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Andrzej Vincenz

Andrzej Vincenz, linguist, Slavist, Polish publicist and professor at the Universities of Heidelberg and Göttingen, was born in Lviv on 13 March 1922 as the first child of the writer and philosopher Stanisław Vincenz and his wife Irena Vincenzowa. For Andrzej Vincenz, who left Poland in 1940 while fleeing from Soviet troops and later lived in exile, Poland's affairs were his first priority. Stations in his life led him through Poland, England, France and Germany. Wherever he was he remembered his "little homeland" and the country of his childhood – the Hutsul country.

Andrzej Vincenz, Breslau 1989

Tadeusz Drankowski, Breslau

He became the editor of the radio programme “Język francuski dla Polski” (A French voice for Poland), which was transmitted through Radio France International. He considered this to be a voluntary activity, but after a few years one of his colleagues successfully appealed for his work to be remunerated. For Andrzej Vincenz, these outstanding payments constituted a starting capital that allowed him to purchase a summer house in the alpine village of La Combe des Lancey near Grenoble – the purchase being made with his parents in mind. In the future, they would be visited by Czesław Milosz, Józef Czapski and Jeanne Hersch at this house.

Andrzej Vincenz’s master’s thesis dealt with the Old Provençal dialect. The material for this work came from linguistic research which he carried out in La Combe de Lancey and its surrounds. Later, in his post-doctoral thesis, he would examine Hutsul first names (Traite d'anthroponymie houtzoule. Forum Slavicum 18, Munich 1970). At the end of the 1950s, Andrzej Vincenz contacted Prof. Dmitrij Tschižewskij (1894–1977), the founder of Slavic Studies in post-war Germany, who taught at the University in Heidelberg. In 1960, Andrzej moved from Paris to Heidelberg as a lecturer in the Polish language.

His second wife, the Swiss-born Sylvia Solari (1938–1994), followed him shortly afterwards. Andrzej Vincenz became a father. The couple had a daughter Anna (born in 1961) and a son Stanisław (born in 1963). In the 1960s, there was a significant rise in interest in Polish literature and culture in Germany. At that time, the poet and translator of “Pan Tadeusz”, Hermann Buddensieg (1893–1976), was working in Heidelberg where he published the extensive periodical “Mickiewicz-Blätter” three times a year. Andrzej Vincenz arranged the contact between Buddensieg and Stanisław Vincenz. He also had close contact to Karl Dedecius (1921–2016), a translator of Polish literature who lived in Frankfurt. His support was also instrumental in establishing contact with the group involved in the “Kultura” in Paris. Andrzej Vincenz became a link between this part of Germany and the milieu of Polish intellectuals in Paris. He often commuted between Heidelberg and Paris, and spent the summer months in the area around Grenoble.

After his post-doctorate degree at the Sorbonne in 1966, in 1967 he became a professor at the university in Heidelberg. In 1973, he moved to the university in Göttingen as a linguist and professor of Slavic Studies. From 1967, he was a member of the Scientific Society in Exile.