Two Poles

At a Glance

Metadata	Details
Publication Date	2024-02-16
Journal	The Polish Review
Authors	Aleksandra E. Banot, Jack J. B. Hutchens
Institutions	Loyola University Chicago, University of Bielsko-Biała

Abstract

When I was reading Emilia Padoł’s book, Maria Rodziewicz continually reminded me of Seweryna Zdrojowska, a character in Eliza Orzeszkowa’s novel, Dwa bieguny [Two poles, 1893], from which I have taken the title for this essay.1 Seweryna—whom we meet again in Orzeszkowa’s Ad astra (1904)—manages the Krasowce estate, which she has inherited from her family. This attachment to her native land—a marker of her Polishness, along with the memory of her father and especially her brother who died in the uprising of 1863-1864—makes her give up her personal happiness. During her stay in Warsaw, she meets Zdzisław Granowski, and the two fall in love. The title of the novel—Two Poles or, more precisely, Polar Opposites—describes both characters: Seweryna who belongs to the world of nature and, out of a sense of duty, sacrifices her personal desires in order to work on her estate, and Zdzisław, a decadent living in an urban space. In Rodziewicz’s prose, we find contrasts between the negatively marked urban civilization and the positively valorized world of primordial nature, but the poles are somewhat different in Padoł’s book.Rodziewicz is usually viewed simply as an author of popular novels (e.g., Dewajtis, Wrzos [The heather], Lato leśnych ludzi [Summer of the forest people]), often with romantic plots, which, although somewhat old-fashioned, are still eagerly read by successive generations of readers, especially women. As recently as 2015, she was listed in the National Library’s readership survey alongside Henryk Sienkiewicz and Adam Mickiewicz.2 However, few people realize what a dramatic life she lived. It spanned the period between two uprisings—the January Uprising of 1863-1864 and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944—and was marked by revolutions and two world wars.3 It was a life devoted to Catholicism, to a type of Polishness specific to the Polesie region, and to hard work on the land that Rodziewicz inherited but later lost as a result of warfare. She writes about this loss with bitterness in a letter to Hieronim Tukalski-Nielubowicz, dated March 25, 1944: “Muraviev confiscated everything my parents had and sent them to Siberia. Now I have been destroyed by Stalin” (p. 423). Finally, it was also a life spanning femininity and masculinity.In an interview for the magazine Wysokie Obcasy [High Heels], Padoł said: “Maria Rodziewicz tests our mental flexibility and asks us to unlearn labeling.”4 So let’s submit to these tests and look at the most interesting issues raised by Rodziewicz’s biography, marked along the poles of conservatism and liberalism, femininity and masculinity, and kitsch and masterpiece, all ingeniously encapsulated in the annual cycle of seasons (winter, early spring, spring, summer, autumn, early winter). It is precisely nature, ever-changing with the rhythm of the seasons, that is the main character in Rodziewicz’s works. It was her descriptions of nature that critics and reviewers (including Cezary Jellenta) appreciated most.It is interesting to trace Rodziewicz’s education as it seems to be the key to understanding the contradictions and complexity of her views and attitudes, which are often diametrically opposed. Using surviving sources, Padoł shows that between 1871-1875, Rodziewicz attended a Warsaw school for girls run by Jadwiga Papi whose close associate was Jadwiga Kuczyńska. This boarding school, which operated in the educational underground, was one of the most progressive of its kind; its program was based on the standards of female education developed by Narcyza Żmichowska. Additionally, Rodziewicz took lessons on nature from Professor Antoni Waga, who lived in the same building. After her parents moved to Hruszowa in Polesie, the teenage Maria was sent in 1876 to Jazłowiec in Podolia and enrolled in an educational institution run by the Immaculate Sisters (The Congregation of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary). Girls’ schools operating at convents were popular in the nineteenth century among parents from the landed gentry. Among other luminaries to receive such an education were Eliza Orzeszkowa and Maria Konopnicka who met and for a time studied together at the Sisters of the Sacrament in Warsaw.5 It is not without reason that I cite these leading figures in Polish literature during the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Konopnicka, with whom Rodziewicz corresponded, became her mentor. What she has in common with Orzeszkowa, according to Czesław Miłosz in his excellent essay on Rodziewicz, is “a kinship of observation of more or less the same landscape, human types, social stratification—manor, backyard, village—as well as memory of the tragedy of the 1863 Uprising and resistance to Russification.”6At the Jazłowiec convent school, predictably enough, girls received religious instruction and were prepared for the role of the Polish mother. At the same time, however, relatively high importance was attached not only to the humanities but also to the sciences—botany, physics, mineralogy. Padoł also mentions psychology, but I am not convinced that in the late 1870s it was already possible to speak of psychology as a science, much less teach it; it was only then taking shape as an independent discipline (Wilhelm Wundt’s experiments in Leipzig had just started).Mother Marcelina Darowska, the superior of the Immaculate Sisters, co-founder of the congregation established in the 1850s, and author of the school’s program line, did not support the idea of Jewish assimilation. Her pronounced antisemitic stance did not go unnoticed by Rodziewicz. Padoł writes: “In her books, Maria will generally show them [i.e., Jews] as culturally alien […] and profit-driven […]. Thus, in the often black-and-white world of her novels, she will reach for the logic of shallow Catholicism and dehumanize them, distracting the reader from wanting to know the Jewish world” (pp. 27-28). It is worth noting, however, that both in Rodziewicz’s life and in her novels, we can find examples of a favorable attitude toward Jews. She financially supported the Jewish communities of Hruszowa’s neighboring towns of Horodec and Antopol, and in Atma she painted a positive image of a rabbi’s family. Toward the end of her life, during World War II, she was very likely involved in the Żegota organization.7 Padoł cites Miłosz’s statement from his essay, “Rodziewiczówna,” to provide historical and cultural context to her attitudes toward Jews. In his view, the partitions of Poland (1795-1918) and foreign occupation significantly slowed down social, economic, and moral progress in Polish society.8 Citing the ethnosociological research of Józef Obrębski in Polesie, Padoł points out the specific position of Jews in the then-world of peasants and lords. Perceived as outsiders, they were often the object of resentment and hatred.A sensitive reading of Rodziewicz’s life and work does not allow Padoł to make either an arbitrary judgment or an unequivocal diagnosis on the question of the writer’s sexual identity and her most distinctive characteristics, whether it be her outward appearance (wearing short hair, men’s shirt, tie) or using gender-neutral signatures (Maro, MarRodz, MarRodziewicz, MRodziewicz).9 Padoł draws attention to the masculine style of dress popularized by suffragettes in the nineteenth century. George Sand, for example, wore a tailcoat, a man’s shirt, and a top hat. In addition, some women stepped into male roles; one only needs to recall Emilia Plater, who fought in the November Uprising of 1830-1831. Rodziewicz also assumed such a role when she began managing her inherited landed estate. Referring to the field of sexology, Padoł even invokes the opinion of an expert in this field, Anna Kępczyńska-Nyk: we can hypothesize about Rodziewicz’s transsexuality or bigender identity. Giving up on the traditional female role, including marriage, and choosing women as life companions—Jadwiga Skirmuntt, Helena Weychert, and Maria Jastrzębska, with some of whom she may have carried on polyamorous relationships—she was undoubtedly a non-(hetero)normative person: It is hard to find that one single word that would fully convey who Rodziewicz may have felt she was, who she created herself to be, how she was formed by fate—the childhood orphan traumas, the nightmarish violence of the borderland world, the nineteenth-century contempt for women. But it also should be added that she was influenced by emancipists such as Konstancja Skirmuntt. Added to this is the enormous financial and ideological burden of responsibility for the estate that fell on her shoulders and would remain her focus for the rest of her life. (p. 98)Evidence unequivocally characterizing Rodziewicz’s relationships with women is lacking, and even if it had been preserved—given the reticence of writers of the time to reveal details of their private lives—Rodziewicz’s mode of gender expression and her model of life remain elusive, as in the case of Maria Komornicka. The most useful term to describe her seems to be that used by Maria Janion when writing about Komornicka and others like her: transgression.10It was not only Rodziewicz’s costume that was identified as masculine. Her talent was similarly described, which was not unique in the nineteenth century; the most famous case remains that of Orzeszkowa, about whom the popular literary critic Teodor Jeske-Choiński said she had a “man’s head.”11 However, while Orzeszkowa took care to develop and polish her artistic skills, Rodziewicz’s talent remained a rough diamond (Konopnicka’s term). She was accused of haste by Bolesław Prus, and formal carelessness by Jellenta. Rodziewicz consistently refused to edit her novels, arguing that they were not school compositions, although this may have been her way of making up for her lack of time and the need to earn income. After all, Hruszowa consumed a lot of energy and money, and Rodziewicz herself, especially toward the end of her life, saw herself more as a groundskeeper than a writer. During the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of her creative work in 1927 (Padoł notes the miscalculation of this anniversary), she disavowed her literary craft. Rodziewicz’s writing is best characterized by Irena Krzywicka in a 1936 article, “Piewczyni polskiego Far Westu” [The writer of Poland’s Far West]. Krzywicka uses both szmira [low brow] and arcydzieło [masterpiece] to describe it, thus confirming the intuitions of reviewers of Rodziewicz’s first novels published in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Krzywicka also puts forward the telling idea that Rodziewicz was born too early: Unable to express herself fully, she strayed into the low brow mode; unable to speak the whole truth, she began trotting out cliches. One thing saved her—she still had something authentic to convey: her love for the land and hard work […]. This she expressed flawlessly. But with her talent, if she had been sincere, she could have attained an utterly different position in Polish literature. She would have lost, admittedly, her nimbus of a national saint (no luck for those nationalists!), but she would have gained, perhaps, a more lasting writerly laurel. André Gide arrived too late in our [Polesie] borderlands.12Or should it be “too early” if we are talking about Rodziewicz’s “premature” birth? I basically agree with Padoł’s assessment; Krzywicka’s words cannot be denied insight and originality.In Rodziewicz’s prose, as in her life, she mixes what is conservative and traditional with what is progressive and liberal. Some examples include the enterprising Zośka from Czahary, who manages a farm, the anti-natalist views of Jaśka Kęcka from Ragnarök, and the depiction of the underprivileged classes in Joan. VIII 1-12. Rodziewicz has trouble creating female protagonists, morally liberated heroines, and plotting erotic scenes; there is generally no eroticism in her novels, which can largely be linked to the spirit of the era. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, touching on topics related to sexuality was the exception—as with Gabriela Zapolska—rather than the rule.Was Rodziewicz a feminist? Leaving aside the term itself, which was not commonly used until the second half of the twentieth century—and in Poland not until after 1989—it is difficult to speak of her as an active emancipist on the scale of Orzeszkowa or Paulina Kuczalska-Reinschmit. Rodziewicz distanced herself from the term. However, one cannot deny that her lifestyle had an emancipatory dimension, similarly to Zapolska’s, whose complicated attitude to feminism was described by Anna Janicka in Sprawa Zapolskiej. Skandale i polemiki [The Zapolska case. Scandals and polemics, 2013]. In the 2023 interview, Padoł also says: “I nevertheless think of her [i.e., Rodziewicz] as a feminist because she set her sights on an independent life; she also decided for herself what her life should be like.”13 I fully agree with this opinion.Maybe the conventional plot patterns in Rodziewicz’s novels—although, perhaps, not all of them—are supposed to cover up the writer’s unconventional private life? Padoł notes: “This perhaps gives her immunity, thanks to which her personal life does not arouse much interest” (p. 109). It is possible that it is for this reason that Rodziewicz does not develop or refine the progressive themes of her novels. Is there anything else hiding behind a conservative stance? Could the patriotic and religious themes of Rodziewicz’s prose—along with her right-wing views and relatively numerous ties to nationalist political groups (especially after the late 1920s)—be meant to mask the author’s complex identity?14 Who is this inhabitant of Polesie?15 This person grew up within both Polish and Russian cultures in a place where there also lived Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Jews next to the minority population that identified with Polishness. Perhaps being rooted in this multicultural world prompted Rodziewicz to identify strongly with the Polish nation, especially in its institutional dimension, which, after 1918, had once again become an independent republic after 123 years of foreign rule. Perhaps for Rodziewicz this was a guarantee that the borderland-positioned Hruszowa, occupied by Bolshevik Russia in the first postwar years, would belong to the Polish state. There are no easy answers to these questions.Modern proponents and practitioners of cancel culture would remove most of Rodziewicz’s literary texts and condemn her to oblivion regardless of her non-(hetero)normativity. Padoł tries to explain her life and work without making excuses for her, while also citing historical, social, cultural, and medical contexts developed by scholars. She reveals an extremely complex world, different from our modern one, and successfully introduces readers to more than just the figure of the author. She is mindful of the fact that there is no aspect of Rodziewicz’s life and work that is not complex and debatable, no aspect that is easy to diagnose. Interestingly, much of her life and work revolves around variously defined identities—national/ethnic, sexual, professional, and the like—and balances, as I pointed out earlier, between the two extremes: traditional/progressive, feminine/masculine, art/kitsch.Some discourses of the twenty-first century that apply modern categories to historical periods demand easy diagnoses, hasty judgments, and only “correct” views; they become dangerously black-and-white despite the complexities involved. But is it still possible to talk about discourse in general? This word presupposes a pluralistic worldview, polyphonicity, polysemanticism, and polemics. And it takes into account the contexts of the time in which a person lived and created; without this, any story would necessarily be adulterated. It is good that the author of Rodziewicz’s biography stayed true to this and did not succumb to describing the world of the turn of the twentieth century through contemporary categories. This is the great value of Padoł’s book.Despite the long-windedness, repetition, and sometimes stylistically questionable interjections—such as “send Gender to the bottom of the swamp” (p. 199) or “Maria’s fairy-tale tendencies” (p. 268)—Emilia Padoł’s Maria Rodziewicz-ówna: Gorąca dusza is an exceptional book. It is probably the most significant publication on the life and work of Rodziewicz since Anna Martuszewska’s scholarly monograph, Jak szumi Dewajtis? [How does the Dewajtis hum? 1989], was published over thirty years ago. Padoł’s book will be of interest to scholars and general readers alike.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5406/23300841.69.1.09