Antoni Grabowski

Nevertheless, he prepared himself, driven by a great desire to learn, to take the entrance exam for grammar school (Gymnasium), which he passed with flying colours.

[1] After graduation he worked as a practical chemical engineer in Zawiercie and in locations which now are part of the Czech Republic, and finally as manager of a textile factory in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, 250 km north-east of Moscow.

Grabowski published many articles, including some describing his inventions, in the journals Chemik Polski ("Polish Chemist") and Przegląd Techniczny ("Technical Survey").

Grabowski was already working on this: in 1888 he published La Neĝa Blovado, his translation of Pushkin's Russian short story Метель, known in English variously as The Blizzard and as The Snowstorm; followed in 1889 by La Gefratoj, his translation of Goethe's German one-act play Die Geschwister (1776), known in English both as Brother and Sister and as The Siblings — to name just his first two Esperanto publications.

The anthology El Parnaso de Popoloj ("From The Parnassus Of The Peoples"), published in 1913, contained 116 poems representing 30 languages and cultures.

Ill and isolated, he remained behind in Warsaw, where he busied himself in translating the Polish national epic Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz.

While working on his translation, which was precisely faithful to the original form, he put the latent potential of the planned language to the test, thereby giving significant impetus to the further development of Esperanto poetry.

Suffering from a chronic heart condition but unable to afford the necessary medical treatment, he lived at that time in oppressive poverty, and when his family returned after the end of the war, his body had become almost emaciated.