RUDNICKI, ADOLF

RUDNICKI, ADOLF (1912–1980), Polish novelist and author. Originally a Warsaw bank clerk, Rudnicki began his literary career at the age of 20, when he published the psychological novel Szczury ("Rats," 1932). His second work, Żołnierze ("Soldiers," 1933), a penetrating description of Polish society and its conflicting ethnic groups between the world wars, roused a storm of protest from the Fascist and reactionary circles which the author had singled out for attack. Three subsequent works were Niekochana ("The Unloved," 1936), Lato ("Summer," 1938), and Doświadczenia ("Experiences," 1939). After the collapse of the Polish army in 1939, Rudnicki managed to escape to Lvov in Soviet-occupied Poland, where he remained during 1940–41, contributing to the periodical Nowe Horyzonty. He later fought in the 1944 Warsaw uprising and after the war wrote for the weeklies Kuźnica and Swiat, moving from Lodz to Warsaw in 1950. Rudnicki's postwar works analyzed the problems and tragic aspects of the Nazi occupation. A second edition of Doświadczenia, titled Profile i drobiazgi żołnierskie ("Profiles and Soldiers' Trifles"), appeared in 1946. The Nazi   nightmare, antisemitism, and the fate of Polish Jewry dominate many of his later works, which include the cycle Epoka pieców ("Time of the Gas Chambers," 1949) and collections of short stories such as Żywe i martwe morze (1952, 19552; "The Dead and the Living Sea," 1957), Szekspir ("Shakespeare," 1948), and Młode cierpienia ("Young Suffering," 1954). Among Rudnicki's other works was the drama Manfred (1954), and he edited a volume on Auschwitz entitled Wieczna pamieć 1955; "Lest We Forget," 1955). In his column "Niebieskie kartki" ("Blue Cards") which he published regularly in Świat until 1968, the writer dealt with a wide range of subjects. Three collections of these columns were Ślepe lustro tych lat ("The Blind Mirror of These Years," 1956), Prześwity ("Afterglows," 1957), and Wspólne zdjęcie ("The Group Photograph, 1967). The suppression of Rudnicki's "Blue Cards" followed the mounting anti-intellectual and antisemite campaign in Poland after the Six-Day War of 1967. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wielka Encyklopedia Powszechna, 10 (1967), 188. (Stanislaw Wygodzki)