Bogusław Kuczyński was born in 1907 in Zagożdżon (now Pionki, mazowieckie voivod ship). He studied at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University in Warsaw for a year, then at the Faculty of Mathematics at the Jagellonian University – he co-operated with the Independent Socialist Youth Union “Życie” (Związek Niezależnej Młodzieży Socjalistycznej). He made his debutin 1929 with a short story “Jesień”(Autumn) published in Kurier Literacko-Naukowy (no. 48) under a pseudonim Andrzej Wartałów. From February 1931 he was a member of PPS-Lewica, and then (until 1938) of the Communist Partii of Poland. In party magazines he published sketches about a life of the unemployed under a pseudonim Stanisław Siedlecki.
Recommended by Pola Gojawiczyńska*, he became Zofia Nałkowska’s secretary in 1934. In May their co-operation transformed into a relationship. In 1935 his debut novel Kobiety na drodze was published by “Rój”. It did not meet critical approval. Between 1936 and 1938 he was editor-in-chief (for some time also publisher) of a literary magazine Studio*. In 1938 he published his second novel Starzy ludzie.
After the outbreak of World War II Kuczyński fled to Romania where he wrote Pobojowisko, an account of the invasion of Poland (known as the September campaign). In May 1940 he went to Yugoslavia, from where he fled to Italy. He settled in Rome, where he wrote short stories and a novel titled Ludzie między bogami. Notatki rzymskie. In 1943 he married Bernarda di Basi (Bari?).
After the war he worked first at the Ministry of Education in London and subsequently at the Polish Embassy. In April 1948 after an argument with his wife, he returned to Poland where he met Nałkowska again. After her death, he joined the Editorial Committee of Zofia Nałkowska’s Selected Works. In 1960 after his second marriage fell apart (he married Mirosława Okolska in 1952), he left Poland. He went first to Italy and later to the USA. He settled in New York. At the end of his life he suffered from lung cancer. He committed suicide in 1974 in New York[[3]].
Kuczyński met Schulz for the first time as Zofia Nałkowska’s secretary in April 1934 in Warsaw. As Nałkowska writes in Dzienniki, all three saw plays together: Crime and Punishment staged by Leon Schiller at Teatr Polski and Krasin at the Jewish Jung Theater by Michał Weichert. When Kuczyński became involved with Nałkowska, he began to be jealous of Schulz. In a fit of jealousy, he destroyed a copy of The Cinammon Shops, bound and illustrated by Schulz as a gift for Nałkowska (see 20 July 1935). In 1936 Nałkowska writes that Schulz’s visits took place “when Bogusław gave his permission” (see 1 January 1936). However, it is clear that Kuczyński highly regarded Schulz’s intellect as he published his texts in Studio: a short story “O sobie”* (in Sanatorium pod Klepsydrą* under the title “Samotność”) and an essay “Mityzacja rzeczywistości”*. Also in Studio Schulz and Gombrowicz published an exchange concerning “the doctor’s wife from Wilcza Street” (“doktorowa z Wilczej”)*.
In the 1960s Kuczyński, who was living in the USA at that time, corresponded with Jerzy Ficowski about Schulz’s letters to Nałkowska. As we can learn from the correspondence, the letters survived the war and Nałkowska read them to Ficowski, about which Kuczyński was informed by Ficowski personally. The letters became lost as a result of being handed to someone in order that they could be copied. This version contradicts the Introduction to Księga listów (The Book of Letters), in which Ficowski writes that Schulz’s letters to Nałkowska burnt down during the Warsaw Rising. Thus the fate of this correspondence remains a mystery. (mr)
