HELBIG Brygida

[The author did not response to the questionnaire requesting information for this entry]. Born on 12 November 1963 in Szczecin. She was a pupil at Grammar School No. II in Szczecin, where she completed her advanced secondary education. She started a degree in Polish philology in 1982 at the Higher School of Education (WSP) in Szczecin, which became the University of Szczecin in 1985. She left for West Germany in 1983. She initially lived in Herten, in the Ruhr Valley, before attending a language school for new migrants of German origin in Anrath, near Krefeld, followed by the Kolleg für Spätaussiedler in Geilenkirchen, where she completed her German advanced secondary education. She started a degree at in Slavonic and German studies at the Ruhr University Bochum, graduating with a master's degree in 1990. She was awarded funding to pursue a doctoral degree in 1991 from the Cusanuswerk, the Scholarship Foundation of the Catholic German Bishops. She was co-founder of the student writing club Dichter-Fressen, which was active in Bonn and supervised by Prof. Michael Fleischer. She made her debut as a researcher in 1993 with the German-language article Kulturbedingte Unterschiede zwischen polnischen und deutschen modernen katholischen Predigten. Eine vergleichende Diskursanalyse (Culturally-determined Differences between Modern Polish and Modern German Catholic Sermons: A comparative discourse analysis), which appeared in the Bochum-based yearbook "Znakolog" (no. 5). She was awarded a doctoral degree in the humanities from the Ruhr University in 1994 for her dissertation New-Age-Diskurs in der polnischen Literaturwissenschaft, Literaturkritik und Lyrik der 70er und 80er Jahre (New Age Discourse in Polish Literary Studies, Literary Criticism and Lyrical Poetry of the 1970s and 1980s). In late 1994, she took up a position at the Institute of Slavonic Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Her research in the fields of literary history and cultural studies focused on intercultural communication, migrant literature, gender issues, biography studies, and mysticism and spirituality in literature. She moved to Berlin in 1995. She made her debut the same year as a prose writer with the short story Pałówa. Historia upadku (Pałówa. The story of a fall), which appeared in the weekly "FA-art" (no. 4; under the pseudonym Anna Maria Birkenwald). She was associated with the Berlin periodical Kolano: Klub Polskich Nieudaczników (The Knee: The Polish Losers' Club). Her debut volume of poetry, Wiersze Jaśminy (Jasmin's Poems), appeared in 1997. She was employed at the Humboldt University as a research assistant, twice receiving the teaching prize of the Dean of the Faculty of Philology. Alongside K.M. Załuski, she conducted the research project Zastosowanie translatologii w praktyce tłumaczenia literackiego (Applying translation studies in the practice of literary translation), which was funded by a grant from the Villa Decius between 1998 and 2000. Academic publications, articles, studies, reviews, translations from German and interviews, published under official name of Brigitta (Brygida) Helbig-Mischewski, appeared in journals and periodicals including "Zeitschrift für Slawistik" (intermittently 1997-2006), "Teksty Drugie" (intermittently 1997-2010), "Odra" (intermittently 2007-18), "Pamiętnik Literacki" (2008), and "Autobiografia" (2013-15). Her literary pieces, poems and prose texts appeared under the name Brygida Helbig in periodicals including "Twórczość" (1997), "B1" [Bundesstrasse 1] (1998, the cycle of poems Niedopałki [Cigarette butts]), "Fraza" (2000), and "Pogranicza" (intermittently 2003-11). She was awarded a habilitation degree from the Humboldt University for her study Mantel aus Sternenstaub. Geschlechtstransgress und Wahnsinn bei Maria Komornicka (Stardust Jackets: Gender Transgression and Madness in the works of Maria Komornicka). With the abolition of the Chair of Polish Studies, her employment at the university ended in 2005 and she held the post of Privatdozentin (associate professor without a regular position) until 2007. In 2007/08, together with G. Matuszek she ran the project Komunikacja międzykulturowa między Polską a Niemcami w wieku XX (Intercultural communication between Poland and Germany in the twentieth century), which was based at the Humboldt University and the Jagiellonian University(UJ) in Krakow and funded by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation. In 2006/07, she was a guest lecturer at Charles University in Prague, while from 2008 to 2013 she was associated with the University of Szczecin as a visiting lecturer. From 2013, she has been a researcher and lecturer at the Collegium Polonicum Polish-German Research Institute in Słubice, a branch of the Adam Mickiewicz University (UAM) in Poznan. She was the co-founder of the University of Three Generations (Uniwersytet Trzech Pokoleń / Universität der Drei Generationen), which was established in October 2014 in Berlin with the aim of developing Polish-German and intergenerational dialogue. She was also a member of the institution's Scientific Council. Upon her appointment as professor at UAM, she joined the Department of Twentieth Century Literature, Literary Theory and Translation at the University's Institute of Polish Philology. She was involved in numerous research projects, including as the lead researcher on Rozprawa z przeszłością PRL i NRD w literaturze, filmie i teatrze w Polsce i w Niemczech (Coming to terms with the past of communist Poland and East Germany in literature, film and theatre in Poland Germany) and Migracyjność w zjednoczonej Europie. Narracje pisarzy i pisarek polskiego pochodzenia w Niemczech po roku 1989 (Migranthood in a united Europe: Narratives of writers of Polish origin in Poland after 1989). She authored column pieces that she presented on German radio stations, namely Multikulti Radio Berlin-Brandenburg (October 2007- December 2008, the series Spodnie czy spódnica [Trousers or skirt]) and the Polish-language service COSMO of the public service broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR; since 2018). She published articles in the Polish and German press, including in the dailies "Tagesspiegel", "Zeit Online" and "Gazeta Wyborcza". She organized and chaired literary meetings, including the Brygia Helbig presents... series at the Buchbund book shop in Berlin and the LiteraturPolska series at the Polish Institute in the city. She offered creative writing courses at universities including the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, as part of the Postgraduate Programme in Literary and Artistic Studies, and at the University of Warsaw (UW). She writes in Polish and German. She lives in Berlin.