Piotr Choynowski


Piotr Choynowski was a Polish writer, novelist and translator; an elected member of the prestigious Polish Academy of Literature from 1933.
Choynowski studied chemistry originally, in Warsaw and in Lwów, then from 1908, history and philosophy in Zurich and at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In 1914 during World War I he joined the Polish Legions to fight for Poland's independence, but his poor health forced him to quit. Since 1916 Choynowski lived in Warsaw. He became the editor-in-chief of Tygodnik Ilustrowany with which he worked until 1930. From 1933 he served as member of the Academy.
Choynowski was an accomplished novelist writing in the realist style based on authenticism and truthfulness of observation. In his prose, he focused on the life of Polish upper classes, inspired by writings of Henryk Sienkiewicz. One of his most notable novels, devoted to Warsaw in the year 1920, was Dom w śródmieściu. He also translated into Polish The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe among other works.
Choynowski was nearly forgotten in communist Poland under the Soviet domination. In 1953, during Polish Stalinism one of his stage plays was revived temporarily called Ruchome piaski. In 1988 his novel W młodych oczach was reprinted, and in 1991 another one, called Młodość, miłość, awantura.

Selected works