Memories of Starobielsk: Essays Between Art and History

by Józef Czapski, Irena Grudzińska Gross (Introduction), Alissa Valles (Translator)

Interned with thousands of Polish army officers and a handful of civilians in the Soviet prisoner-of-war camp at Starobielsk in September 1939, the artist Józef Czapski was one of a very small number to survive the massacre carried out in the forest of Katyn in April 1940. In prose written while the war still raged, Czapski portrays these doomed men, some with the detail of a finished portrait and others in vivid sketches imbued with a rare combination of intimacy and respect, registering their fierce striving to remain fully engaged in humane pursuits under hopeless circumstances. This memoir is complemented by essays on art, history, and literature that show Czapski’s lifelong attachment to the Russian culture that educated him, in all its contradictory manifestations, from the poet Aleksandr Blok’s fascinated response to revolution to the lonely struggle of the painter Chaim Soutine. They include a wartime sequence of short essays on painting written on a train when Czapski was traveling from Moscow to the Second Polish Army’s strategic base in Central Asia, which are among his most lyrical and insightful reflections on art.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Art, Polish Literature, Memoir, Russia, Biography

257 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1944

About the author

Józef Marian Franciszek Czapski (ang Joseph Czapski) (April 3, 1896 – January 12, 1993) was a Polish artist, author, and critic, as well as an officer of the Polish Army. As a painter, he is notable for his membership in the Kapist movement, which was heavily influenced by Cézanne. Following the Polish Defensive War, he was made a prisoner of war by the Soviets and was among the very few officers to survive the Katyn massacre of 1940. Following the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement, he was an official envoy of the Polish government searching for the missing Polish officers in Russia. After World War II, he remained in exile in the Paris suburb of Maisons-Laffitte, where he was among the founders of Kultura monthly, one of the most influential Polish cultural journals of the 20th century.

Reviews

[Mads Floyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Czapski has really entered my heart immediately. I’m not really sure how to explain this book, or how the style made me feel the way it did, but this author and this book have both forever earned a place in my heart, and in my canon.

[Wojtek Konieczny · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Audiobook), 7/10
Lektor - 4/6

[ROBERT · Rating 5 out of 5]

czapski seems to be a survivor. he is a zelig like character. This book exposed me to new stories

[JJS. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some fascinating short writings by a survivor of some of the darkest events of the twentieth century.