DOBRZYŃSKA Teresa

Born on 10 October 1943 in Warsaw; daughter of the trader Zbigniew Godlewski and Irena née Bartkowiak. While at primary school, she also attended piano classes at a music school. She then attended the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Grammar School No. XII in Warsaw, where she completed her advanced secondary education in 1961. She then studied Polish philology at the University of Warsaw (UW). In 1964, she married the music conductor Jerzy Dobrzyński; they subsequently divorced. After graduating with a master's degree in 1967, she took up a post at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN), initially as a fellowship holder and then from 1969 as an assistant at the Department of Linguistic Poetics (later the Department of Theoretical Poetics and Literary Language). She made her debut in 1968 with the article Z problematyki głosowej interpretacji tekstu (Aspects of oral interpretations of texts), which appeared in the journal "Pamiętnik Literacki" (issue 3). That year, she joined the Polish Linguistic Society and the Polish Semiotic Society. In her research, she focused primarily on studies in the fields of linguistics and literary theory, in particular textual linguistics, discourse theory, poetics, stylistics, versification and metaphorology. She published her findings on the semantics of artistic language, theory of texts and versification in journals including "Pamiętnik Literacki". She was awarded a doctorate in humanities in 1974 for her dissertation Delimitacja tekstu literackiego (Delimiting literary texts), which was supervised by Prof. Maria Renata Mayenowa↑. In 1977, she taught a practical course on poetics at the Higher School of Education in Siedlce, while from 1981 to 1985 and again from 1988 to 1990, she gave seminars on poetics, theory of texts, poetic language and reading theory at UW. Between 1980 and 1991, she was a member of the Independent Self-governing Trade Union Solidarity (Solidarność). She received a habilitation degree in 1983 for her study Metafora (Metaphor). From 1984, she was involved in the activities of the Committee of the Olympiad in Polish Literature and Language, taking on the post of deputy director from 1990. In 1984, she married the engineer, oppositionist and co-founder of the Movement for the Defence of Human and Civic Rights (ROPCiO) Kazimierz Janusz (who died in 2014). She was appointed senior lecturer in 1986. The same year she was made secretary and then in 1991 chair of the editorial board of the IBL publication series Poetyka. Zarys Encyklopedyczny (Poetics: An encyclopaedic outline). Between 1988 and 2019, she lectured in literary theory at the Faculty of Theatre Studies and the Faculty of Directing at the State Theatre School (PWST; which in 1996 became the National Academy of Dramatic Art) in Warsaw. In 1989, she joined the editorial council of the Słownik języka Cypriana Norwida (Dictionary of the language of Cyprian Norwid). From 1990, she served on the Scientific Council of IBL PAN; between 1993 and 2006 she was its deputy chair and from 2011 to 2014 its chair. In 1991, she was appointed to the Commission for the Culture of the Word at the Warsaw Learned Society [Towarzystwo Naukowe Warszawskie], and to the editorial college of the yearbook "Stylistyka". She was made professor in 1992. She joined the Boards of the Polish Linguistic Society and the Polish Semiotic Society. Between 1993 and 2013, she was director of the Department of Theoretical Poetics and Literary Language at IBL PAN in Warsaw. Between 2002 and 2021, she coordinated the cooperation of this team with the Institute of Literature of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia, a collaboration that resulted in the publication of six edited volumes. She taught courses for students on the IBL Doctoral Programme and also lectured on the Institute's postgraduate programme (1994-2003) as well as on the postgraduate Degree in Enunciation at the Academy of Dramatic Art (2000-02). In 2000, she joined the Commission for Poetics and Stylistics of the International Committee of Slavists. In 2002, she became a consultant for the Serbian yearbook "Stil", serving in this role until it was closed in 2012. She was also a member of the editorial committee of the Słownik polszczyzny XVI wieku (Dictionary of sixteenth-century Polish). From 2002 until 2010, she also collaborated with the Institute of Czech Language of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. Between 2007 and 2020, she was a member of the Scientific Council of the University of the Third Age, which was created by the Democratic Society East (TDW). In 2009, she joined the Scientific Council of the Institute of Literature of the Faculty of Polish Studies at UW. In 2012, she joined the Scientific Board of the yearbook "Colloquia Humanistica". Following her retirement in 2014, she collaborated with the Department of Theoretical Poetics and Literary Language (later the Department of Theoretical Poetics and Semiotics of Culture) at IBL PAN. She was awarded the Medal of the Commission of National Education in 1992 and the Medal of the Centenary of Restored Independence in 2019. She lives in Warsaw. Her son, the aviator Andrzej Dobrzyński (b. 1965), lives in Chicago and is a graduate of the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.