{{Short description|Polish writer (1822–1899)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2021}} {{Infobox writer | awards = | name = Edmund Chojecki | image = Portret Edmunda Chojeckiego.jpg | birth_name = Edmund Franciszek Maurycy Chojecki | birth_date = {{birth date|1822|10|15|df=y}} | birth_place = Wiski, Podlasie, Congress Poland | death_date = {{death date and age|1899|12|1|1822|10|15|df=y}} | death_place = Paris, France | occupation = Novelist, Journalist and Playwright | nationality = Polish | language = Polish, French | period = 19th century }}
'''Edmund Franciszek Maurycy Chojecki''' ({{IPA|pl|xɔˈjɛt͡skʲi}}; Wiski, Podlasie, 15 October 1822 – 1 December 1899, Paris) was a Polish journalist, playwright, novelist, poet and translator.<ref name="EP-98">''Encyklopedia Polski'' (Encyclopedia of Poland): "Chojecki, Edmund"; p. 98, ibidem.</ref><ref name="Chojecki-PWN454">''Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN'' (PWN Universal Encyclopedia): "Chojecki, Edmund"; volume 1, p. 454, ibidem.</ref> Originally hailing from Warsaw,<ref name="Jakubowski-498">Jan Zygmunt Jakubowski, ed., ''Literatura polska od średniowiecza do pozytywizmu'' (Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to Positivism), p. 498, ibidem.</ref> from 1844 he resided in France,<ref name="Chojecki-PWN454" /> where he wrote under the pen name '''Charles Edmond'''.
Early on, Chojecki participated in leftist intellectual and political movements and edited Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz's political weekly magazine ''La Tribune des Peuples'' (The Peoples' Tribune). In time he entered elite Parisian learned and literary circles, became secretary to Emperor Napoleon III, and co-founded the Paris daily {{Lang|fr|Le Temps}}, predecessor to {{Lang|fr|Le Monde}}.
Chojecki wrote a notable Polish-language novel, ''Alkhadar'' (1854), and translated into Polish (1847) Jan Potocki's celebrated novel, ''The Saragossa Manuscript''.
==Life== Edmund Chojecki spent his youth in Warsaw, where his leftist political views crystallized. He was a friend of the poet Cyprian Norwid, wrote for the monthly ''Przegląd Warszawski'' (The Warsaw Review), ''Echo'' (The Echo) and the monthly ''Biblioteka Warszawska'' (The Warsaw Library, 1840–42), and was secretary of the Board of Directors of the Warsaw Theaters (''Dyrekcja Warszawskich Teatrów'').
In 1844 Chojecki moved to France and after 1845 became active in European leftist movements. In 1846 he wrote ''Czechja i Czechowie'' (Czechia and the Czechs), a book about the history of the Czech lands.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=D84JAAAAIAAJ ''Czechja i Czechowie''] – full original text.</ref> In 1848 he took part in a Slavic congress in Prague and was expelled for radicalism.<ref name="Chojecki-PWN454" /> In 1849 he became editor of ''La Tribune des Peuples'' (The Peoples' Tribune),<ref name="Chojecki-PWN454" /> a Polish-led French-language radical romantic-nationalist political weekly magazine that had been founded by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. In this capacity, Chojecki came into contact with many prominent Russian and German émigrés.<ref name="Jakubowski-498" /> His ''La Tribune des Peuples'' was published in Paris between March and November 1849, with a hiatus (14 April – 31 August 1849) caused by censorship. Chojecki also wrote for the progressive ''Revue Indépendante'' (Independent Review), co-edited by George Sand, and for the socialist newspaper ''La Voix du Peuple'' (The Voice of the People). For his pains, he was expelled from France.<ref name="Jakubowski-498" /> He visited Egypt, Turkey (where he enlisted in the army during the Crimean War) and Iceland (where he went as secretary to Prince Louis Napoleon).<ref name="Jakubowski-498" />
Until the 1850s, e.g. in ''Rewolucjoniści i stronnictwo wsteczne w r. 1848'' (''The Revolutionaries and the Reactionaries in 1848'', published in 1849), Chojecki had promoted revolutionary-democratic and utopian-socialist ideas.<ref name="Chojecki-PWN454" /> In time, he entered elite Parisian learned and literary circles. In 1856 he became secretary to Louis Napoleon, who in 1852 had become Emperor Napoleon III of France. In 1861 Chojecki co-founded the Paris daily, {{Lang|fr|Le Temps}},<ref name="EP-98" /><ref name="Chojecki-PWN454" /> predecessor to France's most popular modern newspaper, {{Lang|fr|Le Monde}}.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yexzGHVggokC |title=The National Daily Press of France |chapter=The Golden Age and the War Years |page=113 |first=Clyde |last=Thogmartin |publisher=Summa Publications, Inc |year=1998 |isbn=1-883479-20-7}}</ref> He became director of the Senate Library. In later years, as a French citizen, he wrote novels and plays under the pen name "Charles Edmond"<ref name="Jan Zygmunt Jakubowski p. 499">Jan Zygmunt Jakubowski, ed., ''Literatura polska od średniowiecza do pozytywizmu'' (Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to Positivism), p. 499.</ref> and enjoyed the friendship of the Goncourt brothers and Gustave Flaubert.<ref name="EP-98" /><ref name="Chojecki-PWN454" />
Chojecki is remembered in the history of Polish literature as the author of a fine realistic novel, ''Alkhadar'' (1854), about the vicissitudes of a romantic conspirator against the backdrop of Polish Galicia's landed gentry, which was being brought to ruin by capitalism.<ref name="Jan Zygmunt Jakubowski p. 499"/>
Chojecki also translated into Polish many French-language works, including (in 1847) the novel ''The Saragossa Manuscript'' by the Polish polymath aristocrat Jan Potocki.<ref name="EP-98" /><ref name="Chojecki-PWN454" /> After sections of Potocki's novel had been lost (other fragments having been published as separate parts in 1804 and 1813–14), the missing sections were restored by back-translation into French from Chojecki's Polish translation.<ref>Czesław Miłosz, ''The History of Polish Literature'', pp. 193–94.</ref>
==See also== *List of Poles *Translation
==Notes== {{reflist}}
==References== *"Chojecki, Edmund," ''Encyklopedia Polski'' (Encyclopedia of Poland), Kraków, Wydawnictwo Ryszard Kluszczyński, 1996, {{ISBN|83-86328-60-6}}, p. 98. *"Chojecki, Edmund," ''Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN'' (PWN Universal Encyclopedia), volume 1, Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1973, p. 454. *Miłosz, Czesław, ''The History of Polish Literature'', 2nd ed., Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983, {{ISBN|0-520-04477-0}}. *Jan Zygmunt Jakubowski, ed., ''Literatura polska od średniowiecza do pozytywizmu'' (Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to Positivism), Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1979, {{ISBN|83-01-00201-8}}.
==External links== {{wikiquote}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Edmund Chojecki}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20080502225446/http://www.polskietradycje.pl/article.php?artykul=277 Polskie Tradycje Intelektualne] (Polish Intellectual Traditions): Edmund Chojecki, "''Patriotyzm i objawy jego u niektórych narodów''" ("Patriotism and Its Manifestations among Various Nations")—a fragment of a paper presented by Chojecki in Paris on 27 January 1870.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chojecki, Edmund}} Category:1822 births Category:1899 deaths Category:19th-century French poets Category:19th-century French novelists Category:19th-century Polish poets Category:19th-century Polish novelists Category:19th-century Polish journalists Category:20th-century Polish translators Category:French–Polish translators Category:Translators from French Category:19th-century French journalists Category:19th-century French newspaper founders Category:19th-century Polish translators Category:French male poets Category:French male novelists Category:19th-century French businesspeople Category:Polish male novelists Category:Polish male poets Category:Writers from Warsaw Category:Participants of the Slavic Congress in Prague 1848 Category:Emigrants from Congress Poland to France Category:19th-century French male journalists Category:19th-century Polish male journalists