Debiut - triumf - exodus, czyli Kalmana Segala kariera (niemal) modelowa

Abstract

The article is to remind the life and history of Kalman Segal, almost a perfect example of a career in the People's Republic of Poland. This sympathising with communism in the Second Polish Republic poor Jew after the war became an author of valuable short stories about the Shtetl written in Yiddish and Polish, and, on the other hand, of numerous books in which, in spite of the 'thaw, socialist realism echoed, which was a tribute to be paid to the new and supposedly better regime. Editions in enarmous number of copies by national publishing houses, meetings with the author, favourable reviews - all this contributed to building of an image of a widely-read and respected writer and journalist of the radio of Katowice. His career collapsed in 1968. Although the wave of anti-Semitic campaign did not affect him directly, in a gesture of solidarity with other Jews Segal left for Israel a year later, where he wrote little and died in solitude in 1980. While his last novel came out, 'by virtue of inertia', in Poland in 1969, after that there has been dead silence about him: his biography entries are nowhere to be found in most of later studies published in the People's Republic of Poland. None of his books has been reedited ever since.