Zdzisław Józef Skłodowski

Zdzisław Skłodowski (1841–1914) completed a translation of Hamlet, which in 1935 was corrected and published by his relative, Józef Skłodowski. Zdzisław Skłodowski studied law in Saint Petersburg. After the fall of the January Uprising (1863-1864), which he took part in, he moved to France, where he completed a PhD in law at the University of Toulouse. In 1866 he returned to Poland and taught at the ‘Main School of Warsaw’, as the University of Warsaw was originally called. Eventually, however, he abandoned his academic career. In 1880 he became a notary in Skalbmierz and also maintained his own legal practice in Miechów. He retired in 1908 and translated Hamlet that same year.

According to an account by Józef Skłodowski, all his uncle’s Shakespeare translations, with the exception of the history plays, were bought in manuscript by a publishing house. In the event, however, they were not published. In 1934 Józef Skłodowski bought back some of the manuscripts from the publisher’s heirs. He edited and issued Hamlet himself, creating a lasting memorial to his uncle’s life-long passion. The translation is almost entirely written in rhymed eleven-syllable lines, including the passages where the original switches to prose.

This translation, the work of an enthusiast, did not receive many reviews. Those that did appear were indulgently favourable. It has not been reissued and never been staged. The enterprise, however – and particularly the way in which it demonstrates the talents, literary ambitions and strong familial bonds of the Skłodowski family – is sometimes referenced in the context of research into the life of Marie Curie, née Maria Skłodowska.