The Peasants

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British-Polish translator Anna Zaranko has been named the winner of the Found in Translation Award 2023 for her English translation of the Polish epic The Peasants (Chłopi), by Nobel prize-winning author Władysław Reymont.

a b Michalak, Ada (30 June 2023). "Jest pierwszy zwiastun filmu "Chłopi". Tworzą go twórcy "Twojego Vincenta" ". Rzeczpospolita (in Polish) . Retrieved 1 August 2023.An established translator of Polish literature, Anna Zaranko was born in the UK to Polish parents. The 2023 Found in Translation Award marks her second award of this kind. In 2020 she received the award for her translation of The Memoir of an Anti-hero by Kornel Filipowicz.

To do that, the filmmakers turned to a wide repertoire of realist and pre-Impressionist paintings, drawing from the work of artists from the Young Poland movement, a modernist period roughly spanning the years from 1890-1918. They were equally inspired by the evocative language of the novel itself, which “reads like a painting” in its vivid, descriptive passages, according to Hugh. She is currently working on a translation of short stories by Kornel Filipowicz, and Under the Sun (Pod Słońcem) by Julia Fiedorczuk. Continuing, she added: “Zaranko’s approach not only makes the original text accessible to contemporary readers but also helps to maintain its authenticity. Reymont’s description of peasant life in 19th century rural Poland is a brutally honest account — at times humourous but often bleak and gruesome. His earnings did not allow for this kind of life of travel. However, in 1900 he was awarded 40,000 rubles in compensation from the Warsaw-Vienna Railway after an accident in which Reymont was severely injured. During the treatment he was looked after by Aurelia Szacnajder Szabłowska, whom he married in 1902, having first paid for the annulment of her earlier marriage. Thanks to her discipline, he marginally restrained his travel-mania, but never gave up either his stays in France (where he partly wrote Chłopi between 1901 and 1908) or in Zakopane. Rejmont also journeyed to the United States in 1919 at the (Polish) government's expense. Despite his ambitions to become a landowner, which led to an unsuccessful attempt to manage an estate he bought in 1912 near Sieradz, the life of the land proved not to be for him. He would later buy a mansion in Kołaczkowo near Poznań in 1920, but still spent his winters in Warsaw or France.Originally published in four volumes between 1904 and 1909, The Peasants earned Reymont the 1924 Nobel Prize for Literature and has since been translated into 27 languages. In The Peasants, which is receiving a world premiere in Toronto, the directors had the freedom of embracing an epic 19th century Poland and a far wider range of realist and pre-impressionist paintings for the animated film inspired by their source material, the Nobel prize-winning novel of the same name by Wladyslaw Reymont. The Peasants (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 13 November 2023 . Retrieved 13 November 2023. Reymont's baptism certificate gives his birth name as Stanisław Władysław Rejment. The change of surname from "Rejment" to "Reymont" was made by the author himself during his publishing debut, as it was supposed to protect him, in the Russian sector of partitioned Poland, from any potential trouble for having already published in Austrian Galicia a work not allowed under the Tsar's censorship. Kazimierz Wyka, an enthusiast of Reymont's work, believes that the alteration could also have been intended to remove any association with the word rejmentować, which in some local Polish dialects means "to swear".

Weiner, Yitzi (18 January 2023). "Music stars making a social impact: Why & how Łukasz LUC Rostkowski of Rebel Babel Ensemble is helping to change our world". Medium . Retrieved 1 August 2023. The English translation of Reymont’s work evokes a writing style akin to that of English novelist Thomas Hardy. Reymont’s vivid and detailed depictions of the novel’s numerous characters, the village and events such as baptisms, marriages, funerals and local fairs bring Lipce and its residents to life. The Peasants chronicles the goings-on within Lipce over the course of a year, with each volume corresponding to a season.

Impressionism - a style in painting developed in France in the late 19th century that uses colour to show the effects of light on things and to suggest atmosphere rather than showing exact details. In the book we can find impressionism in the descriptions of nature. The Peasants ( Polish: Chłopi) is a novel written by the Polish author Władysław Reymont in four parts between 1904 and 1909. He started writing it in 1897, but because of a railway accident and health problems, it took seven years to complete. The first parts of the story were published in the weekly magazine Tygodnik Illustrowany. The novel has been translated into at least 27 languages. Wladyslaw Reymont received the 1924 Nobel Prize in Literature for this work. The main storyline revolves around the wedding between the village’s ageing and wealthiest farmer Maciej Boryna and the naive teenage beauty Jagna.

Like its predecessor, The Peasants is animated in oil-paints by hand, but director DK Welchman says the new film is far more ambitious. Each of the four parts represents a season in the life of the peasants – Autumn (published in 1904), Winter (published in 1904), Spring (published in 1906), and Summer (published in 1909). This division underlines the relationship of human life with nature. Born into an impoverished noble family, Reymont was educated to become a master tailor, but instead worked as a gateman at a railway station and then as an actor in a troupe. His intensive travels and voyages encouraged him to publish short stories, with notions of literary realism. Reymont's first successful and widely praised novel was The Promised Land from 1899, which brought attention to the bewildering social inequalities, poverty, conflictive multiculturalism and labour exploitation in the industrial city of Łódź (Lodz). The aim of the novel was to extensively emphasize the consequences of extreme industrialization and how it affects society as a whole. In 1900, Reymont was severely injured in a railway accident, which halted his writing career until 1904 when he published the first part of Chłopi.When Jagna finds herself caught between the conflicting desires of the village’s richest farmer, his eldest son and other leading men of the community, her resistance puts her on a tragic collision course with the community around her. The composition of the novel is notable for its strict simplicity and functionality. The titles of the various volumes signal a tetralogy in one vegetational cycle, which regulates the eternal and repeatable rhythm of village life. Parallel to that rhythm is a calendar of religion and customs, also repeatable. In such boundaries Reymont placed a colourful country community with sharply drawn individual portraits. The repertoire of human experience and the richness of spiritual life, which can be compared with the repertoire of Biblical books and Greek myths, has no doctrinal ideas or didactic exemplifications. The author of The Peasants does not believe in doctrines, but rather in his own knowledge of life, the mentality of the people described, and his sense of reality. It is easy to point to moments of Naturalism (e.g. some erotic elements) or to illustrative motives characteristic of Symbolism. It is equally easy to prove the Realistic values of the novel. None of the "isms" however, would be enough to describe it. a b c d Gzyl, Paweł (23 December 2022). "W Polsce i w Ukrainie powstaje aktorska animacja według "Chłopów". Artyści w Kijowie pracują mimo rosyjskiej inwazji". Gazeta Krakowska (in Polish) . Retrieved 31 July 2023.