Bruno Jasieński Writer
Bruno Jasieński pronounced [ˈbrunɔ jaˈɕeɲskʲi]; born Wiktor Zysman (Klimontów, Congress Poland, 17 July 1901 – killed 17 September 1938, Butyrka prison, Moscow) was a Polish poet and leader of the Polish futurist movement, executed during the Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union (1937–1938) by the NKVD. It was earlier believed that he died in prisoner transport from natural causes.Wiktor (Bruno) was born to a Polish Jewish family of Zysmans. From his mother's side he was a descendant of nobility (Pol. szlachta). His father, Jakub Zysman, was a local doctor and a social worker, member of the local intelligentsia. He converted to Protestantism to be able to marry a Catholic girl, Eufemia Maria Modzelewska, a Polish noble, member of the Modzelewski family of the Bończa coat of arms, with whom he had three children: Wiktor (pen name Bruno Jasieński), Jerzy and Irena. Today one of the streets of Klimontów is named after him.Little is known of Jasieński's early life, especially as he did not describe it in his works. He attended high school in Warsaw, but didn't finish it. In 1914 his family moved to Russia, where Bruno graduated from the secondary school in Moscow. There, his fascination with Igor Severyanin's ego-futurism started, followed by lectures of Velimir Chlebnikov, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Alexiey Kruchonykh's Visual poems. In 1918, after Poland regained its independence, Bruno returned to Kraków, where he applied for a position in the philosophical faculty of the Jagiellonian University. However, he suspended his studies to join the volunteer unit of the Polish Army and took part in the disarming of Austrian and German soldiers. After the Polish-Soviet War (February 1919 – March 1921), he returned to University and studied at various faculties (including philosophy, law and Polish literature). He also became one of the founders of a club of futurists named Katarynka (Hurdy-gurdy).
