page_title: Józef Czechowicz
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Józef Czechowicz / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Józef Czechowicz Polski: Portret Józefa Czechowicza
context_page_description: Józef Czechowicz was an avant-garde Polish poet. Known as a nostalgic, catastrophic author, he was also the leader of the literary avant-garde and bohemians in Lublin. For this visionary poet, verse seemed to be a question of imagination; he would play with word consonances, dreamlike associations, musicality, and create picturesque visions. Czechowicz used to live and create in Lublin; he also died there tragically, a few days after World War II had started.
context_section_description: Józef Czechowicz came from a poor family living in Lublin. He was born in a basement flat, which has not survived to these days, in Kapucyńska 3 Street. His father, Paweł Czechowicz, worked as a janitor and, later, as a meter leader in the Warsaw Bank in Lublin. In 1912, he died due to a severe mental disease. Józef Czechowicz's mother, Małgorzata, née Sułek, was a good-natured person of a tiny posture. 10 years older than her husband, she died in 1936. The poet dedicated to her many of his poems. Apart from Józef, Paweł and Małgorzata had three children, Janek, Katarzyna and Stanisław.
  In 1913 Czechowicz went to a Russian primary school in Lublin and graduated from the First Seven-Form City School in 1917. During the Polish-Soviet War, in 1920, he volunteered to join the Polish army but later came back home to continue his education. The poet attended the Teacher’s College, the Higher Teacher’s Course in Lublin and  completed his education in 1929, graduating from the Institute of Special Pedagogy in Warsaw.
  At first, he worked as a teacher in Brasława, Słobódka and Volodymyr-Volynskyi; he also taught in a special school in Lublin, whose manager he eventually became.
  While his first volume of verse, kamień (stone) was printed in 1927, it is considered that he officially made his debut, publishing in the first issue of Reflektor "Opowieść o papierowej koronie" (A Story of a Paper Crown), poetic prose whose protagonist is Henryk, a disappointed homosexual lover who has attempted suicide.
  Józef Czechowicz was a homosexual. His sexual orientation significantly influenced his writing but it also brought down repression on him.
  He also worked as a journalist and an editor of newspapers and magazines based in Lublin. He followed this occupation after he moved to Warsaw in 1933. He belonged to Polish Teachers' Union and supported many of his writing friends, with both finances and publishing. He would take care of a group of poets who used to live at Dobra 9 St: Henryk Domiński, Wacław Mrozowski and Bronisław Ludwik Michalski. While he was living in Warsaw, he developed friendships with poets such as Czesław Miłosz and Anna Świrszczyńska.
caption: 1931 sketch of  Józef Czechowicz by Roman Kramsztyk
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