Bolesław Leśmian

Bolesław Leśmian (né Lesman; 22 January 1877 – 5 November 1937) was a Polish poet, artist, and member of the Polish Academy of Literature, one of the first poets to introduce Symbolism and Expressionism to Polish verse.

Though largely a marginal figure in his lifetime, Leśmian is now considered one of Poland's greatest poets. He is, however, little known outside Poland, mostly on account of his neologism-rich idiosyncratic style, dubbed "almost untranslatable" by Czesław Miłosz and "the ultimate and overwhelming proof for the untranslatability of poetry" by noted Polish Shakespearean translator, Stanisław Barańczak.

Life

Bolesław Leśmian was born on 22 January 1877 in Warsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, to a Polonized Jewish family. He spent his childhood and youth in Kiev, where he graduated from the law faculty of Saint Vladimir University. In 1901 he returned to Warsaw. From there, he visited various European cities, including Munich and Paris, where he married painter Zofia Chylińska. Heavily influenced by French modernists, Leśmian returned to Warsaw, where he became cofounder of an experimental Artistic Theatre. There he also met one of his closest friends, Zenon Przesmycki, with whom he became involved in the publication of Chimera, an art newspaper.

Although he made his debut in 1895 (a series of poems published in Wędrowiec magazine), his works initially went unnoticed. To sound "more Polish", Leśmian adopted a slightly modified version of his surname which included typically Polish sounds (previously it had been Lesman). According to various conflicting sources, the author of the pen-name which eventually became his official surname was either the known poet and poet's uncle Antoni Lange, or a renowned bon-vivant of Warsaw, Franc Fiszer. The first booklet issued in Warsaw in 1912 (Sad Rozstajny) did not bring him much publicity either, and in 1912 Leśmian moved back to France. He returned in 1914.