trying to get rid of newspapermen with meaningless phrases, he does not like to make far-reaching statements in prose and in plays. Noticing the morality that unexpectedly slipped onto the page, he crosses it out. Moreover, a lot has changed in his own life - after a serious heart disease, which knocked him out of his working rhythm for a long time, he wants to return to work again, and for this he needs to comprehend and rethink something:« In that long life ... I didn't think about the absurd for a long time. And when I finally thought about it, I found out that I was just in the absurd. And he even began to write something about absurdity, but then he got tired of it. There is such a thesis that a person lives absurdly and does not think about it constantly, but from time to time he realizes this to himself. And I decided to live more or less absurdly in order to fit this thesis. And then I realized that I didn't want to anymore. And now I live without absurdity».

In 2002 Mrozhek again visited Russia, as a guest of honor of the international theater festival"Baltic House" visited St. Petersburg, where he was accepted as an undoubted classic, one of the most popular playwrights 20th century

Berenika Vesnina

Slawomir Mrozhek

Somersault morality of Slavomir Mrozhek

“I only describe what it is possible to describe. And so, for purely technical reasons, I am silent about the most important things, ”Slawomir Mrozhek once said about himself.

He leaves the most important thing for the reader to conjecture, to guess. But at the same time it gives him a very essential and original "information for thought."

The writer emphasizes: “Information is our contact with reality. From the simplest: "fly agarics are poisonous, mushrooms are edible" - and up to art, which is essentially the same information, only more confusing. We act in accordance with the information. Inaccurate information leads to reckless actions, which everyone who ate the mushroom knows about, having been informed that this is a mushroom. Bad poems do not die, but they are poison, only a kind ”.

The stories and plays of Slavomir Mrozhek, for all their seeming unreality and "confusion", provide accurate information about fly agarics and toadstools of the surrounding reality, about everything that poisons our lives.

Slawomir Mrozek is a famous Polish satirist. Born in 1930, he studied architecture and fine arts in Krakow. He made his debut almost simultaneously as a prose writer and a caricaturist, and since the second half of the 50s he has been acting as a playwright (he also wrote several screenplays). In all three "hypostases" Mrozhek appears as a keen-sighted and perceptive artist, focusing his attention on the sad (and sometimes gloomy) sides of modern life and striving not only to highlight, but to burn them out with a healing ray of satire. Cycles of humorous stories and drawings, published in Polish periodicals and later in separate editions, brought him great popularity. The stories were compiled in the collections "Practical semi-armored vehicles" (1953), "Elephant" (1957), "Wedding in Atomitsy" (1959), "Rain" (1962), "Two Letters" (1974); drawings - albums "Poland in Pictures" (1957), "Through the Glasses of Slawomir Mrozek" (1968). In addition, the literary baggage of the writer includes the novels "Little Summer" (1956) and "Flight to the South" (1961), a volume of selected essays and articles "Short Letters" (1982), and a dozen or two plays, among which can be distinguished " Police "(1958)," Turkey "(1960), triptych of one-act farces" On the High Seas "," Carol "," Striptease "(1961)," Death of a Lieutenant "(1963)," Tango "(1964)," The Tailor "(1964)," Happy Accident "(1973)," Slaughterhouse "(1973)," Emigrants "(1974).

Since 1963, Slawomir Mrozek lived in Italy, and in 1968 he moved to Paris. But he remains a citizen of the People's Republic of Poland and a very Polish writer, who does not break ties with his homeland and domestic literary, theatrical tradition. At the same time, his artistic and philosophical generalizations go beyond the framework of national experience, acquire universal significance, which explains the wide international recognition of his work, staging plays on all continents.

Through the glasses of Slawomir Mrozek (to use the name of the column that he constantly led for fifteen years in the Krakow magazine "Pshekruj"), the world is not seen in a rosy light. Therefore, his manner is characterized by irony and grotesque, revealing the absurd features of existence, a tendency to parable and farce. Satire often gives it bitterness, but not in any way lack of faith in a person.

The artist revolts against the primitivization of life and thinking, the spiritual impoverishment of the individual, against the vulgar didacticism in art. Although he suddenly catches himself at times on the fact that he, too, is not free from the preaching tone and asks the question - where is he from? “Sometimes I notice it in the manuscript and take action. And sometimes I only notice in print, when it's too late. Am I a natural born preacher? But in that case, I would not feel the dislike of preaching, which I nevertheless do. I find the preaching style vulgar and suspicious. Probably, there is something in the inheritance that I received ... As soon as I cannot master the style, the style takes possession of me. Rather, the different styles I was brought up on. Here preaching, there suddenly laughter attacks me, and here and there a foreign feather will flicker, ”Mrozhek reflects on the origins of his own creativity in the essay“ The Heir ”from the book“ Short Letters ”.

Critics found in the works of Mrozhek the influence of Wyspianski and Gombrowicz, Vitkatsy and Galczynski, Swift and Hoffmann, Gogol and Saltykov-Shchedrin, Beckett and Ionesco, Kafka and other famous predecessors and contemporaries who acutely felt the imperfection of man and the world in which he lives. But after the victory there are always more heroes than there actually were. And the abundance of alleged literary "godfathers" Mrozhek only convinces of the originality and originality of his talent.

This originality is manifested, in particular, in the amazing laconicism, the parsimony of those strokes that outline the multidimensional space of the narrative, from which only the flight of thought becomes freer. Deprived of specifics, circumstances and figures acquire painfully recognizable reality. Mrozhek is sickened by idle talk: “I dream of some new law of nature, according to which everyone would have a daily norm of words. So many words for a day, and as soon as he speaks or writes them, he becomes illiterate and dumb until the next morning. By noon, complete silence would reign, and only occasionally would it be broken by the mean phrases of those who are able to think what they are saying, or cherish words for some other reason. Since they would have been pronounced in silence, they would have been finally heard. "

The Polish writer fully feels the weight of the word and the acuteness of a thought, imprisoned on the touchstone of pain for a person and polished by wit - a thought like a sensitive surgeon's knife, which is able to easily penetrate under the cover of living reality, diagnosing and healing it, and not just dispassionately dissecting corpse of cold abstractions. Mrozhekov's works - from "full-length" plays to miniatures (both verbal and graphic) are distinguished by their genuine originality and inexhaustible imagination growing in the field of sorrowful remarks of the mind and heart.

Sometimes his paradoxes are reminiscent of Wilde's (say, when he asserts that “Art is more life than life itself”). The author of The Portrait of Dorian Gray declared: “The truth of life is revealed to us precisely in the form of paradoxes. To comprehend Reality, one must see how it balances on a tightrope. And only after looking at all those acrobatic things that Truth does, we can correctly judge it. " Slawomir Mrozhek also repeatedly resorts to paradox as a means of comprehending the Truth and checking or refuting worn-out “common truths”. Perhaps more than anything else, he fears banality, which kills, in his words, the most immutable truths. That is why the writer is not averse to making the banality stand on his head or to do a stunning "moral flip".

Is Mrozhek a moralist? Undoubtedly! (Hence the unobtrusive taste of preaching that he himself senses.) Quite often in his works, behind the grotesque situations, the parody of the text and the amusement of the dialogue, it is easy to discern a philosophical-ethical or socio-political subtext. And the parabolas he draws are very instructive. For example, this: “... We are like an old ship - it is still floating, since the elements from which it is built are composed in such a way that they form a ship. But all of its planks and bolts, all of its parts, sub-parts and under-under-under (etc.) - parts yearn for disintegration. It seems to some parts that they will do without the whole and after the disintegration they will no longer enter any structure. Illusion - because the choice exists only between disappearance and structure, whatever. The board, confident that when the ship falls apart, it will cease to be a ship board and will lead the free and proud life of the board as such, the board "by itself" - will perish and disappear or someone will build a stable out of it.

But for now we are bursting. "

Sometimes morality can be expressed in Mrozhek straightforwardly, as in the fable: “Even the most modest position requires moral foundations” (“Swan” - however, here one can feel an ironic connotation). But more often the author brings the reader or viewer to a conclusion, trusting him to take the last step. So, the story "Bird Ugupu" makes, in connection with the demarche of an angry rhinoceros, think about the relationship of phenomena in nature and the place of man in the chain of these relationships. And the geometric parable "Below" shows, using the example of a dispute between a convinced supporter of horizontal and no less convinced supporter of vertical, all the absurdity of attempts to unify the world, reducing it to one plane and depriving it of "three-dimensionality, and perhaps any dimension in general." A good commentary on this parable is Mrozhek's "short letter" "Flesh and Spirit", which contains a warning against "that any plan of the world order, born in one head, sure that this is the only plan that is the one that the world needs , was implemented automatically and meticulously. And the good Lord God really did not allow this, giving us time, matter and space, in which, after all, everything should unfold. And so much harm has been done to the world by all sorts of self-confident maniacs - what if their hands were untied? .. In the theater, directors “with ideas” scare me, because there are those who are ready to direct the whole world. Manic philanthropists, educators, teachers ... ".

Slawomir Mrozek (born 1930), Polish prose writer, playwright, artist.

Born on June 29, 1930 in the village of Bozhenczyn, Brzesko County, Krakow Voivodeship. The date of June 26, given in all official biographies and encyclopedic articles, arose due to an incorrect entry in the church book, on the basis of which documents were subsequently issued.

Well-mannered people don't tell the obvious.

Mrozhek Slawomir

Father - Anthony Mrozhek, the son of a poor peasant, had only primary education and miraculously got the post of a postal official, mother - Zofia Mrozhek (nee - Kendzer).

Having entered the architectural faculty of the Krakow Polytechnic Institute, Mrozek left home (later recalled that during this period he "slept in the attic with friends, ate soup for the homeless at the nun sisters' orphanage"), and also attended the Krakow Academy of Arts.

He began his literary career in the Krakow newspaper "Dziennik Polski", where at first he stayed "as an editorial boy on parcels", was engaged in current newspaper work, wrote on various topics. The first feuilletons and humoresques were published in 1950. The works published in periodicals compiled the collection Practical half-shells (1953), and the story Little Summer (1956) was also published. In 1956 Mrozhek was abroad for the first time, he visited the USSR, was in Odessa.

The recognition of readers that came quickly was not, nevertheless, evidence of the high literary merits of Mrozhek's early prose. By his own admission, the communist ideals absorbed in his youth (which was facilitated by his special character and temperament) were getting rid of for a long time and not easily. The book, which he considers his first serious work, is the collection Elephant (1957). He was a great success. Mrozek notes: “It was a collection of short, very short, but in all respects poignant stories.<…>Certain phrases from the book turned into proverbs and sayings, which proves how close and understandable my thoughts were then to my compatriots. " 1961).

The literature has repeatedly noted that the work of Mrozhek is associated with predecessors, in particular, V. Gombrovich and S.I. Vitkevich. This is true, but the connection between his prose and the traditions of Polish humor is much more obvious - a fatty, a little sad and invariably subtle. However, Polish wit has such summit achievements as the aphorisms of S.E. Lez, the satirical poems of Yu. Tuwim, and the comic phantasmagoria of K.I. Galchinsky. Mrozhek's stories and humoresques are life situations, as it were, projected into infinity. So, in the story The Swan, an old watchman guarding a lonely bird in the park decides to go to warm up in the pub and takes the bird with him - it cannot sit without protection, and even in the cold. The watchman warms himself up with a glass of vodka and sausages, orders a swan a delicacy in the form of a white roll soaked in warmed beer with sugar. The next day everything repeats itself, and on the third day the swan invitingly pulls the old man by the floor of his clothes - it's time to go to warm up. The story ends with the fact that both the watchman and the bird, which, sitting on the water, swayed, were kicked out of the park, terrifying the walking mothers and children. The plot of the story contains a kind of algorithm for Mrozhek's prose.

1959 became important in his life - he married a woman for whom he had a strong feeling, in the same year, at the invitation of Harvard University, he visited the United States, where he took part in a summer international seminar, led by professor of political science Henry Kissinger. Two months spent overseas radically influenced the consciousness of Mrozhek.

Do people lose heart? Come on, hands up!

Mrozhek Slawomir

In the early 1960s, he left Krakow and moved to Warsaw, where he was greeted as a literary celebrity. He publishes a lot in periodicals, including the newspaper "Przheglyad kulturalni", the weekly "Tugodnik povzeshni", the magazines "Dialogue", "Pshekruy", "Culture", "Tvorzhchozs", maintains regular columns, acts not only as a prose writer, but and as a kind of cartoonist. Although Mrozhek himself notes that "this is the art of graphics, to characterize a character with a couple of strokes," his graphics are firmly linked to the word. This is either a funny drawing with a short caption or dialogue, or a small series of pictures, somewhat similar to a comic strip. Neither a picture without text, nor text without a picture can exist separately. For example, the words "A phenomenal football team will arrive in Poland soon" is accompanied by a picture of the team members, each with three legs. The message about a new model of Eskimo sleds with reverse gear is adjacent to the image: sled dogs are tied to the sleds from both ends, and part of the dog team is tied so that it can run only in one direction, and the other part only in the other. It is clear that this is impossible. This light absurdity in the pictorial solution is directly related to the tradition of the Polish poster of the 1960-1970s. The works of Mrozek the artist are collected in the publications Poland in pictures (1957), Through the glasses of Slawomir Mrozek (1968), Drawings (1982).

Current page: 1 (total of the book has 20 pages)

Slawomir Mrozhek

Somersault morality of Slavomir Mrozhek

“I only describe what it is possible to describe. And so, for purely technical reasons, I am silent about the most important things, ”Slawomir Mrozhek once said about himself.

He leaves the most important thing for the reader to conjecture, to guess. But at the same time it gives him a very essential and original "information for thought."

Slawomir Mrozek is a famous Polish satirist. Born in 1930, he studied architecture and fine arts in Krakow. He made his debut almost simultaneously as a prose writer and a caricaturist, and since the second half of the 50s he has been acting as a playwright (he also wrote several screenplays). In all three "hypostases" Mrozhek appears as a keen-sighted and perceptive artist, focusing his attention on the sad (and sometimes gloomy) sides of modern life and striving not only to highlight, but to burn them out with a healing ray of satire. Cycles of humorous stories and drawings, published in Polish periodicals and later in separate editions, brought him great popularity. The stories were compiled in the collections "Practical semi-armored vehicles" (1953), "Elephant" (1957), "Wedding in Atomitsy" (1959), "Rain" (1962), "Two Letters" (1974); drawings - albums "Poland in Pictures" (1957), "Through the Glasses of Slawomir Mrozhek" (1968). In addition, the literary baggage of the writer includes the novels "Little Summer" (1956) and "Flight to the South" (1961), a volume of selected essays and articles "Short Letters" (1982), and a dozen or two plays, among which can be distinguished " Police "(1958)," Turkey "(1960), triptych of one-act farces" On the High Seas "," Carol "," Striptease "(1961)," Death of a Lieutenant "(1963)," Tango "(1964)," The Tailor "(1964)," Happy Accident "(1973)," Slaughterhouse "(1973)," Emigrants "(1974).

The Polish writer fully feels the weight of the word and the acuteness of a thought, imprisoned on the touchstone of pain for a person and polished by wit - a thought like a sensitive surgeon's knife, which is able to easily penetrate under the cover of living reality, diagnosing and treating it, and not just dispassionately dissecting corpse of cold abstractions. Mrozhekov's works - from "full-length" plays to miniatures (both verbal and graphic) are distinguished by genuine originality and inexhaustible imagination growing in the field of woeful notes of mind and heart.

Is Mrozhek a moralist? Undoubtedly! (Hence the unobtrusive taste of preaching that he himself senses.) Quite often in his works, behind the grotesque situations, the parody of the text and the amusement of the dialogue, it is easy to discern a philosophical-ethical or socio-political subtext. And the parabolas he draws are very instructive. For example, this: “... We are like an old ship - it is still floating, since the elements from which it is built are composed in such a way that they form a ship. But all of its planks and bolts, all of its parts, sub-parts and under-under-under (etc.) - parts yearn for disintegration. It seems to some parts that they will do without the whole and after the disintegration they will no longer enter any structure. Illusion - because the choice exists only between disappearance and structure, whatever. The board, confident that when the ship falls apart, it will cease to be a ship board and will lead the free and proud life of the board as such, the board “by itself” - it will perish and disappear or someone will build a stable out of it.

But for now we are bursting. "

Sometimes morality can be expressed in Mrozhek straightforwardly, as in the fable: “Even the most modest position requires moral foundations” (“Swan” - however, here too one can feel an ironic connotation). But more often the author brings the reader or viewer to a conclusion, trusting him to take the last step. So, the story "Bird Ugupu" makes, in connection with the demarche of an angry rhinoceros, think about the relationship of phenomena in nature and the place of man in the chain of these relationships. And the geometric parable "Below" shows, using the example of a dispute between a convinced supporter of horizontal and no less convinced supporter of vertical, all the absurdity of attempts to unify the world, reducing it to one plane and depriving it of "three-dimensionality, and perhaps any dimension in general." A good commentary on this parable is Mrozhek's "short letter" "Flesh and Spirit", which contains a warning against "that any plan of the world order, born in one head, sure that this is the only plan that is the one that the world needs , was implemented automatically and meticulously. And the good Lord God really did not allow this, giving us time, matter and space, in which, after all, everything should unfold. And so much harm has been done to the world by all sorts of self-confident maniacs - what if their hands were untied? .. In the theater, directors “with ideas” scare me, because there are those who are ready to direct the whole world. Manic philanthropists, educators, teachers ... ".

The world of Mrozhek's stories and plays is phantasmagoric. However, examples of, alas, too well-known reality often appear through this phantasmagoricity. Is the wireless telegraph really so unrealistic (the poles were stolen, but there is no wire), described in the story "On a Trip"? Or a meteorologist who was ruined by his superiors by reproaches for the excessive pessimism of his reports ("The Citizen's Way")? Or a cannoneer who does not know how to shoot a cannon, because he is a specialist in the silkworm ("Chronicle of the besieged city")? And is it not enough in our memory that soared and burst inflatable elephants, which appeared as a result of the desire of zealous officials to fulfill directives to reduce the cost ("Elephant")? By the way, there is nothing surprising in the fact that, as the author writes, “the students who were in the zoological garden that day began to study poorly and became hooligans. They don't believe in elephants at all. " It is easy to swindle to destroy any faith, especially in children.

Mrozhek is a tireless hunter of rubber elephants (and he has many such expressive transparent metaphors). One of his favorite tricks is reductio ad absurdum. He uses it in the stories "Elevator" (where, for the purpose of modernization, an elevator is installed in a one-story institution), "Economy" (where, in order to save money, they hire a one-legged invalid as a courier), "The Drummer's Adventure" (variations on the theme "A helpful fool is more dangerous than an enemy ")," Punctuality "(where it is shown what the immoderate enthusiasm of the masses can lead to). Any of the deadly sins (the number of which has clearly increased in comparison with biblical times) Mrozhek is able to put in the proper light and in such a way that it is firmly remembered: callousness and selfishness ("In the box"), sycophancy and servility ("Hawaii"), corruption and bribery ("Horses"), cowardice ("The Last Hussar"), stereotypical thinking and stupid bureaucratic "elephantiasis" inspired by the dream that a fly with torn wings, bought in ink, will write on paper the slogan "Help aviation" (" Quiet employee ").

The hero of the story "Incident" in a conversation with a gnome, trying to reach mutual understanding, says: “Sometimes it seems to me that all this everyday life, all these everyday life is just a pretext, the surface under which a different meaning is encrypted is wider, deeper. That it makes some sense at all. Indeed, too close contact with the details does not allow us to feel the whole, but you can feel it. " The task of Mrozhek the moralist, apparently, consists precisely in the fact that, without falling into excessive moralizing, try to instill in us: there is still the meaning of life and there must be common sense in people, although sometimes he himself is seized by despair when confronted with a human the stupidity and absurdity of what has to be dealt with at every step. The writer is not only painfully wounded by the flaws of momentary reality, he is worried about the "eternal" questions of good and evil, the relationship between the creator and power, the combination of freedom and necessity, personal and public good, the problem of moral choice.

“Art certainly strives for good, positively or negatively: whether it exposes to us the beauty of all the best that is in a person, or laughs at the ugliness of all the worst in a person. If you expose all the rubbish that is in a person, and you expose it in such a way that every spectator will receive complete disgust for it, I ask: isn't this already a praise for all that is good? I ask: isn't this a praise for good? " - I think that Slavomir Mrozhek could well subscribe to these Gogol words.

He often acts by contradiction, praising good by showing where evil can lead, and affirming the bright principle in a person by ridiculing everything that is stupid and base in him. And with the same skill he does it both in prose and in drama.

In one of his most famous plays - "Tango" - Mrozhek, as if turning the conflict of "fathers and children" inside out, demonstrates the complete degradation of society, where the norm is the elimination of the norm, and the only operating principle is the absence of any principles. The wall of conventions was destroyed, and after it the whole building of family, human relations collapsed. The absence of a system of values makes it impossible for the normal functioning of both individuals and society as a whole. Arthur, 25, is making an attempt to resist the collapse of the era, free himself from permissiveness and restore the old order. But he is defeated, realizing that it is not the form that will save the world, but the idea. He has no fundamental idea. Trying to resort to violence, Arthur himself dies at the hands of the footman Edik, a complete boor who turns into a dictator.

As often happens with Mrozhek, many complex problems are woven into a tight knot in Tango, including the role and place of the intelligentsia in the modern world, its spiritual conformism, which sometimes appears under the guise of rebellion. A short way from fear for one's own skin (“Yes, shoot, shoot, shoot again, but, in any case, not at me”) through “creative” assimilation of an alien idea to complicity in a crime and voluntary denunciations - here is another kind of opportunism, embodied in the image of the Oculist in the one-act drama "Carol".

“Having set out to write several works devoted to human life and morals, in order, in the words of my lord Bacon,“ to get to the background of people and their deeds, ”I found it more expedient to start with an examination of man in general, his nature and his state, since in order to to check any moral principle, to investigate the perfection or imperfection of any being, it is necessary first to comprehend in what circumstances and conditions it is thrown, as well as what are the true goal and purpose of its being. The science of human nature, like other sciences, is reduced to a few distinct propositions: the number of absolute truths in our world is small. Until now, this applied to the anatomy of the spirit, as well as the body ... "- with these words, Alexander Pope prefaced his treatise in verse" Experience about Man "more than 250 years ago.

Each work of Slavomir Mrozhek is also a kind of “experience about a person”. With amazing ingenuity, he staged such an experience in the play "Slaughterhouse". Being a man is already a lot, - the revived bust of Paganini assures her of her. He willingly gives his genius to the violinist who accidentally resurrected him for the right to be just a man. The violinist realizes his dream - he becomes a virtuoso, a great Maestro, but this does not bring him, as Paganini predicted, happiness. The enterprising Director of the Philharmonic Society proposes to unite his institution with the slaughterhouse, to create a "Philharmonic Society of Instincts" and wants the Maestro, having become a butcher, to act with him in this capacity. The sated Maestro agreed, but on the day of the "premiere" he commits suicide. He comes to the conclusion that there is no difference between art and life, because they have one basis. And there is a choice between art and life, on the one hand, and death, on the other. The death of art, the death of culture means the death of mankind, says Mrozhek with his play.

This collection for the first time acquaints the Soviet reader in such a volume with the work of the Polish writer. Muze Pavlova and Vladimir Burich deserve a great deal of merit in popularizing the works of Slavomir Mrozhek in our country. Back in the early 60s, there were publications of his stories in their translation in a number of newspapers and magazines, and more recently - new collections in "Questions of Literature", "Foreign Literature". They also translated several of Mrozhek's plays.

In our current social and cultural situation, the appearance of a collection of works by Slavomir Mrozhek, opposing stupidity, inertia, vulgarity and inhumanity in their various manifestations, is very appropriate.

SVYATOSLAV BELZA

Stories

I want to be a horse

My God, how I wish I was a horse ...

As soon as I saw in the mirror that instead of legs and arms I had hooves, and behind a tail, and that I had a real horse's head, I would immediately go to the housing department.

“Please provide me with a modern large apartment with all the amenities,” I would say.

- Apply and wait your turn.

- Ha ha! I would laugh. “Can’t you see that I’m not some kind of gray man there?” I am special, extraordinary!

And I would immediately get a modern large apartment with a bathroom.

I would perform in a cabaret, and no one would say that I am not talented. Even when my lyrics were bad. Vice versa.

“It's not bad for a horse,” they would praise me.

“This is the head,” others would admire.

Not to mention the benefit that I would derive from proverbs and sayings: equine health works like a horse, a horse has four legs, and then stumbles ...

Of course, existence in the form of a horse would also have negative sides. I would give my enemies a new weapon. They would begin their anonymous letters to me with the following words: “Are you a horse? You pathetic pony! "

Women would show interest in me.

- You are some kind of special ... - they would say.

Going to heaven, I, by virtue of the fact, would receive wings and become a pegasus.

Winged horse! What could be more beautiful?

Quiet employee

Once, standing at the window, I saw a funeral procession on the street. A simple coffin was carried by only one horse in an ordinary hearse. Behind the hearse was a widow in mourning and three other people, apparently friends, relatives and acquaintances of the deceased.

This modest cortege would not have attracted my attention if it were not for the red banner that adorned the coffin: "Long live!" Taking an interest, I went out into the street and followed the procession. So I ended up in the cemetery. The deceased was buried in the farthest corner, among the birches. During the funeral rite, I kept aloof, but then I approached the widow and, expressing my condolences and respect to her, asked who the deceased was.

It turned out that he was an official. The widow, moved by my attention to the personality of the deceased, told me some of the details of the last days of his life. She complained that her husband was suffering from strange volunteer work. He continually wrote notes on new forms of propaganda. I concluded that the promotion of current slogans became the main goal of his dying activity.

I asked the widow for permission to look at the latest works of her husband. She agreed and handed me two sheets of yellowed paper, covered in clear, slightly old-fashioned handwriting. Thus, I became acquainted with his notes.

“Take flies, for example,” was the first phrase. “Often, when I sit in the afternoon and watch the flies fly around the lamp, various thoughts awaken in me. What a happiness it would be, I think, if flies also had consciousness, like everyone else. You grab a fly, tear off its wings, and wet it in ink, put it on smooth, clean paper and look. A fly walks on paper and writes: "Help the aviation." Or some other slogan. "

As I read, the spiritual image of the deceased became clearer and clearer in front of me. He was an open person, very deeply imbued with the idea of placing slogans and banners wherever possible. One of the most original thoughts is his idea of sowing a special clover.

“Through collaboration between artists and agrobiologists,” he wrote, “a special variety of clover could be developed. Where this plant currently has a one-color flower - by appropriate seed preparation - a small flower portrait of some leader or leader of labor would grow. Imagine a field planted with clover! It's blooming time! Of course, mistakes can happen. For example, a person being portrayed who has neither a mustache nor glasses, due to mixing with other varieties of seeds, may appear in the portrait or after the clover has sprout - in glasses and with a mustache. Then we will have no choice but to mow the entire field and sow it again. "

The old man's intentions were more and more stunning. After reading the notes, I, of course, realized that the banner "Long live!" was erected on the grave according to the last will of the deceased. An unselfish inventor, a fanatic of visual agitation, even at a fateful moment, tried to show his enthusiasm.

I took steps to find out the circumstances under which he left this world. It turned out that he fell victim to his own zeal. On the occasion of a public holiday, he stripped naked and painted his body in stripes - seven longitudinal multi-colored stripes, each of which corresponded to one of the colors of the rainbow. Then he went out onto the balcony, climbed onto the railing and tried to make a gymnastic figure "bridge". In this way, he wanted to create a living image representing the rainbow or our bright future. Unfortunately the balcony was on the third floor.

I went to the cemetery a second time to find his eternal resting place. But, despite a long search, I did not manage to find the birches, among which he was buried. So I joined the orchestra, which passed by on the occasion of the evening roll call, playing a bouncy march.

Children

This winter there has been so much snow that there is enough for everyone.

At the market, children made a snow woman out of snow.

The market was spacious, and many people came there every day. The windows of numerous institutions looked out onto the market. And the market did not pay any attention to this and only expanded. In the very center of this market, children noisily and cheerfully sculpted a funny figure out of the snow.

First, a large ball was rolled. It was the belly. Then smaller - it was the shoulders and back. Then quite small - they made a head out of it. The buttons for the snow woman were made of black coals so that they could be fastened tightly. Her nose was made of carrots. In a word, an ordinary snow woman, several thousand of which appear throughout the country every year, since things were not bad with the snowfall.

This brought great joy to the children. They were just happy.

Passers-by stopped, looked at the woman and walked on. The management was run as if nothing had happened.

The father was very pleased that his children were frolicking in the fresh air, that their cheeks were reddened from this, and their appetite was growing.

My father took the newspaper seller's remarks to heart. Indeed, children should not make fun of anyone, not even someone with a red nose. They still do not understand anything about this. He called the children and asked sternly, pointing to the newspaper seller:

- Is it true that you deliberately made the snow woman a red nose, like that uncle's?

The children were genuinely surprised, did not even understand what was at stake. When they finally understood, they replied that they had not thought of anything of the kind.

But the father, just in case, as a punishment, left them without supper.

The newspaper salesman thanked him and left. At the door, he ran into the chairman of the local cooperative. The chairman greeted the owner of the house, who was pleased to welcome such a significant (after all) face. Seeing the children, the chairman grimaced, snorted, and said:

- It's good that I found them here, these jerks. You have to keep them tight. They are small but remote. Today I am looking at the market from the window of our warehouse, and what do I see? They calmly sculpt a snow woman for themselves ...

- Oh, you mean that nose ... - the father guessed.

- The nose is nonsense! Imagine, they rolled first one lump, then another, then a third - and what? The second was put on the first, and the third on the second! Isn't that outrageous?

The father did not understand. The chairman became even more worried.

- Well, of course, isn't it clear - they hinted that in our cooperative a thief is sitting on a thief. And this is slander. Even if such materials go to the press, proofs are still needed, but how much further, if it is hinted at publicly, on the market. - He, the chairman, taking into account their young age and recklessness, will not demand a refutation. But so that this does not happen again.

When the children were asked if they really wanted to make it clear that the cooperative was a thief on a thief, they really denied it and burst into tears. However, just in case, the father put them in a corner.

But the day did not end there. On the street there was a ringing of bells, which suddenly ceased at the very house. Two people knocked on the door at the same time. One of them is some fat man in a sheepskin coat, the second is the chairman of the City Council himself.

“We're on a case about your children,” they said in chorus, still standing on the threshold.

The father, already accustomed to such visits, pulled up chairs for them, trying to guess who it might be, after which the chairman began:

- I am surprised how you tolerate enemy activity in your house. Aren't you interested in politics? Confess right away.

My father did not understand what this implies, that he is not interested in politics.

- It can be seen in your actions. Who is engaged in satire on the organs of the people's power? Your kids are studying. They put the snowman right in front of the windows of my office.

- I understand, - my father muttered timidly, - it's like a thief on a thief ...

- Thieves are nonsense! Don't you understand what it means to make a snowman in front of the windows of the chairman of the Rada? I know very well what people say about me. Why don't your kids make a snowman under the Adenauer window, for example? What? Shut up? This silence is very eloquent! I can draw the appropriate conclusions from this.

At the word "conclusions" the unknown fat man got up and, looking around, quietly, tiptoeing out of the room. Outside the windows, the bells rang again and, gradually dying down, fell silent in the distance.

- So, dear, I advise you to think about it, - continued the chairman. - Yeah, and more. The fact that I walk around at home unbuttoned is my own business. Your kids have no right to laugh at this. Buttons from top to bottom on the snow woman are also an ambiguity. I repeat once again, if I want to, I will walk around the house without pants at all, and your children have nothing to do with this. Remember.

The accused summoned his children from the corner and demanded that they immediately confess that when they made the snowman they meant Pan chairman, and by decorating it with buttons from top to bottom, they made an additional hint that the chairman was walking around the house unbuttoned.

The children, screaming and crying, assured that the woman was blinded just like that, for fun, without any extraneous thoughts. However, just in case, the father, in punishment, not only left them without supper and put them in a corner, but ordered them to kneel on the hard floor.

That evening several more people knocked on the door, but the owner did not open it.

The next day I passed the park and saw the children there. They were not allowed to play in the market. The children discussed what to play.

- Let's sculpt a snowman, - said one.

- Uh-uh, an ordinary snow woman is not interesting, - said the second.

- Well then, let's fashion an uncle who sells newspapers. Let's make him a red nose. He has a red nose because he drinks vodka. He himself said so yesterday, - said the third.

- Uh-uh, I want to mold a co-op!

- And I want Mr. Chairman, because he is a woman. And you can make buttons for him, because he walks unbuttoned.

An argument flared up. Finally they decided to fashion everyone in turn.

And joyfully set to work.

Process

As a result of long efforts, patient work and perseverance, the goal was eventually achieved. All writers were dressed in uniforms, ranked and insignia established for them. Thus, once and for all it was done with chaos, lack of criteria, unhealthy artistry, nebulousness and precariousness of art. The design of the uniform, as well as the division into ranks and degrees, were the fruit of many years of preparatory work at the headquarters. From that moment on, every member of the Writers' Union was obliged to wear a uniform - wide purple trousers with stripes, a green jacket, a belt and a helmet. However, this form, despite its apparent simplicity, had a lot of differences. Members of the headquarters wore cocked hats with gold piping, members of local governments wore silver piping. Chairmen - swords, vice-chairs - daggers. The writers were divided into divisions. Two regiments of poets, three divisions of prose writers and a punitive platoon of various elements were formed. Radical shifts have been made among the critics. Some were sent to the galleys, the rest were taken to the gendarmerie.

All were divided into ranks - from private to marshal. The number of words that the writer published during his life, the angle of the ideological inclination of the spine relative to the body, the number of years lived, public and state posts were taken into account. Colored insignia were introduced to denote ranks.

Slawomir Mrozek (born 1930), Polish prose writer, playwright, artist.

Well-mannered people don't tell the obvious.

Mrozhek Slawomir

Father - Anthony Mrozhek, the son of a poor peasant, had only primary education and miraculously received the post of a postal official, mother - Zofia Mrozhek (nee - Kendzer).

Do people lose heart? Come on, hands up!

Mrozhek Slawomir

The recognition of readers that came quickly was not, nevertheless, evidence of the high literary merits of Mrozhek's early prose. By his own admission, the communist ideals absorbed in his youth (which was facilitated by his special character and temperament) were getting rid of for a long time and not easily. The book, which he considers his first serious work, is the collection Elephant (1957). He was a great success. Mrozhek notes: "It was a collection of short, very short, but in all respects poignant stories. Individual phrases from the book turned into proverbs and sayings, which proves how close and understandable my thoughts were to my compatriots." This was followed by the collections The Wedding in Atomitsy (1959), Progressist (1960), Rain (1962), the story Flight to the South (1961).

The literature has repeatedly noted that the work of Mrozhek is associated with predecessors, in particular, V. Gombrovich and S.I. Vitkevich. This is true, but the connection between his prose and the traditions of Polish humor is much more obvious - a fatty, a little sad and invariably subtle. However, Polish wit has such summit achievements as the aphorisms of S.E. Lez, the satirical poems of Yu. Tuwim, and the comic phantasmagoria of K.I. Galchinsky. Mrozhek's stories and humoresques are life situations, as it were, projected into infinity. So, in the story The Swan, an old watchman guarding a lonely bird in the park decides to go to warm up in the pub and takes the bird with him - it cannot sit without protection, and even in the cold. The watchman warms himself up with a glass of vodka and sausages, orders a swan a delicacy in the form of a white roll soaked in warmed beer with sugar. The next day everything repeats itself, and on the third day the swan invitingly pulls the old man by the floor of his clothes - it's time to go to warm up. The story ends with the fact that both the watchman and the bird, which, sitting on the water, swayed, were kicked out of the park, terrifying the walking mothers and children. The plot of the story contains a kind of algorithm for Mrozhek's prose.

You can only describe what can be described. So, for purely technical reasons, I am omitting the most important thing.

Mrozhek Slawomir

In the early 1960s, he left Krakow and moved to Warsaw, where he was greeted as a literary celebrity. He publishes a lot in periodicals, including the newspaper "Przheglyad kulturalni", the weekly "Tugodnik povzeshni", the magazines "Dialogue", "Pshekruy", "Culture", "Tvorzhchozs", maintains regular columns, acts not only as a prose writer, but and as a kind of cartoonist. Although Mrozhek himself notes that "this is the art of graphics, to characterize a character with a couple of strokes," his graphics are firmly linked to the word. This is either a funny drawing with a short caption or dialogue, or a small series of pictures, somewhat similar to a comic strip. Neither a picture without text, nor text without a picture can exist separately. For example, the words "A phenomenal football team will arrive in Poland soon" is accompanied by a picture of the team members, each with three legs. The message about a new model of Eskimo sleds with a reverse gear is adjacent to the image: sled dogs are tied to the sleds at both ends, and part of the dog team is tied so that it can run only in one direction, and the other part only in the other. It is clear that this is impossible. This light absurdity in the pictorial solution is directly related to the tradition of the Polish poster of the 1960-1970s. The works of Mrozek the artist are collected in the publications Poland in pictures (1957), Through the glasses of Slawomir Mrozek (1968), Drawings (1982).

Mrozhek gained the greatest fame as a playwright. It is customary to classify his dramatic works as part of the "theater of the absurd" formed in the 1950s-1960s, quite conventionally named direction, or rather, a certain ethical and aesthetic space in which such different masters as the French Eugene Ionesco (1912-1994) worked, Jean Genet (1910-1986), Irish Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), Spaniard Fernando Arrabal (b. 1932), Englishman Harold Pinter (b. 1930). E. Ionesco himself called his dramatic experiments "theater of paradox". This definition is also well suited to the plays of Mrozhek, where not so much what “cannot happen” happens as through theatrical grotesque, with the help of artistic means, life situations become extremely aggravated and satirically enlarged. Life, as the artistic experience of the 20th century revealed, is in itself both extremely absurd and monstrously paradoxical. Plays by Mrozek, both multi-act and one-act, were successfully performed on the stage of Polish theaters, and then theaters around the world. Among the early plays - The Police (1958), The Suffering of Peter O'Hey (1959), Turkey (1960), On the High Seas (1961), Karol (1961), Striptease (1961), The Death of a Lieutenant (1963).

While still living in his homeland, he gained wide popularity abroad, his books were translated, and plays were staged, which, in turn, increased his fame in Poland. But the desire to change his destiny, to become a European writer, made him decide to leave his native country. 3 or (according to other sources) June 6, 1963 Mrozhek and his wife flew to Rome on a tourist visa. Later he recalled: "My plans included creating a precedent - acquiring a special status of a Polish writer living abroad at his own expense and outside the jurisdiction of the Polish state." The debate with the state lasted five years, in the end the state offered to obtain a long-term foreign passport, while Mrozek was supposed to become a kind of illustration of the creative freedom of the Polish writer, not criticizing the political situation in Poland, but, on the contrary, assuring the West that everything was going well. His plays continued to be staged in his homeland, books were regularly published, because the authorities considered it inappropriate to impose a ban on works that are so popular with readers and viewers. Many did not even know that the author lives abroad. In February 1968, Mrozek and his wife moved to France and settled in Paris.

This state could last as long as desired, but the events of Prague in 1968 and the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia changed everything. Mrozhek issued an open letter condemning this act of aggression, which was published by the world's largest newspapers. The consequences were not long in coming. In an attempt to renew his foreign passports, which had expired, Mrozek, who visited the Polish embassy, was ordered to return to Poland within two weeks. A refusal followed, after which his plays in his homeland were removed from the repertoire, the books were withdrawn from sale, and the few copies remaining in private libraries began to circulate, sold well on the black market.

In 1969, Mrozhek's wife died from a sudden outbreak of illness, and years of restlessness and lonely wanderings began for him, he visited, in particular, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, lived in the USA, taught for some time at the University of Pennsylvania, lived for a year in West Berlin. To summarize, he says: "... I've traveled almost all over the world. And in the professional field, the adventure was a success (including attempts to act as a screenwriter and director in cinema)."

The ban on his compositions in Poland was lifted after only a few years, and thanks to the changed situation in the country and the entry into the political arena of the Solidarity association, Mrozek was able to return home after a decade and a half of voluntary exile. By that time, he already had French citizenship, which he could apply for as a political emigrant.

My son, your life will be like what you are doing now, not what you think now.

Mrozhek Slawomir

After the defeat of Solidarity, he came up with a series of harsh and topical essays directed against the Polish authorities and imbued with anti-communist sentiments. The essays were published in the West and circulated in samizdat in Poland. In this regard, the entrance to his homeland was again closed.

In 1987, Mrozhek married a second time, with his Mexican wife, he settled in Mexico, where he lived in solitude on the ranch "La Epiphania", did the housework and wrote. According to him, he never got to know the country properly, but realized that there are other, non-European ways of development, a different rhythm of life, different values. In Mexico he created My Autobiography (1988), here, after it was decided to return to Poland, on April 13, 1996 he began to keep a Diary of his return.

The prose written after leaving for emigration, which divided the life of the writer into two parts, is collected in the books Two Letters (1973), Stories (1981), Short Letters (1982), Denunciations (1983), Stories (1994), Stories and Denunciations (1995) ). After leaving, the plays Tango (1964), The Tailor (1964), The Happy Accident (1973), The Slaughterhouse (1973), The Emigrants (1974), The Beautiful View (1998) and others were also written.

Does the person use the way or the way the person uses?

Mrozhek Slawomir

Plays and stories have been filmed several times. Among the films where he acted as a screenwriter, there are television and feature films Policemen (screen version - 1960, 1970, 1971), Striptease (1963), The Suffering of Peter O'Hey (1964), The Emigrants (1977), Love (1978) , Tango (screen version - 1970, 1972, 1973, 1980), The Last Cocktail (1993), Cooperative 1 (1996), Revolution (2002).

In 1998 Mrozhek returned to Poland.

Summing up, he does not consider his experience special: “I only lived in this world. I survived the Second World War, the German occupation of Poland, Stalin's communism and its continuation, but there is nothing to boast about, millions of people have managed the same. There is nothing exceptional and in my emigration ... ".

Writers are engineers of human souls, and writers' engineers are critics.

Mrozhek Slawomir

Deliberately avoiding interviews or trying to get rid of newspapermen with meaningless phrases, he does not like to make far-reaching statements in prose and in plays. Noticing the morality that unexpectedly slipped onto the page, he crosses it out. Moreover, a lot in his own life has changed - after a serious heart disease that knocked him out of his working rhythm for a long time, he wants to return to work again, and for this he needs to comprehend and rethink something: “In that long life ... I thought about the absurd. And when I finally thought about it, I found out that I was just in the absurd. And I even began to write something about the absurd, but then I got tired of it. There is such a thesis that a person lives absurdly and does not think about it constantly , but from time to time realizes this to himself. And I decided to live more or less absurdly in order to comply with this thesis. And then I realized that I no longer want to. And now I already live without absurdity. "

In 2002, Mrozhek again visited Russia, as an honored guest of the international theater festival "Baltic House" he visited St. Petersburg, where he was received as an undoubted classic, one of the popular playwrights of the 20th century.

Slawomir Mrozhek - photo

Slawomir Mrozhek - quotes

Everything indicates that I annoy each individual in the same way as each individually annoys me. And for the same reasons.

You can only describe what can be described. So, for purely technical reasons, I am omitting the most important thing.

I want to be a horse: Satirical stories and plays. The domestication of the absurd Slawomir Mrozek stories

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