Long Fiction:
Syzyfowe Prace, 1897
Ludzie bezdomni, 1900
Popioły, 1904 (Ashes, 1928)
Wierna rzeka, 1912 (The Faithful River, 1943)
Wiatr od morza, 1922
Przedwiośnie, 1925
Puszcza jodłowa, 1925
Short Fiction:
Rozdziobią nas kruki, wrony, 1895
Opowiadania, 1895
Utwory powieścowe, 1898
Drama:
Róza, pr. 1909
Uciekła mi przepióreczka, pr. 1924
Stefan Żeromski (zheh-RAWM-skee) was born near Kielce in Russian Poland, November 1, 1864, of an impoverished noble family. Throughout his life he chafed under this czarist domination, and his short stories frequently take as their subject the resistance of Polish secret organizations. Żeromski was even more directly involved. In 1905, during the revolt against Russia, he was imprisoned; later he went into semi-voluntary exile in France and Austrian Galicia, where he remained until the end of World War I.
Żeromski wrote plays and poetry, but his claim to greatness stems from his novels. Most famous of these is Ashes, which has been called the War and Peace of Poland. Although his great lyrical descriptive vein is not so evident in this work as it is in Wiatr od morza (the wind from the sea), Ashes possesses the scope and richness of characterization to make it an authentic masterpiece.
There is a dark pessimism to Żeromski’s writing that is characteristic of the Polish positivist school; perhaps it was this quality–as well as his extreme nationalism–that prevented him from winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. During his career he contributed many characters to the Polish national consciousness, and for that he was honored by his fellow Poles. He died in Warsaw on November 20, 1925.