Ferdynand Goetel

Ferdynand Goetel was a Polish writer and political activist who lived through the turbulent times of the two world wars and the communist regime. He was born in Sucha Beskidzka, near Kraków, in 1890. He studied architecture in Vienna, where he met his future wife Jadwiga. He moved to Warsaw in 1912, but was arrested and deported to Turkestan by the Russian authorities at the outbreak of World War I. He escaped from the Bolsheviks in 1920 and returned to Poland via Iran, India, and England. He settled in Warsaw and became a prominent figure in the literary and cultural scene. He was the president of the Polish PEN Club and the Union of Polish Writers, and a member of the Polish Academy of Literature. He wrote novels, plays, essays, and screenplays, often drawing on his experiences in Russia and the Caucasus. He was also a staunch anti-communist and a supporter of the Sanation regime. During World War II, he stayed in Warsaw and participated in the underground press and propaganda. He was involved in the German investigation of the Katyn massacre, which caused him to be ostracized by the communist authorities after the war. He left Poland in 1946 and settled in London, where he died of a heart attack in 1960. He was buried in Zakopane, in the Pęksowy Brzyzek Cemetery. His works include Kar Chat (1922), From Day to Day (1929), Samuel Zborowski (1936), and Wartime (1954).