Poetry Month: Europa

Europa / Europe
Warsaw: Księgarnia F. Hoesicka, 1929. Printer: Ministerstwa Spraw Wojskowych (Ministry of Army Affairs Press)
Poem by Anatol Stern (Polish, 1899–1968) in Polish and French
Cover design by Teresa Żarnower (Polish, 1897–1949)
Layout and typography by Mieczysław Szczuka (Polish, 1898–1927)
Introduction by Jan Nepomucen Miller (Polish, 1890–1977)
Lithograph (13 leaves), 11 3/8 x 10 5/8" (29.5 x 27.5 cm)
Edition: 604/800

Written in 1924, in the aftermath of the First World War, Anatol Stern’s narrative poem Europa registered the violence and aggression of that conflict through its short, aggressive, slogan-like sentences:

it is the race of the ages
always the same
the venerable
murder of
civilization
the ecstasy of sensuality
a brain
twisted with intensity
the XXth
century is a haarman [policeman]
devouring his own loves !

The poet invoked the sensory assault, persuasive powers, and deception of modern newspaper headlines, advertising slogans, cinema, and newsreels:

film of world war
directors
cameramen blinded
all captions erased
impossible to understand

Europa was first published in the polish periodical Reflektor: Czasopismo Literackie (Reflector: Literary Journal), no. 3 (Lublin, May 1925): 99–100, unillustrated and conventionally typeset:

Four years later, it was published as a large-scale, nearly square, stand-alone volume in Polish and French with a photomontaged cover by Teresa Żarnower and bold, graphic internal spreads by Mieczysław Szczuka. The violence of the cover imagery—the snarling monkey, the gun barrels—the rupture of its juxtapositions, and aggression of its crude typography and palette, all of which bring to mind contemporary Soviet models, amplify the tenor of Stern’s poem while situating it within the visual milieu of the late 1920s.

Szczuka’s six internal spreads are reproduced below in order of appearance in the 1929 book and are paired with translations by S.T. and M.H. from Europa: A Poem by Anatol Stern, with a preface by Oswell Blakeston and an introduction by Michael Horovitz (London: Gaberbocchus, 1962).

April 21, 2026