Generation of Columbuses

The Generation of Columbuses (Polish: pokolenie Kolumbów) is a term denoting the generation of Poles who were born soon after Poland regained its independence in 1918, and whose adolescence was marked by the tragic times of World War II. The term itself was coined by Roman Bratny in his well-received 1957 novel Kolumbowie. Rocznik 20 and was itself based on the name of Christopher Columbus, as Bratny described the entire generation as the ones who discovered Poland. The term is generally applied to young intelligentsia, but it also includes all young people who, instead of living their lives the way most 20-year-old people do, had to fight against the foreign occupation and study at secret universities.

Among the notable people commonly associated with the generation are:

• Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, a catastrophist poet who was killed in the Warsaw Uprising
• Władysław Bartoszewski,
• Miron Białoszewski, a poet and a writer
• Teresa Bogusławska, a poet, arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak, she died of meningitis in 1945
• Wacław Bojarski, a wartime poet and journalist of underground newspapers, died 1943
• Tadeusz Borowski, a poet and writer who survived Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Dachau concentration camp only to commit suicide in 1951
• Roman Bratny, writer
• Olgierd Budrewicz, journalist and Varsavianist
• Jerzy Ficowski, poet, journalist and ethnologist, pioneer of research on post-war Jewish and Gypsy life in Poland
• Tadeusz Gajcy, a poet, killed in the Warsaw Uprising
• Stanisław Grzesiuk,
• Zbigniew Herbert,
• Gustaw Herling-Grudziński
• Krystyna Krahelska, a girl-guide, poet and singer, model for the monument of the Warsaw's Siren, killed in the Warsaw Uprising
• Stanisław Lem,
• Stanislas Likiernik
• Wojciech Mencel, a poet, killed in the Warsaw Uprising
• Włodzimierz Pietrzak, an art critic and author, killed in the Warsaw Uprising
• Jan Romocki, scouting instructor and a poet, died in the Warsaw Uprising
• Tadeusz Różewicz,
• Stanisław Staszewski,
• Zdzisław Stroiński, a poet, killed in the Warsaw Uprising
• Andrzej Trzebiński, a dramatist, novelist and a poet, arrested by the Germans, shot to death in 1943
• Józef Szczepański, a poet, killed in the Warsaw Uprising
• Andrzej Szczypiorski,
• Karol Wojtyła, later known as pope John Paul II