Polish Women Writers in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

All nineteenth-century Polish literature has to be seen in the context of the enormous political upheavals at the turn of the century: the partitions of Poland, which deprived the Poles of their own unified state and left them divided between three dictatorial empires; the Uprising of 1794 led by Tadeusz Kościuszko, which briefly united all social classes in a bid to regain national self-determination; the euphoria and then the disillusionment with Napoleon, upon whom the Poles had naively relied to assist their cause; and the November Uprising of 1831–32 and its suppression by the Tsarist authorities. Following this last uprising many leading political, cultural and literary figures were forced into exile. This background of events combined with the Poles’ need to preserve their own cultural identity in the face of censorship and repression, especially in the Russian partition, meant that the subject of regaining self-determination became a central concern of literature. Models of behaviour were also prescribed, with extreme martyrdom and self-sacrifice for the patriotic cause presented as the ideals. In this, women authors were in general sympathy with their male counterparts, but for women the prescribed behaviour acquired specific ‘female’ features.