She was the younger and only sister of one of Poland's most renowned poets, Julian Tuwim. She wrote beautiful poetry herself. However, she is best known as the distinguished translator of the famous "Winnie the Pooh." Writer Stanisław Lem considered her version superior to the English original…
She was born on August 22nd 125 years ago in Łódź, about which she wrote years later: "I always see Łódź, the most ancient, the Łódź of my gloomy childhood, in the glow of fires." Her parents were assimilated Jews who did not know Yiddish. The Tuwims' marriage was a mismatch in personality. Izydor Tuwim (1858-1935) worked as an accountant at a branch of the Azov-Don Commercial Bank. He escaped from family life and his own children into the world of books. He knew several languages, was a homebody, and—as a passionate linguist—loved to spend hours poring over lexicons and dictionaries.
Adela's mother was a dozen years younger than her husband and came from the Krukowski family. Her father owned a printing house. She was the cousin of two famous artists, the singer Kazimierz Krukowski, known for his work "Lopek," and the actor Włodzimierz Boruński. She dreamed of a social life and attending theater premieres. But her introverted husband avoided them. She was anxious and neurotic, tormenting the family with her fears. She constantly worried about the birthmark on her son's cheek, which she spent years trying to remove, believing it to be a bad omen. She convinced her daughter that she would become a spinster due to her lack of beauty. Her parents waged a silent war between them. Their disputes often centered on the family's financial situation. To make matters worse, the children were cared for for a time by an aggressive nanny who took out her anger and frustration primarily on little Irena. Fortunately, another nanny took care of her sensitive and emotionally abandoned siblings. Antosia was the family treasure. She ran the Tuwim household for 20 years, but also supported the children. In the evenings, they would read Polish literature aloud to her, as Antosia steadfastly refused to learn to read. As adults, they dedicated their literary works to her.
The siblings themselves shared a very strong and positive emotional bond. They hated being apart for long periods of time. Despite their mother's manipulation and their wicked guardian, they never competed. Nor did their shared passion for literature tear them apart. Julian repeatedly claimed that his sister was more artistically gifted than he was. He expressed this in an unusual way. He copied several of 13-year-old Irena's poems and published them years later in his volume of poetry, "Lurking for God," naturally with his sister's authorship acknowledged.
As a student at the Eliza Orzeszkowa Polish Gymnasium in Łódź, Irena made her debut in 1914 in the daily "Życie łódzkie" with the poems "Przy kominku" (By the Fireplace) and "Szczęście" (Happiness), signed under the pseudonym Ira Blanka. Two years later, her poem "Manienka" (Little Lady) appeared in the Łódź newspaper "Godzina Polski" (Polish Hour). Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz met the young poet, shortly after her first disappointment in love. He called her a "poetessa," and this was no compliment. He recalled: "She was very pretty, dark redheaded, although her features were abnormal and she didn't resemble her brother. But I didn't like her. She was very affected." In 1921, Irena published her first volume of poetry, "24 wiersze" (24 poems), with the prestigious publishing house of Jakub Mortkowicz, where her brother had published. In them, she portrayed the various stages of love with surprising maturity. She became a member of the Skamander poetry group. After her debut, she didn't achieve great literary fame, but she did gain an influential admirer.
Stefan Napierski was a renowned translator and distinguished literary critic. He fared less well as a poet. Socially, he was associated with the Skamander literary group, although his poems were Young Poland-inspired; he was even called "the last decadent of Young Poland." His real name was Stefan Marek Eiger. He came from a very wealthy Jewish family. His maternal grandfather was Markus Silberstein, one of the wealthiest 19th-century Łódź manufacturers. Napierski's father, Bolesław Eiger, was also a wealthy Jewish entrepreneur. His firstborn was the famous Maria Eiger-Kamińska, nicknamed "Klara," known as the "millionaire communist." Her brother, Stefan, changed his surname to the Polish-sounding Napierski and was baptized Catholic.
He won Miss Irena Tuwim's heart with a bang. Enchanted by her poems, the writer arrived at the Tuwims' Łódź apartment with a huge basket of flowers. He delighted her parents, especially her mother, who thought Irena would become a spinster due to her lack of beauty and dowry. After three months of dating, in June 1922, they married in St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Łódź. Years later, his intentions proved less romantic. He was certainly impressed by his poetically gifted fiancée and her brother. He also likely needed the marriage to conceal his homosexuality. She converted for him. Their honeymoon included Berlin. Aleksander Wat, in "My Age," described the groom's decadent revelries in gay clubs. They then visited the Frisian Islands. Irena was delighted with these trips; with her wealthy husband, her financial troubles finally ended.
After returning to Poland, they moved into a luxurious villa with their in-laws across from Saxon Park. But then serious family troubles began. Their young brother-in-law committed suicide, and their sister-in-law was imprisoned for her communist activities. To make matters worse, their father-in-law and his brother died. It was unclear who would continue to run the family industrial concern. Fortunately, Marek's cousin took over. The young couple eagerly benefited from family money. They frequently moved to increasingly luxurious properties, always located in the center of the capital. But Irena was not happy. We don't know if she knew about her fiancé's sexual orientation before the wedding. They certainly shared a respectful friendship. But the lines, "You won't look me straight in the eye. Are you hiding something? Tell me. Don't tell me," resonate bitterly. They even lived in Paris for a year, but that didn't heal their marriage.
Irena published her second volume of poetry in 1926. It received mixed reviews from reviewers. Her next volume was more favorably received. Her poems were compared to those of eminent poets such as Anna Akhmatova and Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska. But Irena soon limited her poetry writing and devoted her talent to the art of translation.
Unhappy in her marriage, she fell hopelessly in love with Julian Stawiński, six years her junior. He was a diplomat and translator. They met at a bridge party. Then they went on a date at a pastry shop. Her husband, seeing her fascination, suggested a year-long separation. She never returned. Years later, she would call her great love a kind of obsession. She even fled from her beloved to Paris. There, upon hearing of the possible end of their affair, Stawiński attempted suicide. Instead of hitting the heart, he shot a lung, and Irena decided not to abandon him. With her husband's consent, she moved with her lover to Ostrów Mazowiecka, where Stawiński found a job as a judge.
She was finally happy; her beloved had helped her overcome her former fears and anxieties. Her considerable poverty didn't bother her. She traded luxurious, multi-room villas for small, rented apartments. The best summary of this stage of her life was the title of her new volume of poetry, published in 1930. It was titled "Happy Love." It was praised for its maturity, its "intimate experiences"...
Finally, in 1935, she divorced Napierski after 13 years of marriage and married Stawiński in Vilnius. They married in a Protestant church. In 1937, they returned to Warsaw. They had no children. He worked as a lawyer at the Court of Appeal. She devoted herself entirely to translations. She specialized in works from English and Russian. She translated world classics, including Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," but her specialty was children's literature. Contrary to legend, as her biographer Anna Augustyniak wrote, neither her husbands nor her brother assisted her in this endeavor, even though all three were renowned translators. On the contrary, she translated her first children's work for Julian in the prewar period. It was the Russian fairy tale "The Golden Key" by Alexei Tolstoy. Her brother was listed in the publication, and he paid the fee to Irena.
Before World War II, she translated "Mary Poppins," "Fernando," many Brothers Grimm fairy tales, and the Snow White and Mickey Mouse books. She also wrote several children's books.
But she truly achieved fame with her translations of A.A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh" and "The Cottage at Pooh Corner," first published in 1938. She believed that translating a work intended for children should, above all, be age-appropriate, meaning very simple. Children wouldn't be able to understand or appreciate sophisticated linguistic structures or cultural references. Therefore, the names in her most famous translation were Polonized. And Winnie the Pooh even changed gender, as in the original, he's a girl bear. Tuwim created iconic catchphrases for her character, including the famous "little something." The success of her translation was measured by its numerous post-war editions. In England, she was even dubbed "The Pooh Lady."
She spent World War II in France and Great Britain, where her husband worked as a Polish diplomat. Whenever possible, she wrote to her beloved brother, from whom the war had separated her. In 1942, in London, her family expanded with the addition of her beloved terrier, Kubuś, who sadly died of canine typhus two years later.
She and her husband emigrated to Canada in 1945, then to the United States. There, after five years of separation, she finally saw her brother. They returned to Poland in 1946. Unfortunately, World War II cruelly took away two people important to her. First, in 1940, her first husband was shot by the Germans in Palmiry. Devastated, she dedicated "A Poem on an Unknown Day and an Unknown Hour" to him. He never recovered mentally after her departure, and even despite his financial means, he never considered escaping wartime Poland.
In 1943, her mentally ill mother was murdered by German soldiers in Otwock. Her body was thrown out a window by the murderers. She was buried only the next day. In December 1953, Irena's beloved brother died. After his death, she fell into depression. She tried to write a book about him. It never came to fruition, nor did the promised volume of their collected letters. The following years of Irena's life were spent battling her husband's alcoholism, who had begun drinking while in exile. He attempted suicide numerous times. She remained with him until his death in 1973. The focus of her postwar life, besides caring for her ailing husband, was her work as a translator. She revised her prewar translations. Together with her husband, they translated classic works from English, including "Uncle Tom's Cabin." She also translated extensively from Russian. She didn't always have new assignments: "I walk around in torn shoes and my fur is rotting, God forbid," she wrote.
Irena Tuwim lived to the age of 89, passing away on December 7, 1987. She was buried in Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery. According to her biographer, Anna Augustyniak, between 1946 and 1976, thirty of Irena Tuwim's books were published by the publishing house "Nasza Księgarnia" alone, with a total circulation of over three and a half million copies.
For centuries, Polish Jewish women lived on the border between two worlds, yet were not fully-fledged citizens in either. Jewish traditions bound them by a series of sometimes rigorous regulations regulating all, even the most intimate, spheres of life, while simultaneously limiting access to education. The Polish community viewed them ambivalently, as evidenced by the story of King Casimir and Esterka – they were often orientalized and sexualized through the prism of their cultural distinctiveness. Yet, they served as liaisons between the Polish and Jewish worlds. They established contacts with Polish neighbors more often than men – primarily through trade or other economic activities – and demonstrated a better command of the Polish language, even during the Holocaust. They participated in various areas of social life – education, science, and the arts, contributing a significant component to Polish cultural heritage. Twice forgotten and censored – as women and Jews, as a doubly alien element, as the ultimate Other in the imaginary of male-dominated Polish culture. The Warsaw Ghetto Museum wishes to help recall them – to unearth from oblivion figures and stories of significant Polish Jewish women in culture. We present a new series of columns devoted to Polish Jewish women – women of art, cinema, and literature; writers, translators, actresses, and all those who co-created Polish culture.
