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Konstanty Aleksander Jeleński (1922-1987), French: Constantin Jelenski, also known as Kot Jeleński, was a Polish essayist, literary and art critic, translator. Born in Warsaw as a descendant of aristoratic family, he spent his early life in Poland, sourrounded by members of local intellectual and politcal elites of a mid-war period. When the World War II broke out, he served as a soldier of Polish Armed Forces in the West till 1944. After war he refused to come back to Poland, where the Communists took over the control over the country. Prominent member of Polish emigration, he soon started to cooperate with numerous Polish-émigré and French magazines and popularize Polish culture, especially literature. He contributed as a translator into French as well.

Family and roots
Konstanty A. Jeleński was born on 2 January 1922 in Warsaw as a child of a Polish diplomat, Konstanty Jeleński, and Teresa Jeleńska de domo Skarżyńska (better known as Rena Jeleńska). His mother was recognized in Warsaw literary environment mainly becausce of her translatory works from French and Italian. Konstanty A. Jeleński admitted to inherit most of his leftist and liberal views from her. Due to rich social life of his mother, Jeleński was given a possibility to grow up among great figures of Polish art and politics. Jeleńska's connections ranged from composer Karol Szymanowski, writer Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz and other members of literary group called Skamander till politicians and militaries, like Józef Beck, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or Gen. Bolesław Wieniawa-Długoszowski. All of them played a great role in Polish public life then. It was rumoured as well, that Rena had a romance and her sohn had been in fact the child of Carlo Sforza, then Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Controversial but loving and protective, Rena Jeleńska took care of her husband, who was suffering from alcoholism. They ineffectively looked for help in Austria (trying psychoanalisis at Sigmund Freud's clinic) and Switzerland. Nevertheless, Konstanty A. Jeleński desbribed his parents as an interesting couple, having their private language and mythology.

World War II
In the end of 1939, when the World War II had lasted for several months, Jeleński with his mother managed to leave occupied Poland and headed for Italy, where his father had been already staying. Later, he joined in France Polish Armed Forces in the West, where he served as a volunteer under the command of General Stanisław Maczek in the Polish 1st Armoured Division. In 1944 he faught in Normandy, as the Polish divisions supported Operation Overlord in its later stages. Even though Jeleński was injured there (and therefore left the army), he was far from mythologizing this period. As his biographer notices, after years Jeleński maintained, that in many cases the youth had joined the army not to protect their motherland or fight for its freedom, but in order to stop the boredom of occupation time.

Acitivity in the West
After the the war, as he spoke English, French, German and Italian fluently, he lived in different European cities and finally moved to Paris in 1952. There, he started to work for Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), an anti-Communist organisation founded in West Berlin in 1950 with its headquarters and offices in Paris. In 1953 he became a contributor of Preuves, a cultural, intellectual and literary magazine, published in France and strictly connected with activities of the CCF. His coworkers there were François Bondy and Raymond Aron. Jeleński published for Preuves until the CCF was dissolved in 1969.

Another journal, which Jeleński was connected with, was Polish-émigré Kultura, focused on promoting Polish culture and literature, especially produced by emigrants. It also provided a constant analysis of political situation in Communist Poland. Jeleński's cooperation with that journal started back in the late fourties, when it was still published in Rome (Italy) under the patronage of non-Communist, independent Polish army in the West. Then the magazine became independent and the office moved to Maisons-Laffitte, nearby Paris, France. The editor-in-chief, Jerzy Giedroyc notices, that Jeleński was too cosmopolitan to be a typical Polish emigrant, describes him as detached from Polish reality. Giedroyc pointed as well, that Jeleński jugded people not by their political or moral values, but rather by artistic quality of their oeuvre or his personal attitude. There Jeleński started also his friendship with Polish painter Józef Czapski. Their correspondence shows that they were mutual advisors in both life and artistic dilemmas.

In both magazines he wrote mainly about literature (Polish and European). He was also an art critic, we may find his articles about various artists from surrealist Leonor Fini or Hans Bellmer, through American realism of Edward Hopper, to school of Polish colourists and paintings of Jan Lebenstein. It was also him, who notifieed the paralell between the students' protests in Warsaw in March 1968 (called also the March events) and their further repercussions and Parisian May 68. He worked as a literary translator (especially from Polish to French), too. His translatory works focused on poetry (for example Czesław Miłosz's). He also coordinated the translations to the anthology of Polish poetry from medieval times to modernity, which he published in France in 1965 (Anthologie de la poésie polonaise).

Another person important to Jeleński and strongly connected with him was Witold Gombrowicz. Thanks to Jeleński's acitivity this Polish writer became recognized in Western literature world. He helped tu publish the first French edition of Ferdydurke, and consequently other titles, in French and several other European languges. It was also him, who organised Gombrowicz's notes after writer's death in 1969 and, asked by Rita Gombrowicz, compiled from fragments, that he had found, the last drama Historia (in English: History). Their mutual correspondence shows as well that Jeleński was actively opting for Nobel Prize for Gombrowicz, which may have been given to him, if the writer had not died too soon.

Polish essayist was also a friend to another important person of Polish literature, Czesław Miłosz. Their rich correspondence (as Jeleński was living in Europe and Miłosz was then a professor at California University in the USA) ranges from their private matters to discussions on translatory workshop, literature, poetry and their own literary activities. They stayed friends since late fifties, when they had met in Paris, till Jeleński's death.

Private life
In Rome in 1951 he met Leonor Fini and her husband, Stanislao Lepri. Then their unusual relationship began. In 1952 Jeleński joined Fini and Lepri in their apartment in Paris. The three, they lived together till Lepri's death in 1980. They used to spend their holiday on Corsica in the ruined monastery of Nonza, living there without electricity, reading and writing letters, enjoying life, their bodies and playing eccentric games in style of Fini: organising masquerades and taking photos. Later they bought a possesion in Saint-Dyé, France, by the river of Loire. This is also the place, where all the three are buried together in one grave.

He died in Paris in 1987.

Web links

 * Gallery of Jeleński's pictures at page of Zeszyty Literackie (in Polish).
 * The articles on exhibition Leonor Fini i Konstanty A. Jeleński. Portret podwójny (Leonor Fini and Konstanty A. Jeleński. A double portait) in Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw (in Polish):
 * Art&Business
 * Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
 * Podróże Literackie