King Matt the First
King Matt the First () is a children's novel by Polish author, physician, and child pedagogue Janusz Korczak. In addition to telling the story of a young king's adventures, it describes many social reforms, particularly targeting children, some of which Korczak enacted in his own orphanage, and is a thinly veiled allegory of contemporary and historical events in Poland. The book has been described as being as popular in Poland as Peter Pan was in the English-speaking world. It was the first of Korczak's novels to be translated into English – several of his  pedagogical works have been translated, and more recently his novel "Kaytek the Wizard" was also published in English. Plot. Matt is a child prince who is catapulted to the throne by the sudden death of his father. At the beginning of his reign, Matt enacts several bold reforms aimed at improving life for the people of his kingdom, especially the children, but in spite of his best intentions, reality gets in the way producing many unintended consequences from silly to sinister. Matt tries to read and answer all his mail by himself and finds that the volume is too much  and he needs to rely on secretaries. He is exasperated with his ministers and has them arrested, but soon realizes that he does not know enough to govern by himself, and is forced to release the ministers and institute constitutional monarchy. When a war breaks out, Matt cannot accept being shut up in his palace, but slips away and joins up, pretending to be a peasant boy - and narrowly avoids becoming a prisoner of war. He takes the offer of a friendly journalist to publish for him a "royal paper" -and finds much later that he gets carefully edited  news and that the journalist is covering up the gross corruption of the young king's best friend. Matt tries to organize the children of the entire world to hold processions and demand their rights - and ends up antagonizing other kings. He falls in love with a black African princess and outrages racist opinion (by modern standards, however, Korczak's depiction of blacks is itself not completely free of stereotypes which were current at the time of writing). Finally, he is overthrown by the invasion of three foreign armies and exiled to a desert island. Sequel. The story is continued  in the sequel, "King Matt on a Desert Island" (), published in the same year and translated into English in 1990. The sequel tells of Matt's personal development in isolation, followed by his eventual return and reestablishment of democracy in his homeland. Major themes. Korczak often employed the form of the fairy tale in order to prepare his young readers for the dilemmas and difficulties of adult life, and the need to make responsible decisions. Historical context. The novel was written at a time of great turmoil and hardship, and comments on contemporary and historical events. Poland, which had not  existed as a sovereign nation during the 19th century (the period 1795–1918 – see History of Poland (1795–1918)) had just reemerged from the ashes of World War I. The Second Polish Republic had been formed in 1921, following the Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919) against Germany, and success in the Polish–Ukrainian War (1918–19) and Polish–Soviet War (1919–21) – see History of Poland (1918–1939). Unemployment was high, and poverty was widespread. The main Polish political figure of the time was Józef Piłsudski, then the elected leader, who later seized power in a coup in 1926. At the time of the partition of  Poland, the last king of Poland was the reformer-king, Stanisław August Poniatowski, who, among other acts, founded Poland's first newspaper, "Monitor". The book also makes references to: Personal context. The author's father died in 1896, leaving Korczak, at 18, the head of the family and the sole breadwinner for his mother, sister, and grandmother. In 1911–1912 Korczak became a director of Dom Sierot, an orphanage of his own design for Jewish children in Warsaw, where he formed a kind of a republic for children with its own small parliament, court and newspaper. In 1926 Korczak let the  children begin their own newspaper, the Mały Przegląd (Little Review), as a weekly attachment to the daily Polish-Jewish newspaper "Nasz Przegląd" (Our Review). During the Russo-Japanese War in 1905–1906 he served as a military doctor. In 1914 Korczak again became a military doctor with the rank of Lieutenant during World War I. During the Polish-Soviet War he served again as a military doctor with the rank of major but was assigned to Warsaw after a brief stint in Łódź. Like his hero, Korczak went to death with dignity, refusing sanctuary to accompany his young charges to the  Treblinka extermination camp in 1942. On their last march through the city of Warsaw, one of the children carried the green flag of King Matt Cultural diversity. Matt's friend and love interest is the African princess Klu Klu, who is depicted as a brilliant student and a fierce fighter. However, the book reflects stereotypes common at the time in its general depiction of Africans as savage cannibals. Publication history. "King Matt" has been translated into English, Esperanto, German, Hebrew, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and Russian, and appeared in various editions, including: Adaptations. King Matt has been adapted  numerous times, for film, TV, animation, and opera.