Jan Lorentowicz

Jan Lorentowicz (14 March 1868 – 15 January 1940; occasional pen name, M. Chropieński) was a Polish theatre director, literary critic, publicist, editor and book collector; president of the Polish PEN Club (1925–27); and from 1938, an elected member of the prestigious Polish Academy of Literature.

Life Lorentowicz was born in Pabianice, in present-day central Poland, in 1868, five years after the opening of the Polish 1863 Uprising that was eventually suppressed by the Russian Imperial Army. His parents had moved to present-day central Poland from the old eastern Kresy borderlands, escaping poverty and oppression. Jan obtained his secondary-school diploma at Płock by way of home schooling and soon went to France, where he lived until 1903 and studied at the Sorbonne.

In 1903 Lorentowicz returned to Poland and settled in Warsaw.

In 1916–22 Lorentowicz was director of the Warsaw School of Drama and, in 1918–22, executive director of the Warsaw City Theatres. In 1919 he published a three-volume collected works of the 16th-century poet Jan Kochanowski, who had founded Polish literary language; in 1925 the book on Władysław Reymont, commemorating Reymont's Nobel Prize in Literature; and the same year became president of the Polish PEN Club after the death of Stefan Żeromski.

In 1926–28 Lorentowicz served as director of Warsaw's National Theatre, and in 1935 he completed the publication of his monumental five-volume monograph, Dwadzieścia lat teatru (Twenty Years of Theatre), comprising some 480 collected articles. In 1938 he was elected a member of the Polish Academy of Literature after the untimely death of Piotr Choynowski and Bolesław Leśmian. He continued publishing until the Nazi German invasion of Poland, and died in Warsaw in mid-January 1940. Lorentowicz was buried in the city's Powązki Cemetery. He was well known for his vast collection of books, some rare and expensive.

The memoirs of Lorentowicz's daughter – writer, teacher and award-winning set-designer Irena Lorentowicz – Oczarowania (Enchantments) show Jan Lorentowicz as a remarkable father. Irena, who never married, inherited part of his library. In old age demented and alone, she was found by a friend in the middle of her small Warsaw apartment, cutting up books with scissors into a pile of scraps. She died in 1985 and was buried near her father.

Works

Jan Lorentowicz, Polska pieśń miłosna: antologia (1913, in Polish), book, 8 editions Jan Lorentowicz, Ziemia polska w pieśni: antologia (1913, in Polish), book, 6 editions Jan Lorentowicz, Polska pieśń niepodległa; zarys literacki (1916 and 1917, in Polish), book, 3 editions Jan Lorentowicz (editor), Dzieła polskie Jana Kochanowskiego: wydanie kompletne (1919, in Polish), book Jan Lorentowicz, Ladislas Reymont: essai sur son œuvre (1924, 1925, in French, and 3 other languages), book, 6 editions Jan Lorentowicz, Dwadzieścia lat teatru (1929 and 1930, in 3 languages), book in 4 volumes, 5 editions Jan Lorentowicz, La Pologne en France; essai d'une bibliographie raisonée (1935, in French), book, 5 editions Jan Lorentowicz, Spojrzenie wstecz (1935), book, 12 editions in 3 languages Jan Lorentowicz, Teatry w stolicy i inne artykuły (in Polish), book, 4 editions Jan Lorentowicz, Teatr Polski w Warszawie, 1913-1938 (1938, in Polish and English), book, 2 editions Jan Lorentowicz, Młoda Polska (in Polish), book in 3 volumes Jean Lorentowicz, Littérature, Théâtre, beaux-arts (1935, in French and undetermined), book, 3 editions Jan Lorentowicz, Juljusz Slowacki śród Francuzów; szkic literacki (1927, in Polish and English), book, 3 editions Jan Lorentowicz, La Pologne en France: essai d'une bibliographie raisonnée. Avec la collaboration de A. M. Chmurski. II Encyclopédies, langue, voyage, histoire (1938, in French), book, 1 edition Jan Lorentowicz, Nowa francya literacka: portrety i wrażenia (1911, in Polish), book, 3 editions Jan Lorentowicz, Géographie, sciences, droit, suppléments (1941, in French), book, 2 editions Jan Lorentowicz (editor), Wielcy poeci romantyczni Polski: Mickiewicz, - Słowacki, -Krasiński by Gabriel Sarrazin (in Polish), book