Українська біографістика = Biographistica Ukrainica | ub.nbuv.gov.ua
Громакова Н. - Марія Конопницька: життя в контексті випробувань часу. (2025)

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Gromakova Natalia

Maria Konopnicka: Life in the context of time’s challenges

Section: Women’s (auto)biographies in scientific studies and social communications

Abstract: The goal of the article is to explore the biography of M. Konopnicka (1842–1910) as a response to the challenges of the era. Her life and work embodied the fate of an entire generation of Poles after the failure of the Polish Uprising of 1863. The passionate revolutionaries were replaced by moderate advocates of “organic labour” — daily service to Polish national interests through civic, educational, cultural, and economic activities. For Poles that was a time of “broken hopes”, when a segment of society, having come to terms with the absence of their own statehood, sought new meanings and survival strategies under foreign rule. Duringthis period, Polish intellectuals (writers, poets, and public figures, etc.) played a key role in strengthening the “spirit of the nation”, inspiring the struggle to preserve Polish identity. The methodology of the research based on biographical and gender approaches, as well as historical analysis grounded in sources such as the writer’s published correspondence, her literary and journalistic works, and the memoirs of contemporaries. Scientific novelty of the study is in analysing of M. Konopnicka’s life trajectory through the lens of socio-political processes and the spreading of emancipation and feminist ideas in Polish society during the second half of the19th and early 20th centuries. The proposed algorithm for mapping the biography — whose key elements are people, places, and ideas (anthropos, topos, tro-pos) — brings us closer to understanding the complex biographical space of that extraordinary female figure. Emphasis is placed on her contacts with prominent individuals, travels across European countries, main themes in her work, consistent feminist positioning, participation in organizing national-patriotic events, and educational activities. Conclusions. The study of M. Konopnicka’s biography confirms the hypothesis that her life was a response to the challenges of Polish reality at the time. This enables us to position M. Konopnicka not only as a renowned writer but also as an active agent of the socio-political and cultural processes that changed the trajectory of Polish history.

Keywords: Maria Konopnicka, biography, public space, Polish identity, feminism, emancipation.


Author(s) citation:

Cite:
Gromakova Natalia (2025). Maria Konopnicka: Life in the context of time’s challenges. Biographistica Ukrainica, (26) 325-346. https://doi.org/10.15407/ub.26.325

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