Pieśni Papuszy w perspektywie geo- i etnopoetyki. In: Wielkopolski Alfabet Pisarek, Poznań: WBPiCAK, 215–31. Jerzy Ficowski and Papusza’s Poetic Project in the Postcolonial Perspective. Gorzów Wielkopolski: Gorzowska Oficyna Wydawnicza. Warszawa: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 208–62. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 252–78.įicowski, Jerzy. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Interpress 1989, 91–105įicowski, Jerzy. Literatura ludowa i poetka cygańska Papusza. Gorzów Wielkopolski: Archiwum Państwowe w Gorzowie Wielkopolskim.īronisława Wajs – Papusza: Biografie. Gorzów Wielkopolski: Wydawnictwo Rolland.īronisława Wajs – Papusza. Frankfurt/Oder: Kleist Museum.īończuk, Leszek. Ausgewählt und übertragen von Karin Wolff. She died in Inowrocław on 8 February 1987. Papusza suffered a mental breakdown and was hospitalised in psychiatric clinics several times. Her collaboration with Ficowski was regarded as betrayal and led to her exclusion from the community. Her artistic work, however, was rejected by Roma. She won many prizes and received government scholarships.

In 1962 she joined the Association of Polish Writers. Papusza’s career coincided with the Roma assimilation programme launched by the Communist government in the 1950s. Papusza’s talent, her songlike poetry and her descriptions of nature as well as her poetic sensibility were all highly praised. In 2011 a German-language collection of some of Papusza’s poems was published, translated and edited by Karin Wolff. Papusza’s work appeared in cultural and literary journals. He translated them into Polish and published three volumes of poetry – the first of which, Pieśni Papuszy – Papušakre gila (1956), includes verses in Polish and Romani.

He wrote three books on the culture of Roma in Poland and persuaded Papusza to write down her verses. In the second half of the 1940s the writer and folklorist Jerzy Ficowski joined Papusza’s group. After the war she moved with her group to western Poland, first to Pomerania, then to Żagań and finally to Gorzów Wielkopolski, where she settled. During the Second World War the group hid in the forests of Volhynia, which the artist described in her work. Since she could not have children herself, she adopted a boy whom she named ‘Tarzan’. Probably at the age of 19, she married the brother of her stepfather, the harpist Dionizy Wajs. She learned to read and write autodidactically.

Descended from the Polska Roma, she was the first Romani poet in Poland to publish under her own name.īefore the Second World War, she travelled with her group of Polska Roma through what is today Western Ukraine. She was born in Sitaniec, Poland on 17 August 1908. Bronisława Wajs (born Zielińska) is widely known under the pseudonym ‘Papusza’ (which means ‘doll’).

Pieśni mówione by Papusza