Biography

His father, Antoni Mackiewicz, came from impoverished gentry from Jańcza from the coat of arms of Boża Wola or Bożawola. At the very beginning of his young life, he worked as a train driver’s assistant, after some time he got to the wine shop and eventually became the co-owner and director of the wine importing company “Fochts i Spółka” (‘Fochts & Ska’). At the age of 36, he met Józef’s mother, Maria née Pietraszkiewicz. Maria née Pietraszkiewicz, came from Krakow from a professorial and literary environment, she painted, played and wrote beautiful poems. Maria née Pietraszkiewicz, Mackiewiczowa, came to St. Petersburg in 1896, as a 22-year-old married woman, not knowing at all neither Russia, nor her husband (Antoni Mackiewicz), whom she met with her sister near Kiev. The Mackiewicz house in St. Petersburg was crowded with wealthy merchants and their wives. The guests most often talked about wine prices and their types. After the first year in Russia, Maria completely changed the image of her apartment. She was assisted by chefs, young girls from Vilnius, who helped her run the Mackiewicz family home. Maria Mackiewiczowa spent 11 years in St. Petersburg, but she never learned how to speak Russian.

The turn of the year 1906-1907, Mackiewicz family remembered very well, because it was their last winter in St. Petersburg. In the spring of 1907, they moved to Vilnius to their father’s homeland, due to Józef’s health, because he did not like the climate of the city on the Neva’s river. They settled in Bank Colony at Witebska street 1, in the Rasų district. As Seweryna Mackiewiczówna – the sister of Józef Mackiewicz recalls. (…) It was a colony of land bank officials, then it was very elegant, right after the first war it was neglected and slowly abandoned by almost all the cottage owners. Our house like all the others was made of brick, but not tight. (…) In the garden there were fruit trees, lilac bushes, raspberries and a lot of currants and gooseberries. Józef spent his childhood surrounded by his large family. All holidays were particularly solemn. J. Mackiewicz’s father attached great importance to traditions, especially food. There was a lot of books at home, mother read Sienkiewicz’s ‘Trilogy’ to children. Unfortunately, fate was cruel, because relatives divided into Poles, Lithuanians and Bolsheviks, divided forever by the state borders, but even more divided by ideologies. Despite all of this, Józef brought patriotic traditions from home.

History and patriotism were sensitive topics for him, that is why he could not calmly observe the ongoing war. Even as a student of the Vilnius junior high school, at the age of seventeen, Józef Mackiewicz took part as a cavalryman in the Polish-Bolshevik war. 1 student of the 6th grade of junior high school went to volunteer for the war. He served in the 10th Uhlans Regiment of the Lithuanian-Belarusian Division, then – at his own request – he was transferred to the 13th Regiment of Major Dąbrowski, where he served 2 years. Mackiewicz, a young boy, took part in the retreat of Polish troops before the Gaj-Khan offensive, he fought in the defense of Warsaw and later participated in the counterattack of Polish troops. During the war, Mackiewicz had many unexpected experiences, he was captured by the Lithuanian captivity at Oranmai and eventually ended up in a prison in Vilnius, where he wrote a small article for Dziennik Poznański. Thanks to the efforts of the Matulewicz family (Matulaičiai), Mackiewicz was released.

As Józef Mackiewicz himself recalls, he abandoned exact sciences and switched to journalism and soon became permanently associated with the daily newspaper called “Word”. The newspaper was founded by his brother Stanisław Mackiewicz. J. Mackiewicz specialized as a correspondent from the Baltic States and, from 1922, he wrote theater reviews. However, the journalist’s work did not bring financial stability, that is why he established cooperation with “Vilnius Courier” („Kurier Wileński”) and worked as a provincial correspondent. After a short period of time, J. Mackiewicz began to publish his own articles in the “Word”, which were devoted to the Vilnius region, as well as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Traveling through Vilnius land, he discovered the unusual geographical and historical character of the inseparable part of the Commonwealth. He remained faithful to the problems of national patriotism throughout his life.

J. Mackiewicz’s works were unique. Because of his interest in nature, he derived absolute reluctance to all kinds of nationalism, which he criticized constantly in his works. Mackiewicz’s debut, in 1921, was a short text about how he was arrested by Lithuanian in 1920. However, his first literary text is considered to be the description of the Bałowieża Forest. There were several characteristic features in the works of J. Mackiewicz. Firstly, descriptions of nature that were part of human history and culture. Secondly, he saw the Białowieża Forest as the center of the social phenomenon. The third point was that in the organization of a small local community he saw the problems of the whole society.

In May, in order to avoid the third Soviet occupation, the Mackiewicz family managed to get to Warsaw. There, together with B. Toporska, they published three issues of the magazine “Alarm” (‘Alarm’), in which they argued that the defeat of Germany on the Eastern Front before capitulation in the West would be the end of hope for the independence of all countries in Eastern Europe, including Poland – because they were at risk of Soviet occupation. In autumn they reached Krakow, where Mackiewicz wrote the brochure called “Optymizm nie zastąpi nam Polski” (‘Optimism cannot replace Poland’).

In 1955, Mackiewicz family moved permanently from London to Munich. However, they lived in poverty and made a living from poor wages. Munich also turned out to be an unfortunate place for the journalist. Although it was actually there, where he wrote: „Droga donikąd” (‘A Road to Nowhere’) – a story about life in Lithuania, when it became a Soviet republic. „Kontra”- a novel about Cossacks, USSR citizens and political emigrants who fought against Bolsheviks in the Soviet-German war, and then they were given by Allies on the basis of the Yalta Agreement. He also wrote there „Lewa wolna” (‘Left Free’) – a novel about the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1920. In the same year, Mackiewicz won the plebiscite for “The Most Favorite Writer of the News readers” and he receives an award founded by the Tazab company from London. In 1956, he finally broke off all contacts with his brother Stanisław. Three years later, in July, Mackiewicz leaves the PEN-Club during the XXX International Congress of the organization in Frankfurt near Main in protest against the fact that the organization is abusing its statute and does not defend the oppressed writers in communist countries. In 1961, Józef Mackiewicz receives the Herminia Naglerowa award by the Association of Polish Writers in Exile, and in 1963 receives the Award of Anna Godlewska from Zurich. ‘The Circle of Friends of Józef Mackiewicz’s Works’ was created in London. Next year, in 1971, the President of the Republic of Poland in Exile, August Zaleski, awarded him with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. Next books he published while in exile were „Sprawa pułkownika Miasojedowa” (‘The Case of Colonel Miasojedov’) – this is the story of the once famous case of Sergey Miasojedov, lost in June 1914, as well as its continuation – until the bombing of Dresden at the end of World War II. He also published „Zwycięstwo prowokacji” (‘Victory of provocation’) – a dissertation on the reasons for the spread of communism in the world. Collection of short stories „Pod każdym niebem” (‘Under every sky’) – several pre-war works were published as well, bearing the afterword of Barbara Toporska. „Nie trzeba głośno mówić” (‘You don’t have to speak loudly’) – a kind of continuation of Road to nowhere appeared – an epic panorama of World War II. The new novel again becomes the reason for the next wave of discussing the so-called Mackiewicz affairs. In 1972, an analysis of Pope John XXIII’s policy towards communism was published – „W cieniu krzyża” (‘In the Shadow of the Cross’), for which the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation from New York grants Mackiewicz an award in the field of literature. In 1975, in the book „Watykan w cieniu czerwonej gwiazdy” (‘Vatican in the Shadow of the Red Star’) – J. Mackiewicz continued the theme of the Catholic Church’s policy towards communism, this time during the pontificate of Pope Paul VI. The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures of the University of Kansas (USA) proposed Józef Mackiewicz for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975, paradoxically supported by a group of Russian scholars and emigrant activists, but he did not receive the prize.

When Józef Mackiewicz’s health began to deteriorate, Barbara Toporska, his life companion, more and more often sent potential publishers of Mackiewicz’s books to the emigrant Nina Karsov, who from the beginning fiercely torpedoed all publishing initiatives. Already in the 70s, a group of people friendly to Mackiewicz, grouped in the ‘Society of Friends of Józef Mackiewicz’s Works’, in Orlando, Florida, USA, had serious fear that the writer’s copyright had been appropriated by Nina Karsov-Szechter. Barbara Toporska, tormented by the disease, did not lose understanding of reality, although Karsov considered her such. Even in the last moments of her life, Toporska never called Nina Karsov her daughter, which at the time was not so important, because everyone in exile knew that there was no relationship – family, racial, and especially ideological – between Nina Karsov-Szechter and Mackiewicz family. Mackiewicz himself never intended to entrust his literary heritage, or copyrights to her, to strangers. Especially, that he had few, but self-sacrificing friends in exile and in Poland the closest family, with whom he felt connected. Mackiewicz could not understand Nina Karsov-Szechter’s interest in his fate and literary output. After Mackiewicz’s death in 1985, copyright was inherited by his life companion Barbara Toporska, who in turn gave it to Nina Karsov, the owner of the Kontra publishing house from London. Since 1994, copyright proceedings have been pending before the District Court in Warsaw for the works of Józef Mackiewicz, to whom the writer’s daughter and Nina Karsov are parties. He transferred the rights to second-rate national editions to his daughter Halina, who, however, during martial law burnt papers because of the fear of a search, because the letter contained the names of people from the underground. However, after 1989, Nina Karsov-Szechter retained all rights and did not allow official national editions, explaining this with the “will of the deceased” given to her and consistently brought lawsuits to anyone who published wider fragments of his works without her consent. Although Mackiewicz was against publishing his books in PRL publishing houses, he never said that he was against publishing his works in free Poland.