Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
Sigizmund Dominikovich Krzhizhanovsky (sʲɪɡʲɪzˈmunt dəmʲɪˈnʲikəvʲɪtɕ kʐɨʐɨˈnofskʲɪj, Zygmunt Krzyżanowski; – 28 December 1950) was a Russian and Soviet writer, playwright, philosopher, and historian, who described himself as "known for being unknown". He published only nine stories and a few essays in his lifetime. The majority of his writings were published posthumously.
Also recorded as Sigizmund Dominikovich Krzhizhanovsky
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
- Name
- Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
- Born
- 11 February 1887
- Birthplace
- Kiev, Russian Empire
- Died
- 28 December 1950
- Place of death
- Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
- Nationality
- Russian Empire and Soviet Union.
- Occupation
- translator, poet, lawyer, literary historian and writer.
- Fields
- philosophy.
- Education
- Faculty of Law of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
- Languages
- Russian and Polish.
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Sigizmund Dominikovich Krzhizhanovsky (sʲɪɡʲɪzˈmunt dəmʲɪˈnʲikəvʲɪtɕ kʐɨʐɨˈnofskʲɪj, Zygmunt Krzyżanowski; – 28 December 1950) was a Russian and Soviet writer, playwright, philosopher, and historian, who described himself as "known for being unknown". He published only nine stories and a few essays in his lifetime. The majority of his writings were published posthumously.
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Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (1887–1950) was a lawyer, literary historian and poet, among other activities, of Russian and Soviet nationality. The lawyer was born in Kyiv and died in Moscow.
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky worked for Ukrainian National Academy of Music and worked in Moscow. Activity centred on philosophy. Languages used include Polish and Russian.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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wikidata · Q1813169 · wikipedia · Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
In this article
Biography
Biography
Krzhizhanovsky wrote screenplays for The Feast of St Jorgen (1929) by Yakov Protazanov and for the stop-motion animated feature film The New Gulliver (1935). He was left uncredited both times. He died in obscurity in 1950. A scholar discovered Krzhizhanovsky's archive in 1976, and started publishing his short stories in 1989. Posthumously, Krzhizhanovsky has gained fame for his short parables and phantasmagoric stories. At least one of them is noted for its Kafkaesque style.
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky studied at Faculty of Law of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The recorded working language is Russian and Polish. The field of work recorded is philosophy. Places of work recorded in the authority are Moscow. Employment is recorded with Ukrainian National Academy of Music.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky • Native Name — Сигизмунд Кржижановский • Born — 11 February 1887 • Birthplace — Kiev, Russian Empire • Died — 28 December 1950 • Place of death — Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Life
Life
Krzhizhanovsky was born in Kiev (now in Ukraine) to a Polish family on 11 February 1887. Krzhizhanovsky was active among Moscow's literati in the 1920s, while working for Alexander Tairov's Chamber Theater. Several of Krzhizhanovsky's stories became known through private readings and a few publications. His writing style might have been influenced by Robert Louis Stevenson, G. K. Chesterton, Edgar Allan Poe, Nikolai Gogol, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and H. G. Wells. In 1929 he penned a screenplay for Yakov Protazanov's acclaimed film The Feast of St Jorgen, yet his name did not appear in the credits. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1935 stop-motion animated feature film The New Gulliver, but, again, was left uncredited. One of his last short stories, "Дымчатый бокал" ("The Smoke-Colored Goblet," 1939), tells the story of a goblet miraculously never running out of wine, which is sometimes interpreted as a wry allusion to the author's fondness for alcohol. Krzhizhanovsky died in Moscow, but his burial place is not known.
Novellas
Novellas
• Странствующее «Странно» (1924), Stravaging “Strange”. Included in the collection translated by Joanne Turnbull (Columbia University Press, 2023) • Клуб убийц букв (1926), The Letter Killers Club, trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2011) • Возвращение Мюнхгаузена (1927-1928), The Return of Munchausen, trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2016) • Материалы к биографии Горгиса Катафалаки (1929), Material for a Life of Gorgis Katafalaki. In Stravaging “Strange”, trans. Joanne Turnbull (Columbia University Press, 2023) • Воспоминания о будущем (written 1929; published 1989), Memories of the Future. Included in the collection translated by Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2009)
Plays
Plays
• That Third Guy: A Comedy from the Stalinist 1930s with Essays on Theater, trans. Alisa Ballard Lin (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2018)
Identity and origins
Identity and origins
The authorities additionally record the heading Sigizmund Dominikovich Krzhizhanovsky. His recorded languages were Russian and Polish.
Career and activity
Career and activity
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky worked in philosophy. He was employed by Ukrainian National Academy of Music. He worked at Moscow.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1887
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky born at Kyiv.
1950
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky died at Moscow.
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.
Kyiv.
Birth place
Moscow.
Death place
Essays and stories published in his lifetime
• Якоби и „Якобы“ (1919), Jacobi and 'As If • Штемпель: Москва (1925), Postmark: Moscow. In Autobiography of a Corpse, trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2013) • Поэтика заглавий (1931), "The Poetics of Titles", trans. Anne O. Fisher, in Countries That Don't Exist: Selected Nonfiction, edited by Jacob Emery and Alexander Spektor (Columbia University Press, 2022)
Legacy
In 1976, scholar Vadim Perelmuter discovered Krzhizhanovsky's archive and in 1989 published one of his short stories. As the five volumes of his collected works followed, Krzhizhanovsky emerged from obscurity as a remarkable Soviet writer, who polished his prose to the verge of poetry. His short parables, written with an abundance of poetic detail and wonderful fertility of invention – though occasionally bordering on the whimsical – are sometimes compared to the ficciones of Jorge Luis Borges. "Quadraturin" (1926), the best known of such phantasmagoric stories, is a Kafkaesque tale in which allegory meets existentialism.
Short story collections
Short story collections
• Сказки для вундеркиндов (1919-1927), Fairy-tales for Wunderkinder • Чужая тема (1927-1931), Someone Else's Theme • Чем люди мертвы (1932-1933), What Men Die By • Неукушенный локоть (Рассказы о Западе) (1940), Unbitten Elbow • Мал мала меньше (1937-1940), One Smaller Than the Other • Сборник рассказов 1920-1940-х годов (1940), Collected Stories: 1920s-1940s
Translated stories and collections
Translated stories and collections
• "Quadraturin", trans. Joanne Turnbull, in Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida (Penguin, 2005) • 7 Stories, trans. Joanne Turnbull (GLAS New Russian Writing, 2006) • Memories of the Future, trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2009) • Autobiography of a Corpse, trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2013) • Unwitting Street, trans. Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books, 2020) • Countries That Don't Exist: Selected Nonfiction, edited by Jacob Emery and Alexander Spektor (Columbia University Press, 2022) • Stravaging “Strange”, trans. Joanne Turnbull (Columbia University Press, 2023)
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.Savinich, I. Польская грамматика. В тип. Карла Крайя. 2. 1833.
- 2.Tarves, Kirsten. The lords of in-between: the trickster and liminal figure in the fiction of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, 1925-1928. University of Manitoba. 2018.
- 3.Khrzizhanovsky, Sigizmund. The Letter Killers Club. New York Review Books. xi. 2013. 9781590174500.
- 4.Leiderman, N. L. The Intellectual Worlds of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. The Slavic and East European Journal. 56. 4. 507–535. 2012. 0037-6752.
- 5.Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. The Complete Works in 5 Volumes. Volume 1. ed. by Vadim Perelmuter. Saint Petersburg: Symposium, 2001, 688 pages.
- 6.Adam Thirlwell, "The Master of the Crossed Out," The New York Review of Books, vol. LVIII, no. 11 (June 23, 2011), p. 57.
- 7.Serebrianik, Nina. Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida. Translation Review. 73. 1. 71–76. 2007-03-01. 0737-4836.
- 8.Anthem Press. H.G. Wells and All Things Russian. 2019. 978-1-78308-991-8.
- 9.Ballard, Alisa. БЫТ Encounters БЫ: Krzhizhanovsky's Theater of Fiction. The Slavic and East European Journal. 56. 4. 553–576. 2012. 0037-6752.
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Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky studied at Faculty of Law of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
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