Leopold Staff (14 November 1878 in Lemberg [now Lviv, Ukraine] 31 May 1957 in Skarżysko-Kamienna) was a Polish poet and one of the greatest artists of European modernism honored two times by honorary degrees. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Representative of classicism symbolism in the poetry of Young Poland, an author of many philosophical poems strong influenced by the idea of the Übermensch, the ideas of the Franciscan order, and paradoxes of Christianity.