LEGEŻYŃSKA Anna

Born on 20 September 1951 in Novokuybyshevsk (Russia); daughter of the civil servant Jan Jelec and the teacher Wiktoria, née Komar. She and her family left for Poland in 1957, settling in Szczecin. From 1965 she attended Grammar School No. V in Szczecin. After completing advanced secondary education in 1969 she studied Polish philology at the Adam Mickiewicz University (UAM) in Poznan. She graduated with a master's degree in 1974 and was subsequently employed as a temporary tutor, later assistant, at the Department of Literary Theory at the Institute of Polish Philology (IFP) at UAM. She made her debut in 1974 with the article Gatunki krytyki literackiej (Genres of Literary Criticism), which appeared in the monthly "Nurt" (no. 11; using the name Anna Jelec). In subsequent years her research largely focused on translation theory and contemporary Polish poetry. She became a regular contributor to "Nurt", writing articles and literary reviews. In 1983, she defended her doctoral thesis, Tłumacz i jego kompetencje autorskie. Na materiale powojennych tłumaczeń A. Puszkina, W. Majakowskiego, I. Kryłowa i A. Błoka (Translators and their Authorial Comptences: A study based on postwar translations of A. Pushkin, V. Mayakovsky, I. Krylov and A. Blok), which was supervised by Prof. Edward Balcerzan. She was subsequently appointed lecturer at IFP UAM. She published articles in materials for teaching Polish language that were not subject to state censorship in the series Glosariusz. Od Młodej Polski do współczesności (Glossary: From Young Poland to the present day; 1988, 1989, and 1991; using the name Anna Gawarzewska). She wrote numerous reviews and articles on contemporary literature that appeared in the monthlies "Arkusz" (intermittently 1991-2002) and "Polonistyka" (from 1993; she was a member of its editorial board between 1996 and 2014). Her texts also appeared in "Teksty Drugie", "Pamiętnik Literacki" and "Przestrzenie Teorii". She was awarded a habilitation degree from UAM in 1997 for her study Dom i poetycka bezdomność w literaturze współczesnej (Homes and Poetic Homelessness in Contemporary Literature). She was involved in the Central Committee of the Olympiad in Polish Literature and Language between 1997 and 2005. She was appointed to the Committee on Polish Literature of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1999 (which in 2003 became the Committee on Literary Studies – KNoL). She chaired the Committee's Commission of School and University Education between 2002 and 2005. Between 1999 and 2001, she was a member of the editorial board of the journal "Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne", where she also published articles. She collaborated with the monthly "Nowe Książki" as a reviewer. In 2001, she was made state-appointed professor, while in 2007 she was made full professor. From 2002 she was director of doctoral studies at the Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology (now the Faculty of Polish and Classical Studies) at UAM. During this period she led the individual research projects, Między ironią i elegią. Pokoleniowe przemiany świadomości poetyckiej w latach 1956-1995 (Between Irony and Elegy: Generational shifts in poetic consciousness between 1956 and 1995) and Poezja kobieca. Tematy – konwencje – sylwetki (Women's Poetry: Themes, conventions, biographies). Between 2005 and 2012, she was associate dean of the Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology at UAM. She was a member of the Central Commission for Academic Degrees and Titles in Humanities and Social Sciences Section I. Together with Ryszard K. Przybylski, she established a cycle of seminars on modernity at IFP UAM, before founding the Department of Contemporary Literature and Culture at IFP UAM, where they both served as members of faculty. From 2014 she was head of the Scientific Council established in 2014 at the Humanities Scientific Consortium (Humanistyczne Konsorcjum Naukowe), which was established jointly by the Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology at UAM and the Faculty of Polish Studies at the Jagiellonian University (UJ) in Krakow. She was appointed to the Chapter of the Memorial Prize of the First Rector of the University of Lodz Prof. Tadeusz Kotarbiński, which is awarded by the University of Lodz (UŁ). She was awarded the Gold Long Service Medal in 2003 and the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 2017.