Polish Women Writers


Grazyna Borkowska


0000-00-00

Literature written by women constitutes an important segment of Polish letters. Women writers do not obviously form a strictly distinct, closed group. On the contrary, they are present everywhere, in every period, movement, and genre of Polish literature. This is not to deny their historical uniqueness. While they may not write with the body, as modern feminists would have it, yet they feel the burden of corporeality and existential limitations, the pressure of time, which brings about anxiety or madness, and the ticking of the biological clock. Accomplished in the realisation of aesthetic goals, they are less interested in those goals than their male peers. Bold and unconventional, they rarely undertake purely philosophical discussions. Their passion is for existence experienced over time, in daily acts of the perception of life, love, loss and rejection, admiration of the world's beauty, and an overt or covert distaste for all ideologies that lack living truth. For them, heroism in the face of history differs from its construction in many male texts. Women tend to locate that heroism in gestures of solidarity or co-participation, rather than in ideology. The value that women writers attach to the joy of life and love, at the cost of ideology, is somewhat at odds with the official picture of Polish culture, which grounds its identity in the ideals of freedom, group bonds, and sacrifice, while preferring the public to the private and denying the metaphysical status of intimate experience. Against this background, female writing constitutes an enclave of rigorous and uncompromising respect for existential privacy. This does not bar women from describing other spheres of reality. No subject is alien to them. They leave their own mark on the issues of war and independence, making history intimate and setting its course against the order of individual biography. Here, again, a reservation seems in order: these women writers are not alone. Many men, especially today, construct narratives along similar lines. If there is, then, something essentially distinctive about women's writing, it is consistency. Women's work touches upon the biographical tissue of existence from the writer's first hesitant steps. This touch of living matter is a permanent feature of women's writing, and all attempts to depart from it are evanescent, unsuccessful, or tragic. Three stages A complete overview of Polish women's literary output would comprise almost ten centuries of Polish letters. This long period requires internal demarcation, and organising the different eras calls for precise criteria of selection. It seems reasonable to divide women's writing into three stages. Stage one - Old Poland - lasts the longest, from the eleventh century (Modlitwy Ksieznej Gertrudy - The Prayers of Duchess Gertrude) to the eighteenth century. During that period, women writers appeared rarely on the literary scene. Neither the educational system nor the cultural models favoured artistic endeavours by Polish women. Nevertheless, some women reached for literary means of expression. They created extraordinary works that were, however, not always noticed and appreciated by their contemporaries. Old Polish models of behaviour were not exclusively restrictive. Noble culture fostered subjective expression. Its liberal customs allowed for the expression of emotion and descriptions of the love game, desire, and erotic longing. It was only the nineteenth century - subject to the Romantic sublimation of feelings, the norms of bourgeois morality, and Biedermeier and Victorian aesthetics - that placed a restrictive ethical corset on writers, and especially women writers. Old Polish literature, in both of its varieties - noble and courtly - was open to the expression of feelings. In fact, no ethical orders regulated the literature of personal documents, diaries, and letters. Women's private correspondence showed an amazing openness in the utterance of various emotional states. The nineteenth century imposed much greater restraint on women and manners, forcing women to behave modestly even in intimate relations. Polish women of earlier periods spoke openly of love, yearning, unsatisfied lust, and rejection. In the Old Polish period, the literary activity of women was not limited to lyrical confessions in verse or prose. It featured a variety of themes and genres, including religious, mystical and dramatic works, together with translations. The second stage was relatively short, covering the period from Poland's loss of independence (1795) to its recovery (1918). What accounts for the distinctness of this stage? A single theme of patriotism and national independence dominated Polish culture. Overtly or indirectly, writers posed questions about surviving subjugation. Literary women succumbed to historical pressure and spoke with the voice of the downtrodden nation. The most outstanding women writers quite quickly came to their senses. They began to understand that the single-minded concentration on political freedom impoverished the interior life and created a cultural obsession. These women tried to subvert the primacy and exclusiveness of nationalist concerns. In extreme cases, they wrote for groups of friends or "for the desk drawer," that is, without any hope of publication. At times, their misgivings about the accepted model of behaviour can be decoded from biographical documents that break the conventions of typical nineteenth-century scenarios. The women writers of the nineteenth century, in most cases, took up poetry or the novel. Naturally, the diary and letters remained as domains of uncensored expression. The third stage - modernity broadly conceived - embraces the whole of the twentieth century, starting from the end of the First World War. The country was free, female suffrage guaranteed, and the scope for artistic expression enormous. Not without resistance by critics, women joined the forefront of literature. Success no longer required renunciation and camouflage. Femininity could be employed boldly as a subject and source of inspiration. At the same time, a certain manner of critical writing about women's work appeared, or gained prominence. If women were outstanding, they were outstanding "to a certain extent." If they achieved excellence, then it was an excellence "of its own sort." The identity of the womanly and the universal was denied. It was not generally accepted that the contemplation of femininity could reveal anything of tragic, metaphysical, or mystical significance. Only in recent decades has women's creative output succeeded in breaking through this barrier. Feminine literature penetrates the sphere of privacy, while at the same time being a way of learning (or creating?) a philosophy of existence, of participating in a uniquely understood mystical experience. Women's writing once again covers a variety of themes and genres. Women write poetry, novels, essays, and, less often, drama. They remain less receptive to ideological and aesthetic debates. They are often satisfied with the contemplation of the sinful beauty of the world or, in the words of the 1996 Nobel prize winner Wislawa Szymborska, with "a sense of participation." Women Writers of the Old Polish Period Women Writers of the 19th Century Women Writers of the 20th Century Bibliography A Lexicon of Women Writers of the Old Polish Period The first text that draws the attention of researchers to the educated women of the Old Polish period is Duchess Gertruda's (c. 1020-1108) prayer book, which comes from the eleventh century and has been preserved in the former residence of the patriarchs of Aquileia, Cividale del Friuli, at the foot of the Carinthian Alps. What do we know about the owner of this precious book? She was the granddaughter of Boleslaus the Brave, the first king of Poland, the daughter of Mieszko II and Rycheza, the niece of the emperor Otto III. In 1031, the eleven-year-old Gertruda, together with her parents, left war-torn Poland. Her father recovered his throne for a year, but her mother never returned to her husband's homeland, although she made use of the royal title until the end of her life. Rycheza took great pains to educate her three children. She devoted equal care to the education of her first-born son, Casimir, and her daughters, who were taught under the supervision of their aunts, who were abbesses of women's religious houses. Gertruda knew Latin, could read and write, and mastered the scriptures. Around the year 1043, she married prince Iziaslav of Kiev. Territorially expanded by Yaroslav the Wise, Kiev experienced years of splendour, while the prince's young wife enjoyed wide popularity. The vicissitudes of Gertruda's later life are as turbulent as the times she lived in. She lost her husband, the duchy, and her beloved son, Yaropelek Peter. She lived to an old age, attending to family matters in both of her homelands, Poland and Kiev. The text in question is a superbly illuminated Psalter that had been prepared for archbishop Egbert of Treviso at the end of the tenth century. In the spaces between the psalms and on bound-in pages, Gertruda wrote the texts of over one hundred prayers. We do not know exactly how the Psalter ended up in the hands of the Kievan duchess. More than likely, it was part of Rycheza's dowry. Gertruda could have received it during a visit to Kiev by the provost of the Treviso cathedral. The most significant thing is the fact that the duchess composed the Psalter afresh. She was probably not the author of the added prayers, which she copied from other Latin sources. But she did not copy them at random; she composed her work. A creative attitude to religion and prayers, the clear personal note that comes through the Psalter, made Gertruda the first lady of Polish women's literary culture. Three other women feature prominently in religious literature. The first of these is Magdalena Morteska (1554-1631), born in the Prussian lands that paid allegiance to the Polish crown. Following her mother's premature death, she was sent to a convent and trained as a homemaker. She was not taught to read or write, but acquired those skills in secret. She decided to become a nun, but her father objected. She ran away to the Benedictine monastery in Chelmno, and only through the mediation of others did she obtain her father's forgiveness. Shortly afterwards, she became abbess and started reforming the order, modifying the rule of St. Benedict. The change consisted in reinforcing the sisters' spirituality through meditation and contemplation, and in moderating an overly ascetic regime. Morteska left behind two works of religious-mystical literature. The first, Nauki duchowne sluzace do postepu duchownego (Spiritual Teachings Serving Spiritual Progress), is a biblical commentary. The second, Rozmyslania o Mece Panskiej (Meditations on the Passion of Christ), reflects on Christ's sufferings in accordance with the Benedictine rule. The distinctly intimate character of the religious experience endows these works with a mystical dimension. The second religious woman writer of note from the Old Polish era, Anna Maria (Marianna) Marchocka (1603-1652), also had to overcome family resistance to her taking the vows. Despite poor health, she chose an order with an extremely strict rule - the Discalced Carmelites. She stayed in cloisters in Cracow, Lviv and Warsaw. She made her name in Polish literature and spirituality as the author of a mystical autobiography written on orders from her confessor. This is the first text of its kind in Polish, modelled on the works of St. Teresa of Ávila, in which the depth of religious feeling is conveyed by simple, matter-of-fact language.
Marchocka presents her path to 'purification' from sensual temptations, pride, and self-love, as well as moments of ecstatic unity with God and the difficulties of coming back to reality. Her autobiography is a distinguished work, comparable with the mystical masterpieces of Western Europe.

The third great religious author is Konstancja Benislawska of Ryki (1747-1806), a poor noblewoman who married into the wealthy and very well educated Benislawski family. Her in-laws included eminent Jesuits and university lecturers. Yet it was she, the modest mother of a formidable brood of children (she gave birth to twenty two of them!), who made the family's name. Beautiful and gifted with an exceptional character, she won the hearts of her relatives through her ability to compose verse. In 1776, she published in Vilnius the collection Piesni sobie spiewane od Konstancji z Rykow Benislawskiej, stolnikowej ksiestwa inflanckiego, za naleganiem przyjaciol z cienia wiejskiego na jasnie wydane (Songs Sung to Herself, at the Instigation of Friends, Brought by Konstancja of Ryki Benislawska from Rural Shade to the Daylight of Publication).
The Songs constitute a cycle of notable religious poetry. The whole is composed of three books divided into individual verses. There is a distinct beginning, Przed zaczeciem dziela (Before the Start of the Work), and an end, W imie Ojca i Syna, i Ducha Swietego (In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost). The first book is made up of poems commenting on the subsequent verses of the prayer Ojcze nasz (Our Father), the second of works linked to the Angelic Salutation, and the third of poems of individual experience of faith and a fervent love of God.
The last group of texts is particularly astonishing. It includes verses that constitute the most noteworthy expression of Teresan spirituality in pre-Romantic Polish literature, with all its distinguishing features: aspiration to direct contact with God, mystical ecstasy, and the perverse joining of sensual and religious experience. Benislawska's verse can be compared to the great mystical work of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross. Its uniqueness is undeniable.

Work of a completely different kind was the domain of Anna Stanislawska (1652-1700 or 1701). She was born into a powerful noble family. Her father, Michal Stanislawski, was an ally of Jan Sobieski, king of Poland, who routed the Turks at Vienna. In 1668, Stanislawski gave his daughter's hand in marriage to Jan Kazimierz Warszycki, a man of property who was a mentally deranged sadist. The king himself had to intervene to dissolve the union, and not even his assistance could speed up the proceedings: only years later did Anna win her divorce. Shortly afterwards, she married a childless widower, Jan Zbigniew Olesnicki. The marriage was a success, but Jan contracted cholera while on military service and died in 1674. Three years later, Anna entered her third marriage, to Jan Boguslaw Zbaski, chamberlain of Lublin. Again, fate was unkind. Jan was wounded during the Battle of Vienna and died after developing an infection.
The wealthy 32-year-old woman stopped tempting fate. She accepted widowhood for the rest of her life. She made her name in the history of literature as the author of the work Transakcja, albo Opisanie calego zycia jednej sieroty, przez zalosne treny od tejze samej pisane roku 1685 (The Transaction, or a Description of the Whole Life of One Orphan through Doleful Laments Written by the Same in the Year 1685), a poem made up of 77 laments (5960 lines), composed in eight-line stanzas, a 22-line introduction To The Reader, and a twelve-line Conclusion. An integral part of the text are the notes in the margins, which explain in prose what is not cogent and clear enough in the verse.
The Poem is imperfect in literary terms, although it is difficult to do it justice. It is one of the first secular works to be written by a woman, and a testimony to the situation of women in the Old Polish Republic.

Nor did noble birth bring happiness to Urszula Franciszka Radziwillowa (1705-1753). She came from the rich Korybut-Wisniowiecki family, and married Michal "Rybenka" ("Little Fish"), one of the most famous members of the powerful Radziwill family. She fell in love with her husband and blindly followed his every command, rarely leaving the Radziwill estates in Nieswiez. Not so her husband. His positions, as Lithuanian master of horse, governor of Vilnius castle, and later provincial governor and grand commander-in-chief, involved much travel. Franciszka yearned and waited. She brought up the children and established the fabulous Nieswiez theatre.
She earned fame as the translator of Moliere, and as the author of lightly regarded plays of her own. Her output is, however, far more extensive. She wrote occasional verse and didactic poetry. She was the author of marvellous letters to her husband, which rank among the best examples of intimate correspondence, comparable to Ovid's Heroides. The self-portrait depicted in these works leaves no doubt whatsoever as to the fact that she was a woman totally in love and doomed, like Penelope, to wait and pine away. She was prepared to agree to anything, even separation from her first born, long-awaited son. Little Mikolaj was given in custody to his grandmother, Anna Sanguszko, who was supposed to ensure him better care. The child died shortly afterwards. Urszula did not complain. On the contrary, she wrote a poem thanking her mother-in-law for taking care of her son.
Her letters and poetry show Radziwillowa in love, tormented, struggling for her right to love, openly writing about her desire, longing, devotion, and madness. This correspondence merits familiarity, publication and renown.

I close the Old Polish era with Elzbieta Kowalska Druzbacka (1698/1699 - 1765), a great poet at the borderline of two eras. She was lyrical, yet practical. Poor by birth, she spent her time around great courts and manors, knew patrons of the arts, and made use of their help and protection.
She spent her youth at the house of the wife of the lord of Cracow, Elzbieta Lubomirska Sieniawska. Here, she learned languages, became acquainted with literature, and acquired refined manners. It was probably here, too, that she met her husband, Kazimierz Druzbacki. Around the year 1724, they moved to Cieplice, a tied village belonging to the Sieniawski estate. Kazimierz died soon, leaving the financial position of his widow and her two daughters far from secure. Elzbieta decided, therefore, to take up the post of steward at the court of Michal Czartoryski, the Lithuanian chancellor. She tried there to obtain money for the purchase of a part of Cieplice. Disappointed by the Czartoryskis' refusal, she decided to change patrons. She associated herself with the Sanguszko family. She got back on her feet financially and had time to read and write. She gained new patrons. After numerous family tragedies, she died in the Bernardine monastery in Tarnow.
Druzbacka was an eminent poet of the late Baroque and early Enlightenment. The body of her extant texts is estimated at 95 works; the remainder being lost. During her lifetime, Zbior rytmow (A Collection of Rhythms) appeared, comprising 44 poems. The remainder of her literary output was published posthumously. Druzbacka's work is divided into many subject areas and genres covering religious and secular topics, as well as works commemorating special occasions. She gained renown as the author of bold, although not obscene, erotic verse. In her light amorous verse she refers with gusto and humour to autobiographical episodes. She also wrote excellent satires. Researchers emphasise Druzbacka's rich language, lively imagination, artistic descriptions and terse phraseology. The poet fully deserves her honorary title, "Muse of the noble Republic."

The Beautiful Nineteenth Century?

Two noted women writers represent the splendid literary circle of the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The first is Izabela (Elzbieta) Flemming Czartoryska (1746-1835), one of the most highly born of Polish aristocrats, wife of Adam Czartoryski and mother of several talented children, among whom her daughter Maria was also an accomplished writer. After years of turbulent affairs with lovers including the Russian ambassador, Repnin, and the prince de Lauzun, Izabela Czartoryska turned over a new leaf. She placed increasing emphasis on her children's upbringing, family stability, and public matters. Following Poland's loss of independence in 1795, she decided not to leave her homeland. In her home at Pulawy on the Vistula River, she founded a centre of sentimental-patriotic culture. A Temple of Sibyl was built, the first Polish museum of national relics, was built according to her plans. She laid out fabulous gardens. She was a patron of poets and an active participant in the increasingly difficult political life.
After Napoleon's fall, the Czartoryski family changed their allegiance to pro-Russian, counting on autonomy for Poland under Tsar Alexander I. Nicholas II's despotic rule after 1825 disconcerted Izabela. Her real defeat came with the outbreak of the Polish November Insurrection. Pulawy was bombed by her grandson Adam of Wirtemberg, and only the intervention of the Austrian court saved her estate from confiscation.
Despite a host of activities, she wrote much. In 1805, she published Mysli rozne o sposobie zakladania ogrodow (Various Thoughts on Ways to Lay Out Gardens), a treatise on spatial arrangement. In 1818, she published an outline history of Poland, Pielgrzym w Dobromilu (Pilgrim in Dobromil), with a second part in 1821. Probably her most interesting literary work is Dylizansem przez Slask. Dziennik podrozy do Cieplic w roku 1816 (By Stagecoach through Silesia. The Diary of a Journey to Cieplice in 1816), translated from French and published recently. This short booklet is a multi-layered work, presenting the Sudetenland landscape, the legends associated with the Piast period of Silesian history, and the traveller's own sentiments.
Czartoryska's output is a notable witness to the rise of patriotic sentimentality which constituted an expression of the pre-Romantic attitude. The author's intimate confessions are strikingly sincere and display a subtle colouring of emotions.

Izabela's daughter, Maria Czartoryska Wirtemberska (1768-1854), exhibited a similar sensibility. Nobly born, educated, well-read, and delicate, she found no happiness in her marriage to Ludwig, prince of Wirtemberg. Her husband turned out to be a brutal madman, a miser and a rogue. Maria returned to her parents, although her only son, Adam, remained with his father to be brought up hostile to the Czartoryski family and Poland.
Maria Wirtemberska travelled widely round Europe, and from 1808, in a palace bought by her parents in Warsaw, she organised a famous literary salon where she held 'blue Saturdays.' Following the death of her mother, to whom she had been exceptionally closely attached, she left for Florence. There, she nursed her younger sister, Zofia, who was dying of tuberculosis. She later moved to Paris, to be with her brother Adam, a well-known émigré politician. She died in Paris during a cholera epidemic.
Maria Wirtemberska's services to Polish culture were huge. She founded many churches and cloisters, she was an inspector of girls' schools, and, first and foremost, a subtle and exceptional writer. Her greatest work, Malwina, czyli Domyslnosc serca (Malwina, or the Shrewdness of the Heart), published in 1816, was the first psychological love story in Polish. Its originality did not mean a break with tradition. Wirtemberska drew from the works of Rousseau, Mme Cottin, Richardson, Goethe and Walter Scott, yet she was not satisfied with retailoring their motifs. Her plot, telling of the heroine's unhappy marriage and her feelings towards a mysterious young man, is full of genuine emotion and discreet autobiographical references. The book was a publishing success; even the most demanding of critics wrote favourable reviews.
Maria Wirtemberska's second work which has perennial value is a travel journal written in the style of Sterne, Niektore zdarzenia, mysli i uczucia doznane za granicą (Certain Events, Thoughts and Feelings Experienced While Abroad). A romantic journey in search of nature, full of delicate images and emotions, it is moving and interesting reading.

The next great woman writer of the nineteenth century was Narcyza Zmichowska (1819-1876), who had nothing whatsoever in common with the aristocracy. On the contrary, her experiences as a poor governess employed by the splendid Zamoyski family were not good ones. In truth, however, Zmichowska, with the ugly duckling complexes of a child gifted with above-average intelligence and wit, did not lend herself well to the role of employee. Her passion was writing, understood not as an artistic activity, removed from reality (as in the post-Romantics), but as a way of making contact with others and breaking through the walls of alienation.
Zmichowska criticised the Romantics not only for dreamy attitudes that awakened unreal yearnings, but also for making absolute ideals of political freedom and conspiratorial activity. Zmichowska remained cold to both forms of activity. During the turmoil of 1848, nevertheless, she maintained contact with underground groups, and paid for her affiliations with an eighteen-month gaol sentence.
Zmichowska was equally interesting as a writer. Her novels, incoherent and entangled in biographical material, form one huge text. Fictitious motifs were important, but not paramount. Digression, dialogue with the reader, subversive commentaries, and sneering laughter constituted a significant element - as in Virginia Woolf.
Zmichowska published little. Therefore, if her voice was heard at all, it was thanks to a group of friends, disciples, and acquaintances who were fascinated with her personality. Of her fictional works, the following have best stood the test of time: the romantic Poganka (The Pagan), 1861; and Biala Roza (The White Rose), 1861, which called the slogans of emancipation into doubt. Her entire correspondence has, however, been wonderfully preserved, showing the spiritual grandeur of the writer, her intelligence, personal courage, and talent at polemics and the essay.

Zmichowska's case shows clearly how difficult it is to gain recognition as an author when one disputes accepted norms of behaviour. This was perfectly understood by another great writer of the last century, a Nobel prize candidate in 1905, Eliza Orzeszkowa (1841-1910). She took many risky steps, such as divorcing her husband. Yet, mindful of her public image, she avoided like the plague all public controversy and confined herself to carefully rehearsed public statements. In her emancipation programme she always emphasised that women should educate themselves in order, among other things, to help their husbands in domestic management. She saturated her work with patriotic allusions, noting subtly, as much as she could, the tragedy of captivity, sadness, bitterness.
Orzeszkowa's literary talent developed slowly. Her first works were very successful. Over time, she grew in mastery and gained control over structure. The novels of the 1880s are true masterpieces: Nad Niemnem (On the Banks of the Niemen), 1888, an epic poem showing the most significant aspects of national life at the end of the nineteenth century; and Cham (The Lout), 1888 a modern and bold story of the love between a simple peasant and a mad, debauched girl from town.
Orzeszkowa's last work, the short-story collection Gloria victis, 1910, is also noteworthy. She speaks here in an extremely personal voice, full of autobiographical references. She makes her final confession. She extols, more strongly than anywhere else, the beauty of the world, and writes about people's mistakes with greater understanding and tolerance. She is open, friendly, forgiving, and almost happy.

The great poet and short-story writer of the second half of the nineteenth century, Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910), also discovered the need to take public opinion into account. Orphaned on the death of her mother, she quickly married the nobleman Jaroslaw Konopnicki. The marriage was not a success and Konopnicka moved to Warsaw with her six children. She earned a living giving private lessons and writing. In 1881, she published the dramatic fragments Z przeszlosci (From the Past), which had a clearly anticlerical flavour, and in the same year the first series of Poezje (Poetry). The critics were silent, in a clear attempt to punish the writer for being a free-thinker. Only following the intervention of several literary authorities did the wall of silence topple. Konopnicka never repeated the mistake. She steered clear of national taboos and avoided provoking public opinion. While remaining apart from her husband, she decided against a divorce, even though the subsequent formal dependence on the children's father (e.g., when applying for a passport) was inconvenient and humiliating.
Konopnicka decided to solve her problems differently, without demonstrative actions or protests, and almost without words. Through 1890, she raised the children. Then she went abroad. She lived in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. She kept in touch with her country and family, wrote for the Polish press, extended financial aid to those close to her, yet lived her own life, relatively free and relatively happy.
Konopnicka was a talented poet, who admittedly did not revolutionise nineteenth century poetry, but kept to the traditions of European culture: the Classics, the Biblical, Medieval chanson, the traditions of folklore. She was, for all that, a short-story writer of genius, as great as Maupassant or Chekhov. She wrote about the world of the poor and the lame with a piercing sense of drama, yet without sentimentality or emotionalism. No one in the realm of short narrative fiction has equalled Konopnicka.

Our Contemporaries

The author who has aroused the greatest interest among contemporaries is Maria Komornicka (1876-1949). Although she was born and broke into print in the nineteenth century, the questions she introduced to literature are thoroughly contemporary. She wrote under the male pseudonym of Piotr Wlast, which was a sign of her trouble with gender identity, or possibly an omen of the mental disease that was to bring her activities to an abrupt close in 1907. One may look at Komornicka's biography from another angle, perceiving in her transformation into a man the drama of a body that yearns totally to 'immerse itself in culture', ignoring biological conditioning - a philosophical drama of the personality.
Komornicka made her literary debut with short stories, later published in the collection Szkice (Sketches), 1894, featuring from the very start her specific tone and range of interests, including relations between men and women. The Cracow publications Zycie and Chimera carried her poetry, prose and critical sketches. In 1903, she published the novel Biesy (Demons), an insight into her own psyche, devoid of fictitious motifs. Of primary note, however, is her poetry, full of philosophical elation, often couched in expressionistic poetics, violent, intriguing, and dark.
Much was said about Komornicka, even though she remained unknown. Her work stayed in journals and manuscripts. Only today is she experiencing a revival, rescued from the silence of the museum by, among other things, the questions posed by feminist criticism. In a word, Komornicka is surrounded by the greatness of legend, yet she is not credited with any real influence on the history of Polish literature. That history was shaped to a large degree by two different literary personalities.

The first of these was Zofia Nalkowska (1884-1954), one of the pillars of female letters, in general a celebrated figure on the Polish literary scene. She started to write extremely early, almost as a child, having acquired at home literary culture, a knowledge of languages, and contacts with writers and intellectuals.
Nalkowska's first book was the novel Kobiety (Women), 1906. For the next fifteen years, she did not change the focus of her interests: she was intrigued by the world of women: their relations to reality and historical turmoil (Ksiaze [The Duke], 1907), their sensitivity in the context of social conditioning (Rowiesnice [Peers], 1909), and their relation to art (Węże i róże [Snakes and Roses], 1915). One of her most interesting novels of this period is Narcyza (The Narcissus), 1910; streaked with Nietzscheanism, it is an attempt to build a new image of woman. The novel Hrabia Emil (Count Emil), 1920, is inspired by the events of the First World War.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the internal emphasis of Nalkowska's work shifts. While continuing to write about feelings and women (Romans Teresy Hennert [Theresa Hennert's Love Affair], 1924; Niedobra milosc [Bad Love], 1928; Dom kobiet [The House of Women], 1930; Niecierpliwi [The Impatient], 1933; Granica [The Border], 1935), Nalkowska supplements her intimate portraits with psycho-sociological observations, setting the internal truth of the subject against the opinions of others, leaning towards the conviction that the truth is multi-faceted and ambiguous.
Nalkowska was instinctively afraid of the dark sides of the human personality, the involuntary or conscious cruelty and sadism that are inseparable from love. She had no illusions about the fact that people are equally attracted to both good and evil. This freedom from illusions meant that Nalkowska had few peers in her comprehension of the mechanisms of war. She was appalled by the cruelty of the enemy, yet never for a moment did she see it as unexpected or demonic. On the contrary, it was essentially human-to the degree that we can face the cruel side of human nature.
Nalkowska's great work was the diary that she began keeping in 1899, and especially the part dealing with the German occupation (1939-1945). We marvel equally at her heroism and her stylistic perfection. Nalkowska's work has lost nothing with time; to the contrary, amidst the present-day conviction about the chance nature of existence, her lost heroes appear thoroughly contemporary and up-to-date.

A second woman novelist of note is Maria Dabrowska (née Szumska, 1889-1965). Dabrowska took a long time to mature as a writer. During the years 1906-1908, she studied science at Lausanne and Brussels. She made her debut in 1910 with journalistic writing. Her first literary work, Uśmiech dziecinstwa (The Smile of Childhood), appeared only in 1923. This highly stylised return to the days of childhood liberated in the writer layers of imagination and gave direction to her work, enriching it with recollections, experiences, family stories, the landscapes of the past. Dabrowska reaches for reminiscences and memories in the short-story collection Ludzie stamtad (People from There), 1925, and chiefly in Noce i dnie (Nights and Days), 1932-1934, an epic tale of two families set against the background of Polish history from the January Insurrection to the First World War. In this work, Dąbrowska returned only superficially to the realistic narrative of the nineteenth century, which based its order on clear moral laws embodied in the writer's authority. In Dąbrowska's novel, the order of existence is established inside life, not anywhere outside it; it consists in the very being, in the necessity of participating.
Her second outstanding work is the diary that she kept from 1914 until her death in 1965. The initial entries have something haphazard about them. Over time, however, the diary takes on the significance of literature, growing unexpectedly into the greatest of Dąbrowska's works, a fascinating text with an assured place in the history of Polish literature. The publication of fragments of the diary, and then the publication of the diary in an expanded version, turned out to be a great literary event.

The poetry of Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska (1891-1945) also continues to enjoy unflagging popularity. Pawlikowska, née Kossak, came from an outstanding family noted deservedly for its contributions to Polish culture. Her father and grandfather were highly successful painters.
Pawlikowska published several dozen collections of poetry, including Niebieskie migdaly (Day Dreaming), 1922; Rozowa magia (Pink Magic), 1924; Pocalunki (Kisses), 1926; Dansing (Dancing), 1927; Cisza lesna (Forest Calm), 1928; Balet powojow (The Creepers' Ballet), 1935; Krystalizacje (Crystallizations), 1937; Szkicownik poetycki (Poetical Sketchbook), 1939; Roza i lasy plonace (The Rose and Flaming Forests), 1940; and Golab ofiarny (The Sacrificial Dove), 1941. The poems written after this date (1941) are gathered in the posthumously published collection Ostatnie utwory (Last Works, London 1956, Polish publication 1993). These last poems are supplemented with diary fragments brought together in Ostatnie notatniki. Szkicownik poetycki II (The Last Diaries: Poetic Sketchbook II), 1993.
There is a certain paradox connected with Pawlikowska's poetry: in writing about an elegant and elevated world, a world of refined feelings and aesthetic experiences, she discovered the universal course of existence which forces people into a dramatic fight for survival. All of Pawlikowska's poetry, superficially light and singularly obsessed with love, is imbued with fear and trembling. As with Nalkowska's women, the fear of old age and rejection turns out to be a sensitive filter making it possible to perceive the temporary and cruel truth of life.
Pawlikowska spent the years of the German occupation in England. At the end of the war she developed cancer, and died in inexpressible pain. To the very end she wrote - brave, heroic, incomparable.
Pawlikowska's miniature poems have been recited by subsequent generations of poetry lovers: they are close to the modern sensibility, sensational, a revelation.

Zuzanna Ginczanka (1917-1944, real name Zuzanna Polina Gincburg), is an outstanding, tragic, and little known woman poet. The war lies heavily on her biography. Zuzanna came from a Jewish family. In 1935, she entered the university in Warsaw. At the same time, she made her debut as a poet and gained admission to the elite artistic circles of the capital. She became a friend of Gombrowicz, Tuwim, and Andrzejewski, to mention only three names. She was a beautiful woman with striking, exotic features. It was difficult to hide such a "Semitic" face. During the war, this meant certain death. At the end of 1944, Ginczanka was betrayed by her neighbours, arrested by the Germans, and shot.
It is her poems from the war years, about fear, threat, despair, the sense of death, and an unrequited love for Poland, that are the most disturbing. It is impossible to read them and remain aloof.

Excellence and tragedy are attributes of Stanislawa Przybyszewska (1901-1935), the illegitimate daughter of the modernist writer, Stanislaw Przybyszewski, and the painter Aniela Pająkówna. Thanks to her marvellous Listy (Letters), we know that illegitimacy was a stigma for Przybyszewska. She lived in the shadow of her complexes, hating life and its insipidness. She could not come to terms with her femininity, which she treated as a mark of being a second-class person.
Przybyszewska was a dramatist of genius. Her plays about the French Revolution - Dziewiecdziesiaty trzeci (Ninety-Three, staged 1969); Thermidor (originally in German, staged 1971, English translation by Roman Taborski), and chiefly Sprawa Dantona (The Case of Danton, staged 1931, English, German, Russian, Italian translations; filmed in 1982 by Andrzej Wajda) - belong to the best stage work of this period.
In showing, especially in Danton, the ruthless mechanism of revolution and admitting that the inhuman figure of Robespierre is right, Przybyszewska expresses her rabid hatred for the "old" form of the world. Her gnosticism is apprehensive of the concrete, sexual, reality that belongs to emotions and sentiments. Even readers who are put off by the author's extremism can appreciate the internal perfection of her drama, with its flawless structure and brilliant repartee. Danton is one of the most perfect works in the history of Polish literature, a masterpiece of style and intellect.

I shall close this overview with the name of Anna Swirszczynska (1909-1984), an excellent poet who, aiming for maximum simplicity and obviousness, created her own form of poetry, her own way of talking about the world. She made her debut before the Second World War, but reached the peak of her artistic potential in the 1970s, in the poetry collections Jestem baba, (I'm a Woman, 1972); Budowalam barykade, (I Built a Barricade, 1974); and Szczesliwa jak psi ogon, (As Happy as a Dog's Tail, 1978). These works are the best record in Polish poetry of female fate, of love, erotica, motherhood, old age, disease, rejection, desire, and longing. Swirszczynska gave these states and feelings a form as simple and as direct as possible, and thereby achieved immortality. Swirszczynska's poetry moves not only women, and not only feminists. The Polish Nobel-Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz has writtenl enthusiastically about his experiences associated with reading Swirszczynska's poetry. He also translations many of her works into English. It seems that Anna Swirszczynska's poems can be appreciated the world over. Pain, joy and love are common currency.

Bibliography:

Modlitwy Ksieznej Gertrudy z Psalterza Egberta w Cividale (The Prayers of Duchess Princess Gertruda from the Egbert Psalter in Cividale).
Translated and edited by Brygida Kürbis. Tyniec. Cracow: Wydawnictwo Benedyktynów 1998.

Magdalena Morteska, Rozmyslania o Mece Panskiej ( Meditations on the Passion of Christ), (in:) Konrad Gorski,
Pisma ascetyczno-mistyczne reformy chelminskiej (Ascetic-Mystic Works of the Chelm Reform). Poznan 1937;
Nauki duchowne (Spiritual Teachings), (in:) Konrad Górski,
Kierownictwo duchowe w klasztorach zenskich w Polsce w XVI-XVIII wieku (Spiritual Guidance in Female Cloisters in Poland in the 16th-18th Centuries). Warsaw 1980.

Anna Maria Marchocka, Autobiografia (Autobiography) (in:) Pisarze ascetyczno-mistyczni Polski, (Polish Ascetic-Mystic Writers) vol. 2. Edited by Konrad Gorski. Poznan 1939.

Konstancja Benislawska, Piesni sobie spiewane (Songs Sung to Oneself). Edited by Tadeusz Brajerski and Jerzy Starnawski. Lublin 1958.

Anna Stanislawska, Transakcja, albo Opisanie calego zycia jednej sieroty, przez zalosne treny od tejze samej pisane roku 1685 (The Transaction, or the Description of the Whole Life of One Orphan through Doleful Laments Written by the Same 1685). Edited by Ida Kotowa. Cracow 1935.

Franciszka Urszula Radziwillowa, (Poems) in anthologies:
Poeci polskiego baroku (Poets of the Polish Baroque). Edited by Jadwiga Sokolowska and Krystyna Zukowska. Warsaw 1965, vol.2;
Zdzislaw Libera, Poezja polska XVIII wieku (Polish Eighteenth Century Poetry). Warsaw 1976;
Swiat poprawiac - zuchwale rzemioslo (Improving the World - a Daring Trade). Edited by Teresa Kostkiewiczowa and Zbigniew Golinski. Warsaw 1981.
Fragments of the letters (in:) Antoni Sajkowski,
"Nicht bardzi kochac nade mnie nie moze", (Nobody Can Love More than I) (in:) Staropolska milosc.
Z dawnych listow i pamietnikow (Old Polish Love. Out of Old Letters and Diaries). Poznan 1981, pp. 205-262.
Manuscripts of FUR's letters (Radziwill Archive) in the Central Old Acts Archive in Warsaw (correspondence chiefly in French).

Elzbieta Druzbacka, (Poems) in anthologies: Jan Kott, Poezja polskiego Oswiecenia (Poetry of the Polish Enlightenment). Warsaw 1954;
Zdzislaw Libera, Poezja polska XVIII wieku (Polish Eighteenth Century Poetry). Warsaw 1976 (2nd edition - 1983);
Swiat poprawiac - zuchwale rzemioslo (Improving the World - a Daring Trade). Edited by Teresa Kostkiewiczowa and Zbigniew Golinski. Warsaw 1981.

Izabela Czartoryska, Dylizansem przez Slask. Dziennik podrozy do Cieplic w roku 1816 (By Stagecoach through Silesia. The Diary of a Journey to Cieplice in 1816). Translated from French, with an introduction and notes by Jadwiga Bojanska. Wroclaw 1968.

Maria Wirtemberska, Malwina, czyli Domyslnosc serca (Malwina, or the Shrewdness of the Heart). Twentieth century editions: Cracow 1925, Warsaw 1958, Warsaw 1978. Translated into French (1817) and Russian (1834) as well as Czech. The major English translation by Ursula Phillips is unpublished.
Niektore zdarzenia, mysli i uczucia doznane za granica. (Certain Events, Thoughts and Feelings Experienced While Abroad). Edited by Alina Aleksandrowicz. Wroclaw 1968.

Narcyza Zmichowska, Wybor powiesci (Selected Novels) ( indicated above). Edited and with an introduction by Maria Olszaniecka. Warsaw 1953;
Listy (Letters). Edited by Mieczyslawa Romankowna. Vols. 1-3. Wroclaw 1957-67.

Eliza Orzeszkowa, Nad Niemnem (On the Banks of the Niemen). Biblioteka Narodowa, series I, 262. Wroclaw. Warsaw. Cracow 1996. Translations, chiefly twentieth century, into Slavonic languages as well as Hungarian, Lithuanian and Latvian; Cham (The Lout). Edited by Grazyna Borkowska. Biblioteka Polska. Cracow 1998. Translations into Swedish, German, Czech, Danish, French, Russian, Lithuanian, Italian, Azerbaijani.

Maria Konopnicka, Nowele (Novelettes). Edited by Alina Brodzka. Vols. 1-2. 3rd Edition Warsaw 1968.

Maria Komornicka, Utwory poetyckie proza i wierszem (Poetical Works in Prose and Verse). Edited by Maria Podraza-Kwiatkowska, "Biblioteka Poezji Mlodej Polski", Cracow 1996.

Zofia Nalkowska, Novels mentioned in the text, numerous editions as well as Dzienniki (Diaries). Edited with an introduction and notes by Hanna Kirchner. Vol. 1: 1899-1905. Warsaw 1975, vol. 2: 1909-1917. Warsaw 1976, vol. 3: 1918-1920. Warsaw 1980, vol. 4: 1930-1939. Warsaw 1988, vol. 5: 1939-1944. Warsaw 1996.

Maria Dąbrowska, Works mentioned in the text, numerous editions as well as Dzienniki (The Diaries). Edited, with notes and an introduction by Tadeusz Drewnowski. Vol. 1-5. Warsaw 1988;
Expanded version: Dzienniki powojenne (The Post-War Diaries). Vols. 1-4. Warsaw 1996;
Dzienniki (The Diaries), Vol. 1: 1914-1925. Warsaw 1998; Vol. 2: 1926-1935. Warsaw 1999; volume three - in the process of publication.

Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, Wybor poezji (Selected Poems). Edited by Jerzy Kwiatkowski. Biblioteka Narodowa, series I, no 194. 5th edition. Revised and supplemented by Maria Podraza-Kwiatkowska and Anna Lebkowska. Wroclaw-Cracow. 1998.

Zuzanna Ginczanka, Udzwignąc wlasne szczescie ( To Carry the Burden of One's Own Happiness). Poezje (Poetry). Edited with an introduction by Izolda Kiec. Poznań 1991.

Stanislawa Przybyszewska, Dramaty (Plays). Edited by Roman Taborski. Afterword by Jerzy Krasowski. Gdansk. 1975; Listy (Letters). Edited with an introduction by Tomasz Lewandowski. Gdansk. Vol. 1. 1978, vol. 2. 1983, vol. 3 1985.

Anna Swirszczynska, Collections of poetry as indicated in the text. Translated into Slovak, German, Croat, Czech, Serbo-Croat, English. 

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