In 1891, Morcinek was born in
Karviná into a poor family, the youngest of four siblings. In 1892, his father Józef died and his mother was forced to provide for the family. Morcinek started work in the
coal mine at the age of 16, which was quite late compared to the standard of those times. When he was 19, miners raised money for his education and he began attending a teachers' seminary in
Biała Krakowska, from which he graduated in 1914. In 1914 he was drafted into the
Austro-Hungarian Army and after 1918 served briefly in the
Polish Army. In 1920, when
Cieszyn Silesia was divided between
Poland and
Czechoslovakia, his hometown Karviná fell to the latter. Morcinek was a pro-Polish activist and thus decided to stay in Poland. In the 1920s and 1930s he worked as a teacher in
Skoczów.
Interwar period During the interwar period, Morcinek published many articles in the Silesian press. He wrote his most important books in the late 1920s and early 1930s becoming the only notable Silesian Polish-language prosaist of the interwar period. His works concentrate mostly on coal mining and Silesian themes. Morcinek showed miners' work and life in a realistic way and accentuates the
class character of national oppression of Polish miners. Morcinek spent the years 1936-1939 abroad, in Western Europe.
World War II Morcinek returned to Poland shortly before the outbreak of
World War II. Morcinek was arrested by the
Gestapo on 6 September 1939. He was initially imprisoned with
Władysław Dworaczek and other Polish intellectuals from Silesia. Gustaw spent the entire war in the
Nazi concentration camps of
Skrochovice,
Sachsenhausen and
Dachau. The supposed reason given for his arrest was his "anti-German activity" before the war and the fact that a dog in one of his novels () was named Bismarck. When Morcinek was in concentration camps, he was given a choice to sign a
Volksliste but refused.
After the war From his release until November 1946, Morcinek resided in
France, Italy and Belgium and cooperated with the Polish émigré press there. He then returned to Silesia,
Poland, and settled in
Katowice. He was then actively supported by the new authorities. Morcinek resumed his writing and continued to concentrate on Silesian issues, but widened his scope to books for children and also
epistolography. He received wide recognition and literary awards for his work and many of his books were translated and published abroad. Morcinek died of
leukemia on 20 December 1963 in Kraków and was later buried at Communal Cemetery in
Cieszyn. ==Political activity==