“The occupation didn’t concern me. I was in love.” How Jan Brzechwa wrote “The Academy of Mr. Kleks”

For Brzechwa, the inkblot was “some form of escape from reality” – writes Mariusz Urbanek in the writer’s biography “Brzechwa. Not for children”. In retrospect, the fact that Brzechwa, whose Jewish origins were no secret, survived the war in Warsaw, right under the Nazis’ noses, may seem like a miracle. Especially since he was a well-known lawyer, a frequenter of salons, and an active participant in cultural life. His face was recognizable, and his name was on the list of “people to be exterminated” published by the reptilian press.

And he didn’t even hide much. He spent the beginning of the war near Krakow, then near Warsaw, and finally landed in the capital. He got a job on a farm run by Germans at the horse racing track in Służewiec. He traveled to work by tram, and as part of his duties he took care of the hedges. It turned out that he had a hand in it, and the greenery in Służewiec was praised long after the war.

The poet also survived the Warsaw Uprising in the capital, and after its fall he was sent to the camp in Pruszków.

But it wasn’t gardening that allowed him to stop. And two things quite far from it. Love and writing.

When was “Mr. Kleks’ Academy” founded?

“He didn’t notice the Nazi occupation. And you know, given his origins, it wasn’t that easy,” Mariusz Urbanek quotes Artur Międzyrzecki’s words. Brzechwa’s father came from an assimilated Jewish family and was an evangelical. And Brzechwa himself, née Lesman, adopted a pseudonym to distinguish himself from his more famous older cousin Bolesław, who used a softened version of their surname – Leśmian. But back to the occupation: the writer fell madly in love with Janina Serocka during the war. Their romance became a legend. Because Janina, apart from her great beauty, also had a husband. A hairdresser dealing in various, not entirely legal, businesses. Plus she didn’t want to leave him. Brzechwa was crazy with jealousy, and the couple came and went, with many grievances and grievances on both sides.

The poet also tried to take his own life. It happened on the day of the capitulation of Paris. But it was not the fall of France that brought him to despair, but the fact that his beloved did not love him. Ultimately, after the war and many vicissitudes, it ended like a fairy tale: Janina became Jan’s third wife and they formed a close relationship until his death in 1966.

But before this happened, Brzechwa wandered around occupied Warsaw, torn by great passions. He found solace in writing. Yes, there are some heartwarming poems in his works at that time, but it was then that he wrote, for example, “Pchła Szachrajka”, “Mr. Drops and his corpse” and “Za Króla Jelonka” – poems that children read to this day.

In 1944, he began writing “The Academy of Mr. Kleks” – a novel whose action takes place a little outside of time, in a serene world of wonders and extraordinary things. But you don’t have to look deep to feel that evil is approaching the Academy.

Is “Mr. Kleks’ Academy” about war?

As Mariusz Urbanek points out in Brzechwa’s biography, “The Academy of Mr. Kleks” has been read many times as a novel with a key, and its various interpretations are still being created today. For example, one can easily find a similarity between the wolves’ invasion of Matthew’s starling kingdom and the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. After all, the wolves spreading death cannot be stopped, the ministers are unable to defend the country, and no one wants to help Mateusz and he is left completely alone with the enemy spreading destruction. Sounds familiar?

But much more important is the evil that threatens the existence of Mr. Kleks and his entire academy. He appears in the form of the demonic barber Philip – this may also be a reference to the author’s experiences, remember that his beloved’s husband was a hairdresser. Philip brings his two sons to the Academy. One of them turns out to be a doll and destroys everything that Kleks holds dear. Kleks himself has no strength to oppose it. He’s stunting, getting weaker, becoming childish. In a final dash, he manages to defeat Aloysius’s doll. But he cannot undo the events and bad things that happened.

The narrator of the story, Adaś Niezgódka, was endowed by the author with his own features. Adaś – like young Brzechwa – collects buttons and doesn’t like krupnik.

After the Warsaw Uprising – which he spent mostly in Powiśle, building barricades in Nowy Świat, but also writing for insurgent newspapers – he ended up penniless in Zalesie through the Pruszków camp. There he met friends to whom he read the manuscripts of “The Academy of Mr. Kleks”, and they shared food with him. In Zalesie, he also lived to see the Germans escape from Warsaw.

“The Academy of Mr. Kleks” will be published a year after the war, in 1946. The illustrations for this edition were made by Jan Marcin Szancer, with whom the poet began to cooperate during the occupation. Together they created one of the most memorable and significant duets in Polish culture. For several generations of readers, Brzechwa’s heroes will always look as Szancer drew them. Also Mr. Kleks.