| Raptularz kijowski |
Author: Juliusz Osterwa Preface, edited by: Ireneusz Guszpit Date: December 2010 ISBN: 978-83-61835-32-5 Dimensions: 168x238 mm Paperback: 380 pages Price: 10 Euro Selected pages 
Thought – word – action. Idea – manuscript – Reduta. This is Osterwa’s order, one that he established and practiced; inaccessible to the “later grandson”, especially the reader. But in one of the notebook pages the founder of the Reduta wrote: “Listen! The Word is the testament of the Action”. Thanks to this gift, the grandson may hope to touch something that he has never had, and which he has unexpectedly became entitled to. (Ireneusz Guszpit) Juliusz Osterwa, born Julian Maluszek (1885–1947), actor, director, theatre manager, co-founder, with Mieczyslaw Limanowski, of the Reduta (1919–1939), Poland’s first theatre laboratory; educator, theatre practitioner, dreamer. Born in Podgorze near Krakow to a midwife and a caretaker; his talent, work and ideological determination earned him the nickname of the Constant Prince of the Polish stage. He dropped out of school to pursue a career in theatre. In 1904 he joined Krakow’s Teatr Ludowy. At the time he dropped his former name and assumed a new one, Osterwa, after a summit in the Slovakian Tatras. In 1910 he joined the farce ensemble WTR and, two years later, he moved to the Teatr Rozmaitosci, extending his acting and directing ambitions to include drama. Increasingly, he played what he wanted to, not what he was cast to play; he appeared in about 130 roles in the first three years and in almost 250 roles throughout his acting career. In July 1915 Osterwa was deported to Samara on the Volga. In February 1916 he arrived in Moscow, where he met Alexander Tairov and Constantin S. Stanislavski, and visited the home of the first MChAT Studio. In August he went to Kiev, where he led artistically the Teatr Polski. From April to June 1918 he headed a group that, years later, he acknowledged as the forerunner of Reduta. Osterwa returned to Poland in August 1918. On 29 November 1919 he launched the Reduta. He was also the director of the Rozmaito¶ci (1923–1925), which, at that time, reverted to the name National Theatre, and of Krakow’s Teatr im. Slowackiego (1932–1935). He spent the Second World War in Krakow, teaching pronunciation in seminaries and reading in the homes of his friends and acquaintances. Above all, however, he wrote. The pages of his successive notebooks provided a sort of stage where Osterwa’s artistic and human activities were fulfilled. After the war, he acted and directed; in May 1946 he became director of Krakow theatres and the State Drama School in Krakow. He died on 10 May 1947. Juliusz Osterwa is considered one of the greatest actors in the history of Polish theatre. Excellent in farcical roles, he much more highly valued those that required him to make an effort. As an actor he gained fame in so-called “hidden directing”. Osterwa did not consider himself a reformer. He was a champion of the artistic dignity of theatre professionals, a teamwork ethic and the ancillary function of art. “I want to serve society”, he would say. And he did. |
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