Amid the Dunes Of Human Spite
The ice has finally melted: Polish writers and artists, who were born in Volyn and wrote about this heroic and fabulous land, are now on display at the Volyn Ethnography Museum. While we learned about Josef Kraszewski in the Soviet period, Gabriela Zapolska (1859-1921) was branded an enemy of bourgeois ideals. We have yet to break this stereotype. After all, only two of her works are available to the Ukrainian reader: a play entitled The Morals of Mrs. Dulska and a novella called The Death of Felician Dulski, neither of which is representative of her work. Meanwhile, her novels Love for a Season, Katrusia Kariatyda, and Something They Don’t Talk about which are the expression of Gabriela Zapolska’s energy, are must reading for every educated person. So it is surprising that none of these works has appeared in Ukrainian, perhaps because the public’s view of her works remains largely contaminated by the virus of socialist realism, whose censors found only two of her books about the Dulski family unobjectionable. Yet there is more to Gabriela Zapolska than this. Although her novel Melaszka is on par with Mikhail Sholokhov’s Quiet Flows the Don, the works of Gabriela Zapolska are not epic, but lyrical, intimate, erotic, and feminist with a dramatic or tragic plot. This Gabriela Zapolska — a European-style, emancipated woman, writer, and actress, whose life and work were closely linked with Volyn and Lviv — was not favored by Polish conservative circles and, subsequently, Soviet literary critics. It is therefore not surprising to learn that materials about this wonderful Polish author, now on display at the Volyn Ethnographic Museum, are so scarce, and that she is still viewed largely as an “enemy of bourgeois ideals,” rather than an outstanding personality, whose life provides abundant material for an as yet unwritten novel.
PIDHAITSI OR KIVERTSI?
Gabriela Zapolska’s father was a marshal of the Polish gentry, the owner of two manors-one in the village of Pidhaitsi (now in Lutsk raion) and the other in Kivertsi (now the village of Prylutske, Kivertsi raion). There is some doubt as to which of these villages is Gabriela’s birthplace: while records suggest it is Pidhaitsi, Gabriela herself insisted it was Kivertsi. There are also differences as to her date of birth. Records suggest that she was born in 1857, while Gabriela mentioned the year 1859. The latter date was engraved on her tombstone on instructions from her last husband Stanislaw Janowski. After all, the writer must have known better when and where she was born, and I think there was reason enough to mark March 30, 2004, as the 145th anniversary of the birth of this distinguished native of Volyn, whose life and works still remain a deep, dark secret.
Early in Gabriela’s career, the then famous writer Josef Kraszewski asked in amazement: “Could it really happen that a woman was born in our land, who was lulled to sleep by a sad Volhynian duma [a historical epic song — Ed.] and whose Polish mother clasped her hands in prayer?”
As so often happens, Gabriela Zapolska’s complex personality was formed in an unusual environment. One needs only to mention the temperament of her father Vincent Korwin- Piotrowski, who was the direct opposite of her mother, a prima ballerina of the Warsaw Opera House. Aside from being a marshal, Vincent Korwin-Piotrowski was known in Volyn for his strong religious beliefs. After building a magnificent palace in Kivertsi, he busied himself hosting receptions and welcoming highborn guests (even Aleksandr II visited his palace). He also had a separate room for a chapel where he would spend hours in prayer. Intent on undertaking a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he did not make the journey because of his wife Juzefa’s protests. Instead he walked a measured distance around Kivertsi every morning, and after several years covered the distance to the Holy Land.
His wife found life in provincial Kivertsi dull, so she often traveled to Lviv and Warsaw. Her trips came at a price, and soon the Kivertsi farmstead was in hock. Moneylenders were eyeing the marshal’s plush palace in Kivertsi, but he stopped his borrowing before it was too late. His wife, a native of Warsaw, was never a model hostess or mother.
The family was raising three children. The Kivertsi estate was bequeathed to the oldest son, Kazimierz, while the two daughters received a generous dowry. The elder of the two daughters, Maria Gabriela Stefania, was an unruly child, who befriended the children of the local farm hands working on the Kivertsi farmstead. This friendship, which was commonplace in Polish gentry families, had a tremendous influence on the future actress and writer who came to be known by the penname of Zapolska. It was in Kivertsi that Gabriela met Melaszka, the protagonist of her identically titled novel Melaszka. The daughter of coachman Yurko became her true friend, perhaps because she was different from the children of the farm hands living in the farm barracks, who were always dirty and crawling with lice because of their hand-to-mouth existence. In her novel Melaszka is smart in appearance despite her poverty, and full of lofty aspirations and feelings. Hanna the housemaid, Anelcia the cook, Hnat the servant, and Melaszka became the prototypes for Gabriela’s works. While still a child, Gabriela imagined that Melaszka was a big doll that she would later have as her chambermaid. Gabriela’s parents worried about their daughter’s education and sent her to study in Lviv. Aside from Melaszka, Gabriela forever remembered her fabulous farmstead in Kivertsi, the surrounding woods and meadows, the ancient park, pond, and orchard, and farther in the distance the slow-moving river Styr, surrounded by rushes that were home to many birds. Regimented education replaced horse riding and games with the local children in Kivertsi, but Gabriela’s tenacious memory preserved the people of Volyn and meadow landscapes, and later recreated them in her novel Melaszka.
“The dark background of the forest that surrounded the village is crowding out the horizon. A fiery ball descended behind the forest, spreading its crimson royal robe. A wooden Christ squared his shoulders on a plain cross up on the hill by the muddy road. A well-known song from the area was flowing from the village.
A self-taught musician was playing his instrument near the forest, and the sounds he produced trembled, then flew away and wept in midair. The girl slowly bent her head down and fixed her gaze on the ground. The sun had set. The dark woods captured the fading rays that were receding to the west in a trembling and shy manner.
Ivanykha — a buxom peasant with gray hair gray and dark, deep-set eyes — is Melaszka’s mother.”
Melaszka is a biographical novel, and therein lies its value. Perhaps this is also the reason why Gabriela Zapolska’s works have not been translated to date.
After her happy childhood in Kivertsi, Gabriela embarked on a long road amid the dunes of human spite, hate, envy, rejection by her family, and a complicated private life. Her father insisted that she returned to Kivertsi after her unsuccessful education at the Lviv Women’s Institute of Pedagogy and Science, where Gabriela suffered a breakdown brought on by amoral and cruel instructors. But the future writer wanted to live a full-blooded life among people, and her father’s riches could not keep her at home. Many researchers of her work mention this important aspect in Gabriela Zapolska’s life, noting that had she remained in Kivertsi, it would have been much easier for her to reach the top from there. Yet she chose the path of a woman who could fend for herself, in a society that did not appreciate such women.
DEFYING FATE
Vincent Korwin-Piotrowski bought a special apartment for his wife Juzefa in Lviv. Mingling with high Galician society, she called herself a countess, and therefore required large amounts of money to bankroll her trips and attire. Gabriela also came to Lviv in search of a dream. Her parents were concerned about the young lady’s future. Her personality changed significantly after her studies in Lviv: she became sarcastic, behaved like an aristocrat, but could not do anything but speak fluent French and play the piano. Over her parents’ objections, who demanded that she returned home, Gabriela traveled to Warsaw, where she stayed with a relative. There she met her first fiance Kostantin Snieszko-Blocki. He was an officer of the royal guard, and proved incapable of true love. He was primarily interested in his bride’s dowry. They married on September 28, 1876, but the union lasted only for several months, even though five more years elapsed before they officially divorced. This unsuccessful marriage left a tragic blight on Gabriela’s subsequent life and works.
After they married, Kostantin Snieszko-Blocki visited his father-in-law in Kivertsi to discuss the size of Gabriela’s dowry. Gabriela accidentally overheard their discussion and was appalled. It transpired that her beloved Kostantin was not going to support her, but hoped to receive a dowry of 100,000 rubles in cash. When he was given a mere 17,000 and a promise from his father-in-law of another 8,000 after his death, Kostantin felt that he had been deceived. A major row erupted, as the in-laws could not convince the young officer that the entire Kivertsi estate was worth only 150,000 rubles.
All this happened before the wedding night. The feelings of disgust and confusion remained in her heart for the rest of her life. It was then that she began her Diary of a Young Woman. Although she was writing it for herself, in time she discovered that it was a work of literature.
“During my brief marriage to Snieszko I lost everything: faith in people, my maidenly illusions, and dowry,” she wrote. It was during her first marriage that she concluded that where women are concerned, men are the personification of evil and misery.
The young actress gave vent to her emotional experiences in her drama, The First Dance, which was staged in Lviv in 1883. In that period an actor from Chernivtsi, the amateur theater director Petro Vozniakivsky, helped her through hard times. He sacrificed a great deal to make Gabriela as good an actress as any on the stage. He succeeded, having invested his fervor and talent, as well as his material goods in his favorite occupation. Gabriela, who was then making her first literary attempts, felt like a confident actress.
After learning about their daughter’s divorce and her infatuation with the theater and literature, her parents refused to support her financially and ordered her not to sever ties with her husband. But Gabriela could not live any other way: she had her own path in life, even if it was thorny. To earn a living she made dolls’ clothing and sold it to Lviv shopkeepers. Her stage appearances were coupled with exhausting literary work. Her love of dolls, which she had nurtured since her childhood in Kivertsi, helped her through difficult times. One of Gabriela’s earliest works is titled Zabusia, the name of her favorite doll in Kivertsi.
The 1880s proved eventful in Gabriela Zapolska’s stage and literary career. She appeared in performances in Warsaw, Lviv, and St. Petersburg, and subsequently set her sights on Paris. Her novel Melaszka appeared in print, but provoked no response from the press or literary critics. Her novel Katrusia Kariatyda appeared simultaneously on the pages of Dziennik Polski [Polish daily] and Przeglad Tygodniowy [Weekly review], but even this work soon went out of print, after censors found it to be “in conflict with social morals,” i.e., amoral. Meanwhile, a scandal erupted as soon as her Aquarelles appeared in bookstores. Gabriela was accused of arguably the gravest of literary crimes — plagiarism.
NO GROUND UNDERFOOT
Adam Wyslicki, editor of Przeglad Tygodniowy, was one of those who did not abandon Gabriela at a difficult time and continued to publish her works and believe in her young talent. He was the only editor not to tamper with her works. She openly stated her views on literature. According to her, it is realism “what is underneath” — not the romantic senselessness and the garbs of idealism — that a full-blooded literary process requires, and only a person with a guilty conscience could fear this. Still, it was difficult to smash these stereotypes. The number of her secret enemies grew commensurately with her popularity. The late 1880s were excessively arduous for Gabriela Zapolska. While she was on tour in Petrkow, nervous exhaustion led to a failed attempt at suicide by poisoning on the night of November 6, 1888. Although she was saved from death, passions continued to run high because of the talented young woman. Her colleagues then brought her to work in Warsaw.
Gabriela was convinced, as never before, that it is imperative to speak the truth in art, even if critics sling mud at you and accuse you of worshipping dirt and amorality, and avoiding lofty ideals. Still she had a powerful weapon: she could unmask human depravity in such obvious ways that her works required no discussion. She portrayed typical Galicians in her novel Janka, while in her work On the Threshold of Hell she unmasked life in monasteries.
In 1889, fueled by her immense creative ambitions, Gabriela Zapolska immigrated to France. There she worked hard and wrote by night. In a matter of five years she produced five novels. Still she failed to accomplish her main goal, i.e., to win over the Parisian audience, mainly because she could not get rid of her Polish accent. In the hope of emigrating to the US Gabriela returned to Krakow and later to Lviv. On her home turf she resumed her stage career. On November 24, 1900, Gabriela Zapolska fainted onstage and slept the sleep of the dead for two days. Exhaustion from overwork was beginning to tell. In a letter to her future husband Stanislaw Janowski she wrote, “I have many debts, no money at all, and no time to write. Lwow is all I have and nothing else. I have no ground underfoot, no roof over my head.”
A STORY OF TWO HEARTS
Gabriela married Stanislaw Janowski in November 1901, when she was going through a bad patch. Mental strain had exhausted her otherwise strong body; she was beginning to lose her eyesight and was on the verge of going completely blind. The writer and actress often fell asleep after anesthetizing her eyes with cocaine. A promising painter, Stanislaw Janowski did not know what hardships awaited him. He was eleven years her junior and loved her deeply, even though he saw in her nothing more than an attractive and interesting woman. The story of these two hearts, the destiny of two artists, was replete with joys and disappointments, mutual suffering, hatred, and love.
Painting was Stanislaw Janowski’s life, while Gabriela Zapolska considered herself to be of more value to society than him, and constantly demanded attention from her husband. Their marital life proved to be an ordeal. Soft-spoken and yielding by nature, Stanislaw was patient but not for long, as he understood that he could not spend all of his time attending to his wife. Meanwhile, Gabriela in fact needed special care, as she often suffered from pneumonia, tonsillitis, rheumatism, and spent much time in the dark because of her ailing eyes. Both of them considered themselves more valuable in the world of art than the other. An unhealthy competition for superiority emerged in the family. Yet Stanislaw Janowski must be given his due, for he remained faithful to this complex woman for twenty years. He is credited with preserving Gabriela’s memory: he provided researchers with the priceless letters that she wrote to him when he was traveling abroad to escape from the stresses of family life.
For some time Gabriela Zapolska received treatment in Lviv. In 1910 a young oculist and hypnotist by the name of Radwan-Praglowski treated her successfully. As a token of her gratitude Gabriela spread the word about the young doctor in Lviv. After he caught his wife flirting, Stanislaw Janowski left their villa, but remained her closest friend until her death.
The last decade of Gabriela’s life was the most difficult. Shattered by a life of hardship and illness, she was extremely lonely. She had no one apart from her husband, to whom she was still officially married. In a letter to Stanislaw Janowski’s sister she wrote, “My sister is overwhelmed by egotism, so is my brother; father is dead, mother is mentally ill. I’m not a believer, but yesterday I prayed to God to return my husband to me. It’s sunny outside; people are happy, but it seems that a grave has been dug for me.”
THE FINAL YEARS
In her final years Gabriela wrote The Morals of Mrs. Dulska and The Death of Felicjan Dulski, her best- known works. Yet they lack the artistic level of the works that were written in her prime. Robbed of her vitality, she could no longer write as before.
In World War One Stanislaw Janowski fought quite successfully as part of an Austrian regiment in Volyn. A decorated officer, he managed to secure a pension for his wife.
At the end of her life Gabriela fell under the influence of a dishonest doctor by the name of Yevhen Kapitein, who tried to get his hands on Gabriela’s property and even faked her will.
Gabriela Zapolska died on December 17, 1921. Her brother Kazimierz, the owner of Kivertsi, was bedridden, so her cousin Ludwig Piotrowski came to Lviv for the funeral. They did not bury her for five days, suspecting that she might be in a coma or that her doctor had poisoned her. The writer’s grave has been preserved to this day. Recently, pupils from a school in her village visited Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv, bringing with them a lump of earth from her native land. The former palace of the Korwin-Piotrowski family has also survived. Although ravaged by time and modern-day barbarians, it reminds the people of Volyn about their great countrywoman. With every passing year they treat her name with greater respect, which has become poeticized and legendary, despite having been hushed up for so long.
“Above all she sought harmony in human relations. Therefore, Gabriela from Kivertsi has remained in eternity and among us, where the wounds in our souls are still raw; the wounds will not heal because their cause has not been eliminated yet,” said Stanislaw Janowski, explaining to researchers the essence of his late wife’s life and work.
