PRUSSAK Maria

Born on 26 August 1949 in Elbląg; daughter of Wacław Prussak and Janina, née Szygendowska. She moved to Warsaw in 1962, where she attended the Jarosław Dąbrowski Grammar School. She completed advanced secondary education in 1966 and started a degree in Polish philology at the University of Warsaw (UW). She graduated with a master's degree in 1971 then worked until 1972 as a counsellor at the Centre for Methods of Disseminating Culture (Centralny Ośrodek Metodyki Upowszechniania Kultury). She made her debut in 1973 with the article Wyspiański o aktorze – artyście teatru (Wyspiański on Actors as the Artists of the Theatre), which was published in the journal "Pamiętnik Teatralny" (vol. 1). She was enrolled in the doctoral programme at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN), completing it in 1977. The following year she defended her doctoral thesis Krytyka teatralna Stanisława Brzozowskiego (Stanisław Brzozowski's Theatre Criticism), which was supervised by Dr Stefan Treugutt. She then took up a post as lecturer at the Centre for the Psychosociology of Literature at IBL PAN. Her research focused on the traditions of philological research, new tendencies in scientific editing, textual studies of Adam Mickiewicz and Stanisław Wyspiański, and on the history of twentieth-century theatre and drama. Her articles, essays, theatre reviews and literary reviews appeared in many periodicals and journals, including "Pamiętnik Teatralny" (1975-79, 1983-84, 1986-88, 1990, 1998, and 2013), "Dialog" (intermittently 1976-85, 1993-95, 2002-04, 2007-11, and 2014), "Teksty Drugie" (1991, intermittently 1993-97, 2005, 2011, 2014, and 2015), and "Teatr" (1997-99, and intermittently 2001-12). She taught on the history of drama at the Faculty of Acting at the State Theatre School (PWST) in Warsaw from 1978 to 1982. From 1981 to 1986 she worked with the Primate's Aid Committee for Individuals Deprived of their Freedom and their Families. In 1991, she joined the editorial committee of the new critical edition of Adam Mickiewicz's collected works, Dzieła, which was edited by Zofia Stefanowska and published by the Adam Mickiewicz Literary Society. In 1995, she became a member of the Chief Editorial Board. She took up a post at in the Working Group for the Edition of Adam Mickiewicz's Complete Works in 1992. She was awarded a habilitation degree in 1993 for her study „Po ogniu szum wiatru cichego”. Wyspiański i mesjanizm ("And after the fire a still small voice": Wyspiański and Messianism) and was subsequently appointed lecturer. From 1996 to 1998 she taught on the history of theatre and drama at the Faculty of Philology at the University of Silesia in Katowice. She also gave seminars on the postgraduate programme at IBL PAN. From 1997 she was head of the Team for the Editing of Nineteenth-Century Literature at IBL PAN until its dissolution in 2000, when she joined the Center for Textual Criticism and Scholarly Editing. She was appointed its director in 2011, when it was renamed the Center for Philological Studies and Scholarly Editing. She was a member of the Organizing Committee of the Bicentenary of the Birth of Adam Mickiewicz. From 1999 to 2009 she was an associate professor at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University (UKSW) in Warsaw. She participated in numerous Polish and international scholarly conferences. She was also on the grant commission of the State Committee for Scientific Research (KBN), serving four terms on Team HO1. She was a member of the Theatre Studies Commission of the Committee of the Olympiad in Polish Literature and Language and served on the editorial board of the publication series Polska Kultura Religijna XX w. – źródła (Polish Religious Culture of the Twentieth-Century – Sources). She initiated the publication of the critical edition of the collected writings (Pisma) of Mother Elżbieta Czacka. She was made state-appointed professor in 2011. In 2013, she established the publication series Filologia XXI (Philology 21), which is published by IBL PAN. She collaborates with the Faculty of "Artes Liberales" at the University of Warsaw. She lives in Warsaw.