FELIKSIAK Elżbieta

Born on 1 December 1937 in Warsaw; daughter of the zoologist Stanisław Feliksiak, who was a long-standing employee of the Warsaw Zoological Museum whose collections he rescued during the war before serving as its director from 1945 to 1953, and Janina Różnowska, who was a librarian at the museum. Elżbieta Feliksiak studied physics and then Polish philology at the University of Warsaw (UW) between 1954 and 1957. From 1957 to 1961, she was active in the Polish Scouting Association (ZHP) as an instructor and troop leader. She continued her association with the ZHP to 1965. From 1959 until 1968, she was chair of the Scientific Circle of Polish Philology Students within the Polish Students' Association, co-founding with Tadeusz Niedźwiedzki in 1960 the student journal "Zeszyty Polonistyczne" (only one issue appeared). It was in this journal that she made her debut with the essay „Konrad Wallenrod”. Tragizm konsekwencji ("Konrad Wallenrod": The tragedy of consequence). The same year, she published her first review, discussing in the periodical "Nowa Kultura" (no. 8) the publication of C.K. Norwid's Pamiętnik artysty (An artist's diary) edited by Mieczysław Jastrun. She graduated with a master's degree in 1963, writing a dissertation on the works of Norwid that was supervised by Prof. Zofia Szmydtowa. During this period, she also studied German philology, graduating with a master's degree having written a dissertation about the works of Thomas Mann, which was supervised by Dr Florian Witczuk. Between 1963 and 1968, she was a research assistant and doctoral researcher in Polish philology at UW. From 1964 to 1968, she was a member of the Polish Teachers' Union (ZNP). Following a six-month break in employment as a result of her involvement in the protests of March 1968, she was delegated to work as a tutor in Polish language in Halle (Saale) in the German Democratic Republic. Following her return from East Germany in 1971, she started working on a doctoral dissertation at the University of Lodz (UŁ), Tradycja i eksperyment w poglądach Tomasza Manna na powieść. (Próba interpretacji filozoficznej) (Tradition and Experimentation in Thomas Mann's Idea of the Novel: Towards a philosophical interpretation). She defended it in 1978. She was supervised by Prof. Stefania Skwarczyńska. She also taught German at the Lingwista (Linguist) Workers' Cooperative between 1971 and 1975. In February 1975, she started collaborating with the Polish philology section in Bialystok, then part of the Institute of Polish Philology at the Bialystok campus of UW. In her research, she focused on literary theory, the anthropology of cultural borderlands, relations and interconnections between historical experience, on the one hand, and memory and testimonial narratives on the other. She published articles, essays, reviews and translations from German in periodicals including "Przegląd Humanistyczny" (1962-64 and 1966), "Współczesność" (1963-67; also as E.F. and (E.F.)), "Kultura" (1966-67), "Literatura Ludowa" (1966), "Miesięcznik Literacki" (1967), "Poezja" (1967-1971), "Tygodnik Kulturalny" (1967 and 1971), "Organon" (1969), "Teksty" (1972, 1978, and 1980), "Pamiętnik Literacki" (1973, 1979, 1981, and 2009), "Literatura" (1975 and 1980), "Dialog" (1975-82; including numerous translations of theatre-related texts and other texts from German; also as: ef, ef., Ef., ef/ps), "Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. Białystok" (1977), "Warmia i Mazury" (1979), "Więź" (1983), "Tygiel Kultury" (1998), and "Studia Norwidiana" (2001; also as a member of the Editorial Council). Her translations from Belarusian appeared in the periopdicals "Kontrasty" (1990), "Akcent" (1992), "Integracje" (1993), "Test" (1995), "Zdrój" (2000), "Krasnogruda" (2000), and "Poezja Dzisiaj" (2013). She also published poetry in "Czerwony Sztandar" (1990), "Kurier Wileński" (1990), "Magazyn Polski" (1992), and "Magazyn Wileński" (1992-93). She was awarded a habilitation degree in 1989 from the Faculty of Polish Philology at UW on the basis of her output to date and the study Budowanie w przestrzeni sporu. Ethos literatury w sytuacji kryzysu pluralizmu europejskiego (T. Mann – T. Konwicki – E. Pedretti) (Construction in Contested Spaces: The ethos of literature in the context of the crisis of European pluralism – Thomas Mann, Tadeusz Konwicki, Erica Pedretti). She initiated research on the memory of the former Northeastern Borderlands of the interwar Poland as well as the publication series Biblioteka Pamięci i Myśli (Library of Memory and Ideas), which from 1989 provided an outlet for the findings from studies and international conferences on the subject. From 1989 to 2008, she was chair of the Bialystok Branch of the Adam Mickiewicz Literary Society. In 1991, she was appointed associate professor at the Bialystok Campus of UW, which in 1997 became the University of Bialystok (UwB). From 1992, she was head of the Department of the Theory and Anthropology of Literature, which she founded. From 1993 to 1999, she chaired the Scientific Council of the Institute of Polish Philology at UwB. In 2004, she was made state-appointed professor before being made full professor at UwB in 2008. From 2002 to 2005, she was director of the Institute of Polish Philology at UwB. She retired in 2010. She was a member of numerous academic associations, namely: the Polish Philosophical Society, the Society of Admirers of Vilnius and the Vilnius Region (Towarzystwo Miłośników Wilna i Ziemi Wileńskiej), and the Frederic Chopin Society, while she was also a full member of the Association of Polish Translators (STP). In 2012, she was awarded the F. Karpiński National Literary Prize of the Civitas Christiana Catholic Association in recognition of her outstanding research on Polish culture in the former Eastern Borderlands of the interwar Poland and for promoting a Christian ethos in research on nineteenth- and twentieth century literature. She was awarded the Silver Medal of Merit for the Bialystok Region in 1989, the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta – third class, awarded by the Polish President in Exile in 1990, the Medal of Merit for the University in 2008, and the Medal of the University of Bialystok in 2011. She died on 5 January 2015 in Warsaw and is buried at the cemetery in the town of Tłuszcz.