STROIŃSKI Leon Zdzisław

Born on 29 November 1921 in Warsaw; son of Józef Stroiński, a lawyer and legal counsel to the noble Zamoyski Family Entail, and Stanisława, née Sąchocka. He lived in Zamość from 1926, where he completed part of his education at the Jadwiga Badzianowa Private School, before joining the Hetman Jan Zamoyski State Secondary and Grammar School No. I in 1935. He began writing poetry around 1936, with these works surviving in manuscript form. He served on the editorial board of the secondary school periodicals "Nasza Myśl" and "Nasze jest jutro", making his debut in the latter in 1939 with the article Ojczyzna w potrzebie (Fatherland in need; no. 3). He was involved in the school book-lovers' club. From 1938, he and his family lived in Zwierzyniec, near Zamość. He completed his advanced secondary education in 1939 and enrolled for a law degree at the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL). That summer, he served in the First Brigade of the Youth Labour Battalions in Polany. Following the defeat of Poland in September 1939 and the dissolution of KUL by the German authorities in November that year, he returned to Zwierzyniec. In February 1940, threatened with deportation to Germany as a forced labourer, he left for Warsaw. He started a degree in law and then in spring 1941 also in Polish philology at the underground University of Warsaw (UW), where he became acquainted with the poet Tadeusz Gajcy. In 1942, he joined the eponymous group of artists associated with the underground monthly "Sztuka i Naród" (Art and Nation), where he served on the editorial board to 1944. He made his debut as a poet in 1942 with the poem Ród Anhellich (The Anhelli Family), which won a prize in a competition run by the journal. The piece appeared in the underground anthology Słowo prawdziwe (True word; Warsaw, 1942). He subsequently published lyrical prose pieces and articles on contemporary literature in the periodical of the Sztuka i Naród group using the pseudonym Marek Chmura. He participated in underground literary gatherings where he read from his own works. He was a member of the Home Army (AK); in 1943 he competed a course for officer cadets serving in the AK's Warsaw District Motorized Divisions. He and Tadeusz Gajcy participated in the act of laying flowers at the memorial to Nicolaus Copernicus in Warsaw on 25 May 1943, marking the 400th anniversary of the scientist's death. This action was organized by Wacław Bojarski. Stroiński was arrested then and held at the Pawiak prison in Warsaw until July 1943, when his family's efforts secured his release. He subsequently stayed with his parents in Zwierzyniec where he was involved in running an underground photography laboratory. In November 1943, he returned again to Warsaw and continued his studies. He spent summer 1944 in Świder, near Warsaw, where he worked on a cycle of lyric poetry (which has not survived) and in Zwierzyniec, before returning to Warsaw towards the end of July that year. Following the outbreak of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, he fought in the city's Old Town (as the commander of an infantry squadron) in the ambush and sortie group of the Motorized Division of the Warsaw District Unit of AK which was led by lieutenant Jerzy "Ryszard" Bondarowski, and in the Chrobry I group. He died on 16 [?] August 1944 in the Old Town (according to some reports he died alongside Tadeusz Gajcy) in a building that was blown up by German forces on Przejazd Street 1/3/5. He was posthumously awarded the War Order of Virtuti Militari. He is buried at the Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw.