Look Who it Was Random video

Julia Hartwig - I meet Ksawery Pruszyński (28/100)

527 views · Published 19 October 2017 · 1:30 · Indexed 21 September 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Entertainment

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To listen to more of Julia Hartwig’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFyU9ehLuouVmm_Ocec3PUd8

Julia Hartwig (1921-2017) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and author of children's books. She studied at universities in Warsaw, Lublin and Kraków. Czesław Miłosz called her 'the grande dame of Polish poetry'. [Listener: Andrzej Wolski; date recorded: 2010]

TRANSCRIPT: I met Pruszyński in a very unusual way. Of course, I knew who he was and what he wrote but on one occasion, I was invited by the ambassador's deputy to... to lunch – to dinner – and at this lunch there was Ważyk, Bieńkowski and Pruszyński among the Poles, and that was where we met. It was very entertaining because there was a conversation around the table after which I made for... because we got up to have some coffee and he quickly sat down beside me on the next chair and never left my side for the rest of the time. And that is how it started. At that point, he wasn't yet the envoy to The Hague, it wasn't until later that he joined the UN and left for the United States and then he came back to The Hague, by which time our relationship was very animated as he used to come to Paris which was easy and I used to travel to The Hague and to Amsterdam. I spent one Christmas there and met his children – he was divorced – and at the same time I came to know Holland a bit, which is an absolutely beautiful country. In fact, I dream of going there again and I don't know why I haven't done this yet.

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