Karol Irzykowski
Illustration — Karol Irzykowski. Karol Irzykowski (23 January 1873 – 2 November 1944) was a Polish writer, literary critic, film theoretician, and chess player. Between 1933 and 1939 in the Second Polish Republic he was a member of the prestigious Polish Academy of Literature founded by the decree of the Council of Ministers.
Also recorded as Karol Irzikowski
Karol Irzykowski

Unknown (skan ze zdjęcia z książki) · Portret: Współcześni pisarze polscy, Seria I · Public domain
- Born
- 1873 · Błażkowa and Podkarpackie Voivodeship.
- Died
- 1944 · Żyrardów.
- Nationality
- Poland
- Occupation
- poet · chess player · translator · literary critic · writer · film scholar
- Fields
- shorthand
- Education
- Lviv University
- Honours
- Officer of the Order of Polonia Restituta
- Languages
- Polish
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Documentary summary
Illustration — Karol Irzykowski. Karol Irzykowski (23 January 1873 – 2 November 1944) was a Polish writer, literary critic, film theoretician, and chess player. Between 1933 and 1939 in the Second Polish Republic he was a member of the prestigious Polish Academy of Literature founded by the decree of the Council of Ministers.
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Note VALÉORINE
Karol Irzykowski (1873–1944) was a Polish chess player, film scholar and literary critic, among other activities. Born in Błażkowa, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, the chess player died in Żyrardów.
Karol Irzykowski studied at Lviv University. The chess player lived in 75 Filtrowa Street in Warsaw. Karol Irzykowski was active in shorthand.
Languages used include Polish. The chess player received Officer of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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wikidata · Q277620 · wikipedia · Karol Irzykowski
In this article
Life
Life
Irzykowski was born in Błaszkowa, near Pilzno. He came from an aristocratic land-owning family that had fallen on hard times. From 1889 to 1893, he studied Germanistics in Lwów (Lemberg). From 1894 to 1895, he worked occasionally as a teacher, but his outspokenness prevented him from obtaining further work in that line. From 1895, he lived in Lwów and worked as a parliamentary and court stenographer. In 1903, he published one of the most original novels of that time, Pałuba. In this highly complex and avantgarde work, he anticipated many innovations made by modern European experimentalists such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner or André Gide. The novel has never been translated, and in Poland, it was only truly appreciated in the second half of the 20th century. (Parts of this novel were translated into German language after World War II). In 1908, he moved to Kraków, where he held a position as a stenographer and correspondent in the official correspondence office. Irzykowski played in chess tournaments at Lemberg and Kraków, winning against Kohn, von Popiel, Chajes and Ameisen, and drawing against Flamberg. After World War I he moved to Warsaw, where he headed the Sejm (parliament) stenographic office. Irzykowski was coworker of "Skamander", the Wiadomości Literackie and in the years 1921 to 1933 of the Robotnik. He raised his voice in many discussions on literature. He provided a theatre column on Polish radio and in the Rocznik Literacki, and was a member of the Polish Literary Academy. At the same time he gave stenography instruction (also in German) to meet living costs. During the German occupation of Poland, he was working on a novel Wyspa ("Island") and was taking part in the cultural life of the underground. His nearly entire manuscript was lost in the Warsaw Uprising where Irzykowski was wounded and soon died after release from Żyrardów camp.
Works
Works
• Pałuba [The Hag] (1903) novel • Sny Marii Dunin [The Dreams of Maria Dunin] (1903) stories • Dziesiąta Muza [The Tenth Muse] (1924) film theory • Walka o treść [Fight for Content] (1929) Polemic against Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz • Beniaminek (lampoon on Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, 1933) • Słoń wśród porcelany (An Elephant in a China Shop; sketches, 1934) English translations: • « Death of the Cinematograph », Film History, vol. 10, n. 4, 1998, p. 453-458. • « The Tenth Muse (Excerpts) », New German Critique, n. 42, 1987, p. 116–127.
Identity
Identity
Karol Irzykowski is recorded as poet, chess player, translator, literary critic and writer.

Karol Irzykowski, Polish writer
scanned from Karol Irzykowski: Walka o treść - Beniaminek:Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków, Poland, 1976
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1873
Karol Irzykowski born at Błażkowa, Podkarpackie Voivodeship.
1944
Karol Irzykowski died at Żyrardów.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
- 75 Filtrowa Street in Warsaw
Named but not plotted · 2
Błażkowa and Podkarpackie Voivodeship.
Birth place
Żyrardów.
Death place
Primary material
Documents and archives
Institutional database
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q277620: Karol Irzykowski
Scholarly · Wikimedia Foundation
reference work
- “Karol Irzykowski”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Encyklopedia Onet.pl, Grupa Onet.pl SA. Polska Akademia Literatury. 2011.
- 2.Karol Irzykowski's Pałuba: A Guidebook to the Future Colleen Taylor Sen, Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 17, No. 3 (1973)
Bibliography printed in the source article · 2
- Mortkowicz-Olczakowa, Hanna (1961). Bunt wspomnień. Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy.
- Banks, Brian. Muse & Messiah. Inkermen Press, England 2006
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
Institutional database
Wikidata, structured authority record Q277620: Karol IrzykowskiWikimedia Foundation
Verifiedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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