Beata Obertyńska

Beata Obertyńska, (pen name "Marta Rudzka"), born July 18, 1898, near Skole, died May 21, 1980 in London was a Polish writer and poet.

Life
Beata was the daughter of the Young Poland poet Maryla Wolska and granddaughter of the sculptor Wanda Monne (the fiance of Artur Grottger. Her father was an engineer and industrialist in the oil business, Wacław Wolski. She was the wife of the landowner Józef Obertyński.

She spent her childhood and adolescent in the family villa in Lwow where she studied at home and then passed her high school exams. In her youth she was associated with the Skamander movement.

Her first poems were published in 1924 in "Słowo Polskie". She studied in the National Institute of Theater Arts. Between 1933 and 1937 she made appearances on the Lwów theater stage.

During the Soviet occupation of Lwów, in July 1940, she was arrested by the NKVD. She was imprisoned in the famous Brygidki prison and later moved to prisons in Kiev, Odessa, Kharkiv, Starobielsk and finally in the Vorkuta concentration camp. In 1942, due to the amnesty following the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement, she was released and joined the Anders Army. She served with the army through all of its campaigns in Iran, Palestine, Egypt and Italy.

After the war she settled in London and published in Polish language magazines; "Dziennik Polski", "Dziennik Żołnierza", "Orzeł Biały", "Polska Walcząca", "Ochotniczka", "Wiadomoście", "Życie", and "Przegląd Polski".

She was the laureate of several literary awards, among others the award of the London based "Przegląd Powszechny" (1967), of the Lanckoroński Foundation (1972), the award of The Polish Ex-Combatants Association (1972) and the Jurzykowski Prize (1974).

She died in 1980 in London.

Poems

 * Pszczoły w słoneczniku (1927, "Bees in the sunflower")
 * Głóg przydrożny (1932, "Hawthorn by the roadside"),
 * Otawa. Wiersze dawne i nowe (Jerozolima 1945, "Ottawa. New and Old Poems"),
 * Miód i piołun (Londyn 1972, "Honey and Wormwood"),
 * Anioł w knajpie (Londyn 1977, "The Angel at the bar"),
 * Perły – wiersze (Brighton 1980, "Pearls - poems"),
 * Wiersze wybrane (1983, "Selected poems")
 * Grudki kadzidła (Londyn, Kraków 1987, "Crumbs of resin")
 * Skrząca libella (1991)
 * Liryki najpiękniejsze (1999, "Beautiful lyrics")

Novels and memories

 * Gitara i tamci (1926, "They and the guitar")
 * Wspomnienia (Quodlibet, 1974, memoirs, together with her mother Maryla Wolska)
 * W domu niewoli (Rzym 1946, "In the house of slavery")
 * Skarb Eulenburga (tom 1-2, Londyn 1987-1988, "Eulenburg's treasure").