There was no shortage of artists, poets and writers among Polish refugees who found themselves in exile in Hungary during World War II. After finding their footing in the new reality, they became involved in activities popularizing Polish culture in Hungary and Hungarian culture among the Polish community This was done by translating works of Magyar authors or giving lectures on Polish-Hungarian topics, intended for both Poles and Hungarians.
Fig. 1. Stanisław Vincenz (first on the right) at Keleti Station in Budapest, 1942.
Source: vincenz.pl
Stanisław Vincenz was one of the leading Polish writers and publicists staying in Hungary during World War II. He wanted to serve as a spiritual guide to the Polish community in exile. Stanisław pursued this mission through his essays and involvement in cultural and educational life. His stay in Hungary had a huge impact not only for the writer's work, but was also as a test of his humanity and the attitude he wanted to take towards the world.
"The thinker from Chornohora"
Stanisław Vincenz was a versatile humanist: a writer, translator of poetry, essayist, ethnographer, philosopher, researcher of the Hutsul and Pokuttya cultures, expert in ancient culture – especially Greek tradition. One of his most famous works is the unfinished tetralogy "On a high mountain meadow". He was born on November 30, 1888 in Słoboda Rungurska (in what was then Austria-Hungary, today's Ukraine). He passed away on January 28, 1971 in Lausanne (Switzerland). Stanisław grew up on the within a melting pot of different cultures, which influenced his tolerant views on the coexistence of different nationalities, religions, languages and traditions.
Fig. 2. Irena Vincenz in Hutsul attire and Stanisław Vincenz. Bystrzec, 1930
Source: vincenz.pl
He received his basic education in his family, wealthy Galician home (his father was an oil industry worker and his mother came from the Carpathian nobility). There, partly thanks to his nanny, he became interested in Hutsul culture and folklore. He studied at a gymnasium in Kolomyia and Stryj, where he became fascinated by ancient culture, especially Homer, as well as Socrates and Plato. Stanisław studied various subjects in Lviv and Vienna. These included as law, biology, Slavic studies, philosophy. He participated in lectures on Sanskrit and psychiatry. Eventually, in 1914, he received a doctorate from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Vienna for his dissertation "The philosophy of Hegel's religion and its impact on Feuerbach. In 1912 he married Helena Loeventon, a Russian woman from Odessa. This relationship gave him his eldest son, Stanislaw.
He fought in the Austrian army during Work War I. In 1919, after the end of the war, he moved to Warsaw and reported to the Polish military service, during which he lectured at a school in Modlin and was part of Pilsudski's expedition to Kiev. After the 1922 demobilization he was active in the Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie". At that time he started his journalistic and translating efforts (including the translation of "Three Poems" by Walt Whitman). He was associated with the "New Times" magazine, and from 1924 with pro-Sanation "Path", where he was the editor-in-chief from 1927 to 1928. Together with Stanislaw Baczynski he founded "20th Century" - a monthly magazine with a literary, cultural and social profile.
During that period Stanisław married his second wife, Irena nee Eisenmann (1923), with whom he had two children: Andrzej and Barbara. Disappointed with the direction taken by the Sanation policy, in the early 1930s he decided to leave Warsaw with his family and settle in Bystrzec in the Hutsul region. That's where he began his ethnographic research and started in his novel "On a high mountain meadow". The Vincenz family was subjected to a politically motivated lawsuit for the "misappropriation of state money", which resulted in the removal from a managerial position at a mine. Stanislaw's writing became their main source of income.
Hungary: exile and creative works
After the Soviet troops entered Poland in 1939, Stanisław Vincenz and his eldest son went to Hungary, where they made a reconnaissance with the aim of bringing the whole family there later. In October he returned to the Soviet-occupied Poland and was almost immediately arrested by the NKVD (on a charge of illegal border crossing) and placed in custody in Stanislawów, from which he was released on December 4 after the intervention of his first wife. In May 1940 he and his whole family managed to emigrate to Hungary.
Initially, the Vincenzes found shelter with Mr. and Mrs. Kendych in Nagy Gayka, then they stayed for a short time in a civilian refugee camp in the Danube region of Leányfalu. According to Zdzisław Antoniewicz's memoirs, "outstanding refugees, scientists, artists, social and political activists" were held there. In the fall of 1940, the Vincenz family moved to Budapest, where they were under the care of the Hajdu family, whom they had known since the time of the oil business in Galicia. Finally, the Civic Committee for Assistance to Polish Refugees in Hungary assigned the Vincenzes a cottage to rent in the charmingly situated Danube resort of Nógrádverőce. They lived there for most of the time until March 1946.
Fig. 3. Stanisław Vincenz on a garden bench in Nógrádveröka, 1942.
Source: vincenz.pl
Vincenz was engaged with the cultural life of Polish refugees in Hungary. Between December 1940 and November 1941, he was even director of the Culture and Education Council at the Civic Committee. He published in refugee magazines such as "Polish News", "Our Common room – Camp Materials" and "Polish Weekly". He gave lectures, among other things, at the "Higher Courses" organized by the Civic Committee in 1941. ("Outline of Greek Philosophy", 7 meetings from January to March). He also lectured for the Hungarian audience. Encouraged by Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna, he also tried his hand at translating Hungarian poetry by Lajos Áprily (published by Biblioteka Polska in 1943), but was more willing to publish translations of texts by Walt Whitman and Rudolf Maria Holzapfel.
A large part of Vincenz's works created during his exile in Hungary were essays published mainly in "Polish News", such as "Atlantis", "Mickiewicz and Dante", "About books and reading", "About the Hellenic heritage", "On propaganda". Some of the texts were devoted to topics related to Hungary, such as "Hungarica. The Gift of Friendship" published in the "Polish Yearbook" in 1943. In his discussions and reviews he took up the subject of Polish translations of Hungarian works, e.g. "The Bilinguistic Method in Hungarian Folk Tales", "Ady in Polish (Notes and Reflections in the backdrop of Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna's translation)" or Endre Ady's selected poetry "Ashes and Flame" translated by Tadeusz Fangrat. Stanislaw Vincenz wrote the "On the content in poetry" review, which referred to the work of Leon Kaltenbergh entitled "The Transformation. A Rhapsody".
Apart from essays, discussions and reviews, Vincenz also wrote the introductory word to the Budapest edition of Władysław Łoziński's novel "Madonna Busowiska" (1942) and to the "Thorny freedom. Poetry" (1941) by Tadeusz Fangrat, whom he was friends with. Vincenz dedicated two texts that appeared in the "Polish Weekly" to his Hungarian friends: "The Gate to Hungary" to the poet Áprilyi Lajos and "The Beaver Field" to the writer Lila Wagner-Vészi.
Between 1941-1943 he published fragments of "On a high mountain meadow" series through Biblioteka Polska and in the "Polish Yearly. Calendar of a Pole in Hungary" and "Polish News" magazines. His other journalistic activities include a one-time supplement to "Polish News", which was published as a "Literary Supplement" in the Christmas edition on December 24-26, 1941.
Righteous Among the Nations
During their time in Hungary, both Stanisław Vincenz, his first wife, Lena, and his second wife, Irena, were involved in helping the needy, which took the form of obtaining certificates confirming Polish citizenship, translating various documents and helping Jews. The Vincenzes and the Hajdus co-organized the escape of Ada and Emil Neuspiel from Austria to Hungary. The Vincenzes not only gave shelter to the couple in their house, but also testified to the local authorities and the Hungarian Ministry of Interior that the Neuspiel family are their Roman Catholic cousins from Poland. The fugitives then moved to Felsőgöd, where they stayed until the end of the war and then returned safely to Vienna.
Stanislaw Vincenz also intervened for the issue of documents confirming Polish nationality and Catholic confession of Danek Gertner (during the war under the surname of Żaba) and a young Hasidim from Rachów named Friedmann, who was a pupil of Rabbi Rokach in Bełz. The latter survived the war as Stanisław Zięba. For his merits Stanisław Vincenz was posthumously (1979) awarded the Righteous Among the Nations medal.
It has to be mentioned that in 1944 the Vincenzes were hiding a pre-war communist Andrzej Stawar, who was the editor of "Polish Weekly" in Hungary and after the war a collaborator of "Culture" in Paris.
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Due to the political situation and the fact that Poland and Hungary found themselves in the communist bloc, the Vincenz family left Hungary and after some time moved to the south of France to Uriage-les-Bains (1947) and then to Grenoble (1949). Having settled there, he established cooperation with the Parisian "Culture". A holiday home in La Combe de Lancey – with a community of intellectuals, known as the "Plato Academy", which was frequented many personalities, including Czesław Milosz, was an important place for Vincenz.
In 1964, as the writer's health deteriorated, the Vincenz family moved permanently to Lausanne, where the author of the "On a high mountain meadow" book died in 1971. He was buried at a cemetery in Pully, and after the death of his wife Irena (1991) their ashes were moved to the St. Salvador cemetery in Kraków.
Maria Jaworska
Z wykształcenia archeolog śródziemnomorski, absolwentka Instytutu Archeologii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. Doktorantka na Wydziale Historycznym Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. Uczestniczka polskich badań archeologicznych, m.in. w Ptolemais (Libia), Novae (Bułgaria), Apsaros (Gruzja). Jedną z jej pasji jest popularyzacja historii
Selected bibliography:
Antoniewicz Z., Rozbitkowie na Węgrzech. Wspomnienia z lat 1939–1946, Warsaw
1987
Malowaniec T., Verőce – powrót do węgierskiego okresu w życiu Stanisława Vincenza, Colloquia Litteraria UKSW 7/2009, 115-133
Vincenz S., Atlantyda. Pisma rozproszone z lat II wojny światowej, selection, introduction and concept by J. Snopek, Warsaw 1994