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Przerwa-Tetmajer Kazimierz
(1865—1940)

Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer was a Polish poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and writer. He was a member of the Young Poland movement. Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer was born in Ludźmierz in Podhale near the Tatra Mountains, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire now in Poland, and died in Warsaw. His older half-brother was the painter Włodzimierz Tetmajer. Przerwa-Tetmajer studied classics and philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in 1884-1889. He then became a journalist at Kurier Polski, and lived both in the Tatras and in Cracow. After World War I he moved to Warsaw to serve as president of the Society of Writers and Journalists. In 1934 he was made honorary member of the Polish Academy of Literature.

Przerwa-Tetmajer suffered from a mental illness in the latter years of his life, which prevented him from writing. He was living in a hospice in 1940 when the Nazis evicted all the occupants. He was left homeless and died shortly afterwards in a Warsaw hospital.

Przerwa Tetmajer wrote seven collections of poetry before World War I. He is particularly well known for his works about the Tatras. At least one of his poems, Kriváň, High Kriváň! is now often taken for an authentic folk song.

Poland, 1965, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer