WRÓBLEWSKI Bogusław

Born on 15 April 1955 in Lubartów; son of the veterinarian Władysław Wróblewski and the pharmacist Helena, née Siemczyk. He spent part of his childhood in Firlej, where his parents worked at the time, before moving to Lublin in 1963. He joined the Union of Lublin Grammar School No. III in Lublin in 1970. At the beginning of his final year, he took up employment at the Inwestprojekt company and thus joined the Grammar School for Working People, completing his advanced secondary education there in 1974. The same year, he started a degree in Polish philology at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin. He made his debut in 1973 with the poem Żeby użyć słowa… (To use a word...), which appeared in the Lublin-based biweekly "Kamena" (no. 25). The same year, he was awarded a prize in the Lublin Voivodeship House of Culture poetry competition. He made his debut as a literary critic in 1974 with the article Kartki z dziennika przemyśleń. (O twórczości Rafała Wojaczka) (Pages from a Diary of Reflections: On the works of Rafał Wojaczek), which also appeared in "Kamena" (no. 6). In 1977, as part of an individual study programme, he was awarded a master's degree for his on the Cyprian Kamil Norwid's "Vade-mecum". The same year, he was appointed trainee research assistant at the Department of Contemporary Literature at the Institute of Polish Philology at UMCS. Between 1977 and 1980, he was chair of the Youth Circle at the Lublin branch of the Polish Writers' Union (ZLP). During this period, he edited seventeen volumes of poetry published as part of the series Lubelskie Prezentacje Poetyckie (Presenting Lublin Poetry). He continued to write poetry and literary criticism pieces. His poems, reviews and articles mainly appeared in "Kamena" (1974-1980), as well as in "Fakty" (1974), "Nowy Wyraz" (1974 and 1979-1981), "Tygodnik Kulturalny" (1975 and 1983-84), "Informacja Kulturalna" (1976-77 and 1985), "Kontrasty" (1977-79), "Literatura" (1978), "Sztandar Ludu" (1978-1981), "Poezja" (1978-79), "Twórczość" (1981 and 1983-84), and "Życie Literackie" (1987-88). From the 1970s, he was linked to the democratic opposition. In 1980, he was involved in establishing a branch of the Independent Self-governing Trade Union Solidarity (NSZZ Solidarność) at the UMCS Faculty of Humanities. In October the same year, he was one of the initiators of the establishment of the Negotiating Committee of Artistic Communities in Lublin before joining its praesidium alongside Ryszard Lis, Władysław Panas and Zbigniew Miazga. The same year, he founded the Lublin-based art and literature quarterly "Akcent", where he became editor-in-chief. Alongside articles and reviews, he also published translations from Russian there, including Polish versions of the lyrics of Vladimir Vysotsky (1983 and 1985) and translations from German (1985, 1995, and 1998). He used the byline wbw for shorter texts. In 1981, he he was awarded the Prize of the Lublin Voivode and in the 1985, the Stanisław Wyspiański Youth Artistic Prize in recognition of his efforts to popularize literature. In 1986, he was awarded a doctorate from UMCS for his dissertation Poetyka i światopogląd. O zjawisku tzw. Nowej Fali w literaturze polskiej lat siedemdziesiątych (Poetics and Ideology: On the 'New Wave' of Polish literature in the 1970s). He was supervised by Prof. Jerzy Święch. He was subsequently appointed lecturer at the Department of Contemporary Literature at the Institute of Polish Philology at UMCS. In his research, he explored Polish literature abroad, literary cultures, contemporary Polish poetry, and the issue of cultural borderlands. Between 1986 and 1989, he was a member of the National Council for Culture. He conducted research stays in connection with both his research on Polish literature abroad and with his editorial work in Germany (1988, 1995, and 1996 – invited by the Deutsches Polen-Institut in Darmstadt, the German Writers' Union and the government of Saxony), France (1990 – invited by the French minister of culture), the United States (in 1992 on a Kościuszko Foundation grant, again in 1994 – invited by the Polish & Slavic Center in New York, and in 1997 – invited by the Nauman Foundation, while in 2001 he conducted research at the Hoover Institution and at Stanford University, and in 2010 he was invited by the editors of "Nowy Dziennik" in New York,) and Hungary (2007 on a grant from Collegium Budapest). In 1991, he was made an honorary member of the Hungarian Writers' Union. In 1994, he co-founded the AkcentEast Central European Cultural Foundation, becoming its founding chair of the board and a member of its programme council. He also conceived and coordinated many of its projects, including Na pograniczu narodów i kultur (On the borders of nations and cultures), Czytanie Ukrainy (Reading Ukraine), and Twórcy za granicą – polskie rodowody, polskie znaki zapytania (Writers Abroad: Polish origins, Polish question marks); in 2016-17 he conducted a series of gatherings titled Światło literatury (The Light of Literature) in Warsaw's Royal Baths Park (Łazienki Królewskie). In 1995, he received the prize of the Polish Minister of Culture. He published literary criticism pieces in "Przegląd Powszechny" (1996), "Rzeczpospolita" (1996 and 2008), "Gazeta Wyborcza" (2008, 2010, and 2012) – including its "Lublin" supplement (in 2004–2005 the series "Zaułek poetów" [Poets' Corner]), "Twórczość" (2010), and "Pogranicza" (2012), as well as in international Polish periodicals: "Dziennik Związkowy" (Chicago; 1992-93), the "Przegląd Polski" supplement of the New York-based "Nowy Dziennik" (1992-93, 1997-98, and 2010), and "Nowy Prąd" (Toronto; 2003). He also published in the international periodicals "Alföld" (Debrecen; 1986), "Deutschland Archiv" (Cologne; 1998), "Magyar Napló" (Budapest; 2003, 2010), "Vsesvit" (Kyiv; 2005), "Forrás" (Budapest; 2008), "Atti dell’Accademia Polacca" (Rome; 2016), and "Metai" (Vilnius; 2016). Between 1998 and 2005, he was a member of the Programme Council of Polish Radio in Warsaw, serving as its deputy chair from 2002. Between 2000 and 2009, he lectured at the UMCS College campus in Biłgoraj. He was a member of the chapter of the Lublin Allianz Prize in 2001 and 2002, as well as a member of the jury of the Lublin Youth Journalist Prize. From 2002 to 2005, he was a member of the Supervisory Council of School and Educational Publishers. He travelled on several occasions to Hungary upon the invitation of the General Board of the Hungarian Writers' Union, while also lecturing or attending conferences in the country, including stays in Budapest (2003, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2016) and Tokaj (2011 and 2021). He participated in international conferences on Bruno Schulz in Drohobych, Ukraine (2006, 2010, 2012 and 2018). He was twice recipient of the UMCS Rector's Prize. In 2006, he received the Polcul Foundation Prize while in 2010 he was awarded the City of Lublin Prize in recognition of his overall contribution to culture. Between 2011 and 2013, he was deputy chair and then from 2014 to 2016 chair of the supervisory council of Radio Lublin. In 2011/12, he chaired meetings with authors and conducted interviews with writers as part of the programme accompanying the Dwa Brzegi (Two Banks) festival in Kazimierz Dony. From 2015 until 2023, he led panel discussions and meetings with authors as part of the Capital of the Polish Language Festival (Festiwal Stolica Języka Polskiego) in Szczebrzeszyn. In 2016, he was invited to Vilnius by the Union of Lithuanian Writers' to give a presentation on Polish literature. He also travelled to Italy, where he met Polish émigrés and participated in conferences at the Station of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) in Rome (2016) and the Polish Institute there (2017). From 2015, he worked at the Department (later Chair) of Journalism at the Institute of Social Communication and Media at the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism at UMCS. Between 2015 and 2019, he was editor of the publication series Biblioteka Siedemsetlecia (700th Anniversary Library), which was issued in connection with the anniversary of the city's founding. In 2017, he was awarded the Culture Prize of the Lublin Voivodeship. He joined the Polish PEN Club in 2019. In April 2020, he retired from UMCS but remained active as an editor. He was the recipient of numerous honours, including the Honour of Merit for Lublin (1987), the Meritorious Activist of Culture (1990), the Gold Cross of Merit (1990), the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2005), the Medal of the President of the City of Lublin (2005), Honorary Citizen of Zwierzyniec (2008), the Bronze (2010) and Silver (2018) Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis, the Medal of the Akcent East Central European Cultural Foundation (2010), the Medal of the Commission for National Education (2012), the Medal of the Union of Lublin (2017), the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity (2019), the Medal of Merit for the City of Lublin (2020), the AKLAUD Academic Journalism Prize (2020), and the Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit (2020). In 1974, he married the chemist Małgorzata Chmielewska; they have two sons: Krzysztof (b. 1974) and Grzegorz (b. 1982). He lives in Lublin.