Bruno Jasienski

Bruno Jasienski, born Wiktor Zysman, was a Polish poet and leader of the Polish futurist movement, executed during the Polish operation of the NKVD in the Soviet Union.

He was born to a Polish family of Zysmans with Jewish and German roots, but from his mother's side he was a descendant of nobility. His father, Jakub Zysman, was a local doctor and a social worker, member of the local intelligentsia.

In 1929 Jasienski moved to the USSR and settled in Leningrad, where he accepted Soviet citizenship, and was quickly promoted by the authorities. In 1932 he transferred from the Polish division of the French Communist Party to the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and soon became a prominent member of that organization. He migrated to Moscow. During that period he served at various posts in the branch unions of communist writers. He was also granted honorary citizenship of Tajikistan.

By the mid-1930s he became a strong supporter of Genrikh Yagoda's political purges within the writers' community. Jasieński is often mentioned as the initiator of the persecution of Isaak Babel. However, in 1937 the tide turned and Yagoda himself was arrested and Jasieński lost a powerful protector. Soon afterwards Jasieński's former wife, Klara, was also arrested, sentenced to death and executed. Jasieński was expelled from the party, and soon afterwards he was also caught up in the purges. Sentenced to 15 years in a labour camp, he was executed on 17 September 1938 in Butyrka prison in Moscow.

His second wife Anna was arrested the following year and spent 17 years in various Russian concentration camps. Jasieński's underage son was stripped of his identity and sent to an orphanage, but managed to escape during World War II. After the war he went on to become a prominent figure in Russia's criminal underworld. He eventually discovered his true heritage, and under a Polish name became a member of various illegal organizations in opposition to the Communist authorities. He was killed in the 1970s.

Bruno Jasieński remains one of the most notable Polish futurists and as such is still acclaimed by members of various modernist art groups as a patron. A yearly futurist Brunonalia festival held in Klimontów, Poland, is named after him.