Józef Lobodowski (1909–1988) was born into a Polish family at a time when the Polish state did not exist on the political map of Europe. Since 1795, the Third Partition of Poland, his homeland had been divided between the empires of Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Lobodowski’s life itself reflects the history of Poland in all its glory and wretchedness. Born into the family of a colonel in the Tsarist army, Lobodowski came into the world near Kaunas in Lithuania. Because of his father’s career, he and his family moved to Lublin, thence to Moscow, and thence to the Kuban, the setting of his most famous works in prose.