Szpotański Janusz

Szpotański Janusz, alias Władysław Gnomacki, Aleksander Oniegow (12 January 1929, Warsaw – 13 October 2001, Warsaw), poet, satirist.

He wrote a number of highly stylised grotesque pieces ridiculing the communist ideology and the political life of the Polish People’s Republic, all of which he distributed among his friends in the 1960s (samizdat copies started to be published in 1977). In 1968, he was put on trial and sentenced to three years in prison. He was released in 1969 following the country-wide amnesty. One of the most renowned satires written by Szpotański are the opera Cisi i gęgacze czyli bal u prezydenta (1964) or Ballada o Łupaszce (1968), a piece dedicated to Paweł Jasienica.

The entry was written by Martyna Rusiniak-Karwat, Ph.D. on the basis of source materials of the PWN printing house

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