KNYSZ-TOMASZEWSKA Danuta

Born on 28 May 1940 in Warsaw, daughter of the engineer Józef Knysz and Irena, née Popowicz. She was a pupil at the Society of Friends of Children Grammar School (Liceum Ogólnokształcące Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Dzieci) in Warsaw. After completing her advanced secondary education in 1957, she studied physics for one semester at the University of Warsaw (UW). In 1958, she transferred to the Polish philology programme and graduated from UW with a master's degree in 1963. She then joined the doctoral programme and also served as an assistant at the Chair of the History of Polish Literature (later Institute of Polish Literature) at UW. She made her debut in 1964 with a review of René Girard's book Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque. Her review, titled W poszukiwaniu prawdy powieści (In Search of the Truth of the Novel), was published in the monthly "Przegląd Humanistyczny" (no. 4), to which she continued to contribute in subsequent years (in 1965, for example, she published an overview essay on French scholarly journals). In late 1965 and early 1966 she spent three months on a research fellowship in Paris. She defended her doctoral thesis, Tradycje naturalistyczne w powieści dwudziestolecia międzywojennego i typy ich funkcjonowania (Naturalist Traditions and a Typology of their Functions in Interwar Novels) in 1968. It was supervised by Prof. Janina Kulczycka-Saloni. Her research focused on themes including Polish, French, Belgian and Italian Naturalism, Naturalist traditions in twentieth-century literature, and the relationship between art and literature, in particular impressionism and the connections between image and text, while she was also interested in the history of Polish intellectuals in Lorraine. From 1970 she collaborated with the literary sections of Polish Radio. She made her debut as a translator in 1971 with a Polish version of Joseph Kessel's novel Les Cavaliers (The Horsemen). It was published in Polish as Jeźdźcy in a translation by Knysz-Tomaszewska and Konrad Eberhard. In subsequent years she continued to translate both literature and texts from the field of literary criticism from French. Her articles, reviews and translations appeared in periodicals and journals including "Miesięcznik Literacki" (1967-73), "Nowe Książki" (1968-73, 1979) and "Literatura na Świecie" (intermittently 1973-79). She was appointed lecturer at the Institute of Polish Literature at UW in 1972, when she was again in Paris on a fellowship. In 1973 and 1974 she was a research fellow in Perugia. From 1974 to 1977 she was a Polish language tutor and lecturer in Polish literature and history at Université Paris Sorbonne-Paris IV. Between 1978 and 1992, she and Prof. J. Kulczycka-Saloni conducted research on Naturalism within the framework of L’Association Internationale de Littérature Comparée. She was in Belgium in 1980/81, where she continued her exploration of the collections of Université Libre de Bruxelles. She began working on the personal papers of Paul Cazin in 1991, initially in Paris and then in Warsaw. She was coordinator of the research project Archiwa Cazina. Dzienniki Cazina (Cazin's Archive. Cazin's Diary), which was funded by the State Committee for Scientific Research (Komitet Badań Naukowych – KBN). From 1991 to 2001, she was a member of the editorial team producing didactic publications at the Faculty of Polish Studies at UW. She was awarded a habilitation degree in 1993 for her study Europejskie powinowactwa naturalistów polskich (Polish Naturalists' European Affinities). She was subsequently appointed professor at UW. Between 1994 and 1999, she was associate dean for international cooperation at the Faculty of Polish Studies. From 1997 to 2001, she was academic mentor at the journal for students and doctoral researchers in Polish studies, "Młoda Polonistyka", while also serving the same role in the academic circle Artibus. She was made associate professor in 1999, before being made state-appointed professor in 2002. She served as director of the Institute of Polish Literature at UW between 1999 and 2001. She joined the board of the Polish-French Friendship Society in 1999. In 2001, she left for Paris, where she served as director of Centre de Civilisation Polonaise at the Faculty of Slavonic Studies at Université Paris Sorbonne-Paris IV, where she also taught and lectured. She established and co-edited the Centre's scholarly almanac "Les Nouveaux Cahiers Franco-Polonais". Five issues appeared between 2002 and 2005 featuring conference papers and transcriptions of panel discussions. Together with Xavier Galmiche and Małgorzata Smorąg she established the bilingual series Petite bibliothéque bilingue des classiques de la littérature polonaise. She was awarded the medal of the Université de Paris-Sorbonne in 2005. Following her return to Warsaw, she continued to work at the Institute of Polish Literature at UW. In 2006, she established cooperation with Université de Paris III and Université de Champagne-Ardenne in Reims. She participated in conferences on illustrations in European periodicals and the iconography of book covers. Between 2006 and 2008, she was a visiting lecturer on the Erasmus programme at Université Libre de Bruxelles, Institut Nationale de Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris and Université Charles-de Gaulle-Lille III. She took up a post in 2008 at the new Institute of Applied Polish Studies, which she co-founded, at the Faculty of Polish Studies at UW. She was head of the Department for Editing and Stylistics there until her retirement in 2009. She received the Gold Long-Service Medal in 2008. She married the geographer Marek Rudzki in 1961, divorcing in 1986. They have a daughter, Justyna (b. 1979). In 1992, she married the electrical engineer Krzysztof Tomaszewski. She lives in Warsaw.