KOMENDANT Tadeusz

Born on 17 October 1952 in the village of Pokośno, Podlasie region; son of Bolesław Komendant and Marianna Organek. He completed his advanced secondary education at the Grammar School in Suchowola in 1971, before enrolling the same year at the University of Warsaw (UW) into the Polish philology (graduated with a master's degree in 1977) and philosophy (graduated with a master's degree in 1978) programmes. He made his debut as a literary critic in 1973 in the periodical "Nowy Wyraz" with a sketch about the poetry of Rafał Wojaczek. It was published under the title Przywracanie symetrii (Restoring symmetry; no. 8). He made his debut as a translator in 1977 with a Polish version of Phillip Sollers' text "Literature and Totality" (Polish: Literatura i totalność; no 9). In 1974/75, alongside Henryk Skwarczyński, Kazimierz Brakoniecki, Piotr Domański and Waldemar Wojnar, he co-founded the independent literary journal "Efemeryda", where he published his drawings, short stories, and translations. In 1979, he started a doctoral degree at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN), where he was supervised by Prof. Janusz Sławiński. He abandoned his doctorate in 1982 and took up a position at the UW Faculty of Polish Philology's Department of Literary Theory and Poetics (now: the Department of Poetics, Literary Theory and Methodology of Literary Studies). He was employed as a research assistant and then between 2011 and 2017 as a lecturer. He also served as a proofreader for the Czytelnik publishing house until 1984. From 1986, he was also employed in a part-position as head of the essay section at the periodical "Twórczość", where in 2004 he was appointed deputy editor-in-chief. In his 1987 text Mimo-śród (Ex-Centric), published in "Obecność (no.17), he founded the humorous institution Liga Obrony Poezji Polskiej Przed Herbertem (The League for Defending Polish Poetry against [Zbigniew] Herbert). He was awarded a doctoral degree in the humanities in 1992 for his dissertation Władze dyskursu. Michel Foucault wobec nauk humanistycznych (The Powers of Discourse: Michel Foucault and the humanities). He was supervised by Prof. Zofia Mitosek. He started working, probably around 2000, on his incomplete habilitation study, which was to be titled Don Kichote, błędny rycerz interpretacji (Don Quixote, the Knight errant of interpretation). His reviews, literary criticism pieces, essays, and translations appeared in periodicals including "Nowy Wyraz" (1973-1980), "Teksty" (1977-1980), "Odra" (1979-1981 and 1984), "Twórczość" (1979-2017, including the cycle of essays: Na kuchennych schodach [On the kitchen steps] in 2009-2010, Zapiski starucha [Notes of an old man] in 2013-2014, Na bazie [Back at base] in 2016, and Ciukanda in 2017), "Literatura na Świecie" (1980-1982, 1985, 1988, 1992-1994, and 1996-1997), "Polityka" (1991-1996), "Potop" (1991-1992), and the daily "Gazeta Wyborcza" (1996-2000). He was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit in 2005 and the Silver Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis in 2015. He died on 31 July 2019 in Warsaw. He is buried at the cemetery in Chodorówka Nowa.