Kisielewski was born to a Polish father
Zygmunt Kisielewski and a Jewish mother Salomea Szapiro. In 1927 he entered the State Conservatory of Music in Warsaw, where he received three diplomas: in theory (1934, under
Kazimierz Sikorski), in composition (1937, also under K. Sikorski) and in pedagogical piano (1937, under
Jerzy Lefeld). He also studied Polish literature and philosophy at Warsaw University and completed his composition studies in Paris, in the years 1938–39. As a composer, Kisielewski remained firmly rooted in French
neo-classicism, although his writings supported contemporary musical trends in Poland more broadly . His writing and political thought were generally marked by
pragmatism and support for
liberalism. In 1964 he was one of the signatories of the so-called
Letter of 34 to Prime Minister
Józef Cyrankiewicz regarding freedom of culture. In 1968, for criticizing censorship in communist Poland (at the meeting of the
Polish Writers' Union he used the designation 'dyktatura ciemniaków' – 'a dictatorship of dunces' – which became famous in Poland), he was forbidden to publish for three years. He was also beaten up by so-called "unknown perpetrators" (a euphemism for perpetrators of criminal acts of political violence who in all likelihood were members of the
Communist secret police). In 1981 he coined the sentence "It's not a crisis, it's a result" to describe the down turn of the Polish economy at that time as a result of socialism. Another one of his famous statements was "socialism heroically overcomes difficulties unknown in any other system", referring to the fact that many of the economic and social ills found under socialism were self-created. In 1990, together with the magazine
Wprost, he established the
Kisiel Prize. == Works ==