SZPAKOWSKA Małgorzata

Born on 18 May 1940 in Warsaw; daughter of Olgierd Szpakowski, an electrical engineer who was imprisoned at the NKVD camp in Starobilsk and murdered in 1940, and Jadwiga, née Gepner, a chemical engineer. She completed her advanced secondary education in 1957 at Grammar School No. XIV (now named after Stanisław Staszic) in Warsaw. She then studied chemistry for three semesters at Warsaw University of Technology. In 1959, she started studying at the Faculty of Polish Philology and then in 1961 at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw (UW), graduating in 1964 and 1966 respectively. She made her debut as a critic in 1960 with a review of Henryk Fogler's book Nieobecni są winni (The Absent are Guilty). Her review appeared in "Nowa Kultura" (no. 50), a periodical that she continued to collaborate with until 1963. Her reviews and essays also appeared in "Współczesność" (1960–68), "Twórczość" (from 1962) and "Nowe Książki" (1966–67 and occasionally after 2000). Between 1966 and 1969, she was a PhD student at the Faculty of Philosophy at UW. She was arrested in March 1969 and tried as part of the political show trial of the group known as Taternicy (Tatra Mountaineers), who were accused of collecting documents on the protests of March 1968 and in some cases smuggling them across the Tatra mountains into Czechoslovakia. She was sentenced to three years in prison in February 1970, but was released in July 1970 as part of the amnesty agreed on 22 July 1969. She then worked at the National Library in Warsaw until 1972, when she moved to the editorial office of the theatre journal "Dialog", where she had published her first text in 1969. She was head of the monthly's essay section until 2002, while also publishing numerous reviews and essays, as well as notes, in the periodical (using the by-lines: mms, msz). During this period, she was also active as a literary critic, contributing to periodicals including the Catholic weekly "Tygodnik Powszechny" (1971–72; she also used the pseudonym Paweł Anc). In 1972, she joined the Polish PEN Club and the Polish Writers' Union (ZLP), remaining in the latter until its dissolution in 1983. She defended her doctoral thesis, Teoria kultury w pismach filozoficznych i literackich Stanisława Ignacego Witkiewicza (The Theory of Culture in the Philosophical and Literary Works of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz), at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN). She was supervised by Prof. Michał Głowiński. She received the 1977 Prize of the Geneva-based Kościelski Foundation for her book Światopogląd Stanisława Ignacego Witkiewicza (Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz's Worldview), which was based on her thesis. In January 1976, she signed the Memorandum of 101 (Memoriał 101), which opposed planned changes to the constitution of the Polish People's Republic. In November of the same year she signed the Appeal of 172 Representatives of the World of Culture to the Sejm of the Polish People's Republic (Apel 172 przedstawicieli świata kultury do Sejmu PRL) regarding the repressions of participants involved in strikes in Radom and Ursus. During martial law, imposed in December 1981, she collaborated with periodicals that were published outside the reach of state censorship (the second circulation). Between 1981 and 1985, she was literary director of the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Lodz. From 1985 to 1991, she was a lecturer at the State Theatre School (PWST) in Warsaw. She spent one month in Paris in 1988 thanks to a grant from the French Ministry of National Education. She co-founded the Polish Writers' Association (SPP) in 1989. In 1991, she started collaborating with the Chair in Polish Culture at the Faculty of Polish Philology at UW. She was initially a lecturer before being appointed associate professor after being awarded a habilitation degree in 1996 for her book Dyskusje ze Stanisławem Lemem (Discussions with Stanisław Lem). She received the Cultural Foundation Prize (Nagroda Fundacji Kultury) in 1997. In 1998, she co-foudned the Institute of Polish Culture (IKP) at the Faculty of Polish Philology at UW, where she conducted research on the history of ideas, attitudes, customs and cultural practices until 2010. Between 2000 and 2016, she continued to publish in periodicals including "Dialog", "Twórczość", and "Przegląd Polityczny". She became a member of the Polish Cultural Studies Association in 2002, as well as the Warsaw Scientific Society. She was made state-appointed professor in 2004 and then appointed head of the Section for the Anthropology of the Body and Changes in Customs at IKP. That year she gave a lecture at Columbia University in New York on the subject of cultural changes in Poland. From 2004 to 2010, she was a member of the Committee on Cultural Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She was a member of the jury of the Jan Józef Lipski competition for master's theses (from 1995), the Jerzy Giedroyc prize (from 2010) and the Nike Literary Prize (chairing the jury between 2006 and 2008). In 2009, she was appointed chair of the Scientific Council of the monthly "Dialog". After retiring in 2010, she continued to run a doctoral seminar at UW. In 2012, she gave five autobiographical talks in the cycle Zapiski ze współczesności (Notes from the Contemporary Era) on Polish Radio 2. She joined the Holocaust Memory Research Centre (Zespół Badań Pamięci o Zagładzie), which from 2012 conducted the project Traces of the Holocaust in the Polish Cultural Imaginary (Ślady Holokaustu w imaginarium kultury polskiej), which was funded by the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities (NPRH). In 2017, she joined the jury of the Angelus Central European Literary Award. She married the journalist Jerzy Kwiatek in 1993. She lives in Warsaw.