KUŚNIEWICZ Andrzej

Born on 30 November 1904 in Kowenice, near Sambor (today's Ukraine); son of the landowner Bolesław Kuśniewicz, and Joanna, née Ostrawa-Tworkowska. He attended primary school in Graz and middle school in Zakopane, Chyrów and Sambor, where he completed his secondary education in 1923. Between 1925 and 1928, he worked as a sales representative for Alfa-Romeo and spent time in France, Italy and Austria. He initially studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow between 1929 and 1931, before studying at the Faculty of Law and the School of Political Science at the Jagiellonian University (UJ) in the same city between 1931 and 1935. He married the dancer and writer Maria Brejnakowska (pseudonym: Ukniewska) in 1931. They subsequently divorced. After graduating with a master's degree in 1935, he worked at the Krakow Tax Office and the Jagiellonian Library for a year, before joining the diplomatic service and serving in Polish consulates in Uzhhorod (in Czechoslovakia until 1938, then in Hungary) between 1936 and 1939, and in Toulouse, France, between May and December 1939. In December 1939, he was called up to the Polish Army in France, working at the Recruitment Office in Paris until May 1940. Following the German occupation of France, he worked from December 1940 at the Office for Aiding Poles in France in Toulouse. At the same time, he collaborated with the French Resistance (the FFCI: Forces françaises combattantes de l'intérieur). He was awarded the rank of second-lieutenant of the French Army in recognition of his activities. He was arrested by the Gestapo in January 1943 in Toulouse and was subsequently held in prisons and concentration camps in Fresnes, near Paris, Neue Bremm near Saarbrücken, and from April 1944 in Mauthausen, where he joined the underground French Communist Party as a membership candidate. After the end of the war, he remained in France. He joined the Polish Workers' Party in December 1945 and its successor, the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), in 1948. From August 1945 to December 1946, he was secretary of the Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Toulouse and then consul in Strasbourg from January to October 1946. He was consul general in Lille and deputy legal counsel at the Polish Embassy in Paris from November 1946 to January 1950, when he returned to Poland and settled in Warsaw. He subsequently worked (for several months in each role) at Cepelia – the Central Office of Folk and Artistic Production (Centrala Przemysłu Ludowego i Artystycznego), where he edited the magazines "Sztuka Ludowa" and "Sztuka", followed by the Archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and then at the Central Technical Office catalogue publishing house. He was also employed for a period producing designs for the fashion section of "Express Wieczorny" and cinema adverts. In 1953, he married the journalist and satirist Anna Kotaniec (pseudonym: Anna Lechicka). Between 1953 and 1981, he was a secret collaborator of the Polish Security Service, using the code name Andrzej. He initially provided details on émigré communities and people working in radio, before also informing on the literary milieu. From September 1955 until 1958, he worked with the Kraj Radio Station and then at the Foreign Service of Polish Radio as head of the Department for Popularizing Culture at the Main Editorial Office for Émigré Programming. He made his debut in 1955 with excerpts of the epic poem Słowa o nienawiści (Words of hate), which appeared in "Nowa Kultura" (no. 22). He also published poems and prose pieces in periodicals including "Twórczość" (intermittently, 1955-77). From 1959, he was a member of the Polish Writers' Union (ZLP), until its dissolution in 1983. He served as deputy chair of the Warsaw Branch and was also a member of the Disciplinary Commission of ZLP's Executive Board. In June 1966, he joined the editorial board as head of section and also the editorial college of the literary monthly "Miesięcznik Literacki", before resigning in 1982. He published numerous literary works in the periodical. He was twice awarded the Polish Radio prize, in 1968 and 1969. He retired in 1970, joining the Polish PEN Club the same year. In 1974, he was awarded the New York-based Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation prize and the State Prize, 1st class, in recognition of his entire literary oeuvre. In 1978, he received the prize of the Head of the Committee for Radio and Television for his literary work and contributions to radio and television. In 1979, he was awarded the prize of the Minster of Foreign Affairs in recognition of his outstanding achievements in promoting Polish culture abroad. The same year he also received the prize of the Party's main newspaper, "Trybuna Ludu" (1st class). In 1978, he published in the periodical "Literatura" the cycle of essays Moja historia literatury (My literary history), while in 1981 "Film" published Kino i ja (Cinema and me), a cycle of autobiographical essays reflecting on his encounters with cinema. In January 1989, he was the sole Pole to be made a member of the Académie Goncourt in Paris. He left the PZPR in 1982. That year, he was nominated for the Italian Premio Mondello award. In 1992, he received the Jan Parandowski prize from the PEN Club in recognition of his literary work. He received the Silver Cross of Merit in 1939, the French Médaille de la Guerre et Résistance in 1947, the Gold Cross of Merit in 1965, the Meritorious Activist of Culture medal in 1968, and Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1970. He died on 14 May 1993 in Warsaw, where is buried at the Powązki Military Cemetery.