Leszek Wątróbski: Your family comes from Lithuania…
Krystyna Rodzewicz: Yes. My parents got married in the church in Olany (lit. Alionys). When I am in Lithuania, I light a candle at the local cemetery on the grave of Jadwiga Pażusiowa, my great-grandmother born in 1877 in the town of “Po Miemie” – Lewaniszki, my grandparents came from Ejciuny, and my great-grandfather – Dominik Rodzewicz – was born in Bołkuny. My parents left their homeland in 1957 and settled in Szczecin, which enchanted them (as my mother used to say). I was born here.
During your studies, you were a journalist in the Academic Radio “Pomorze”.
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Journalism fascinated me from a young age. I was already writing in high school (I was even among the winners of the Youth Journalism Competition). During my studies, with a cassette recorder in my hand (it was then a technical novelty after the big, reel-to-reel ones) I made radio reports. I remember one of them — about student families and mothers. Mostly they were student couples and married couples living in a dormitory with a small child. I talked to them and introduced the listeners to their everyday life. At that time, I also published reports and stories in periodicals (for example, “Morzu i Ziemi”).
Nevertheless, you chose to study at the polytechnic…
Yes. I graduated from civil engineering (Master’s studies at the Szczecin University of Technology). In those days, journalism studies were conducted in the form of post-graduate studies and each candidate had to have a diploma from other studies to try to get into journalism. So I thought that after finishing construction, I would also do journalism, but I started building houses and industrial halls … Then I did postgraduate studies, but in Industrial Systems Management, and in French (diploma from École centrale Paris – Main School in Paris). I also expanded my knowledge as a scholarship holder of the European Community TEMPUS program in Lyon (École centrale de Lyon). All this meant that in my professional career I managed the marketing of a large corporation and was a director in an international company (a holding of companies with factories in France, Spain, Hungary and Poland).
Over the last few years, you have combined your professional work with writing studies at the University of Szczecin.
When five years ago a new bachelor’s course called Writing Studies was opened in Szczecin, I decided to study again. It seems that “writing” was somewhere in me all the time (laughs) and I went back to it. Even before Writing Studies, I published poems, wrote and published my first books. After defending my bachelor’s thesis, I continued my second-cycle studies and this year I graduated with a master’s degree, this time in humanities.
| photo. Leszek Wątróbski
You are currently collecting materials for your work on Szczecin in the literature of the 21st century.
I want to show how our city is perceived by writers and how they present it to readers. Szczecin fascinates me very much, not only because I was born there. It is an interesting example of a city created by others and for others, because in 1945 almost all its inhabitants changed practically overnight. I am interested in how the city affects its inhabitants and vice versa, how people shape their surroundings. How are these mutual relations formed and how does the so-called the spirit of the place? I hope that the books about my city, written in the last twenty years, will satisfy my curiosity.
You have published five books. And yes in 2015, a volume of poems “Index of Happiness” was published, in 2016 – a volume of poetic prose “North of the North Pole”, in 2017 – the novel “Questions from the depths” and then the prose collections “Europo … Europa!” in 2018 and “Boarding in Szczecin” in 2020.
My book “Europe…Europe!” shows a slightly perverse, non-guided look at various places on our continent. It contains the impressions of a person who observes and then, describing their experiences, does not necessarily inform about famous monuments and visited places. She is more interested in people and everyday places. After its publication, I decided that it was time to write something similar about Szczecin. And that’s how my last book was created – “Abordaże Szczecińskie”.
This is already a very Szczecin book…
… shows our city, but also not in a guidebook. In it, I invite the reader for a walk around the city of Gryfa. The kind to which friends who came to visit us from other places or countries are invited. And I show not only monuments, but also cafes and exhibitions. We watch, talk and share impressions. Places evoke memories, so we tell our own and heard stories. We also create fictitious ones to reflect the spirit of a place, time or character. I have traveled a lot and seen a lot in my life, but I still see my city as wonderful. I always leave with great joy of learning new things, but I come back with even greater joy, appreciating the outstanding qualities of Szczecin.
You often have foreign guests whom you show around Szczecin. What do you show them when they come here for the first time?
We have many such places. Depending on who they are and what passions they have, what they are interested in, I make a choice. The walk for each of them is profiled differently.
If my guests were people from Western countries, unfamiliar with the realities of communist terror or persuading people into confidential deals, I would take them to the Upheavals Dialogue Center. This museum, in addition to the original architecture, which has been awarded, among others, by The European Museum Of The Year Awards 2019 and awarded the Special Commendation, it also has an original interior and an exhibition that shows how it really was in the People’s Republic of Poland. I have been there many times and watched the reaction of the visitors. I saw how many of them stared in disbelief at individual exhibits that talked about terror, imprisonment or interrogation. Breakthroughs are really commendable. They are somehow an attempt to realize that our life, our place on earth, is undoubtedly influenced by the environment – but not only the material one. This museum shows the atmosphere of those communist times in Szczecin and Poland.
The surroundings of the Museum are very diverse buildings.
When we are on the roof of this museum, we can see a cross-section of the entire city. Nearby, there is an interesting Art Nouveau tenement house, which today is the police headquarters, and next to it is the modern building of the Szczecin Philharmonic (awarded in many architectural competitions), built in 2011-2014 in place of the Art Nouveau Konzerthaus building destroyed at the end of World War II (its hall, built for chamber concerts and educational events, was rated by experts as an “acoustic gem”). Finally, there is the oldest temple in the city at your fingertips. It is a small Gothic brick church from the 13th century (Saints Peter and Paul), located on the European Route of Brick Gothic. And next to it, on Plac Solidarności, there is the Monument to the Victims of December 1970 (commonly known as the Angel of Freedom) commemorating the victims of the tragic events from 51 years ago. Next is the Renaissance Pomeranian Dukes’ Castle from the 13th century located on the Castle Hill. It is the historical seat of the Gryfit family, the rulers of the Duchy of Pomerania. The star-shaped layout of streets in the center of Szczecin (to a large extent reminiscent of the one in Paris) is definitely worth showing. We also have great city panoramas. I recommend one of them – from Waly Chrobrego, from which you can admire the Odra River and its nearby backwaters. Dąbie Lake is also interesting. There are a lot of such and similar places in Szczecin.
And what will you do after writing your master’s thesis? Are you already thinking about your next book?
Considering the extremely interesting topic I am working on, it may not only result in a scientific work, but also a book written in a more friendly language – one for a “normal” reader. We’ll see.
„Abordaże Szczecińskie” is a collection of texts that represent various literary genres.
Yes, there are stories, reviews and reports, but not only. The name boarding is a term I created for a text that is similar to a genre hybrid, i.e. a work that combines various literary genres. Mixing literary genres (and other genres in broadly understood art) is now a fairly common creative technique, variously called (e.g. collage or mélange – words from the French language). I, under the influence of the French language and culture, which is close to me, gave a new meaning to the Polish word “abordaż” (which also comes from French). First of all – it sounds much better than (for me, having primarily biological connotations) a species hybrid. Secondly, I believe that as an author I have the right to express my thoughts in the way I want, not sticking to long-ago invented, ossified literary genres. After all, my “Szczecin Boarding” is not a scientific work, which is written according to rigid rules. I think one of the most interesting elements of this book is that it is written in a free way. For example, there are texts that at first glance appear to be reviews that are actually essays. There are also other mixtures of genres, created for the purpose of telling a specific story, or presented in a non-tiring way (i.e. in such a way that the reader reads to the end) facts or statistical data.
Some readers compare it with “Personal Guide to Prague” by Mariusz Szczygieł. Do you agree with this comparison?
Indeed, it is a kind of guide to Szczecin. There are also those who say that the book resembles “Streets of Szczecin” by Artur Daniel Liskowacki. These are interesting comparisons, but in my opinion it is difficult to classify this book unambiguously. This is certainly my individual view of the city and perhaps not everyone will be interested, but I did not make such an assumption when writing “Abordaże Szczecinskie”. Anyway, I’m not hiding it. The first text of the book is titled “Don’t Read”…
However, I recommend and congratulate you. And I am waiting for your next book.
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