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Women's Voices and Feminism in Polish Cultural Memory

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Women's Voices and Feminism in Polish Cultural Memory Women’s Voices and Feminism in Polish Cultural Memory Women’s Voices and Feminism in Polish Cultural Memory Edited by Urszula Chowaniec and Ursula Phillips Women’s Voices and Feminism in Polish Cultural Memory, Edited by Urszula Chowaniec and Ursula Phillips This book first published 2012 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2012 by Urszula Chowaniec and Ursula Phillips and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4187-0, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4187-0 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface....................................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Feminism Today: Reflections on Politics and Literature Urszula Chowaniec Part I: Women’s Voices in Historical Contexts Chapter One............................................................................................... 26 Listening to Women’s Voices: Historical Overview of Women’s Right to Write in Poland Urszula Chowaniec Chapter Two.............................................................................................. 47 Polish Feminism in an East-West Context Rosalind Marsh Chapter Three............................................................................................ 67 Feminism Polish Style: Our Tradition or a Borrowed One? Ewa Kraskowska Part II: Feminism & Literature Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 78 Spiritual Equal or Existential Void? Female Emancipation in Mickiewicz and Prus Ursula Phillips Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 100 Żmichowska versus Orzeszkowa: A Feminist Parallel Grażyna Borkowska vi Table of Contents Chapter Six.............................................................................................. 112 “The Time of Visionary Artists Has Come to an End?” Manuela Gretkowska’s Literary and Political Activity Agnieszka Mrozik Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 127 Problems of Feminism and Postfeminism in Novels by Inga Iwasiów and Joanna Bator Ursula Phillips Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 155 Writing Mothers: Spatial-Textual Formations in Nigerian Buchi Emecheta’s Second-Class Citizen, and Pole Anna Janko’s The Girl with Matches Asia Zgadzaj Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 171 Works of Olga Tokarczuk: Postmodern Aesthetics, Myths, Archetypes, and the Feminine Touch Elżbieta Wiącek Part III: Gender in Films, Drama and Linguistic Studies Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 192 Representation of Women of Different Generations in Invitation (Zaproszenie, 1985), Directed by Wanda Jakubowska and It’s Me, Now (Teraz Ja, 2004), Directed by Anna Jadowska Ewa Mazierska Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 208 Gender Dynamics in Polish Drama After 2000 Elwira M. Grossman Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 233 The Impact of the Feminist Movement on the Lexicon of Contemporary Polish Dorota Hołowiak Notes on Editors and Contributors .......................................................... 250 Index........................................................................................................ 253 PREFACE This volume is ultimately the result of international cooperation between academic researchers and literature and art specialists. The idea of initiating a discussion on Polish cultural memory relating to feminism and women’s writing in the context of European history was born during the international seminar Poland Under Feminist Eyes held at the University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies in November 2008, when a group of women’s studies researchers gathered to discuss the role of feminism in contemporary Poland and in Polish literary and cultural history. The seminar was made possible thanks to the international cooperation between Ursula Phillips, Urszula Chowaniec and the PURU project at the University of Tampere (www.womenswriting.fi) as well as to the financial support received from The Centre for East European Language Based Area Studies (CEELBAS, http://www.ceelbas .ac.uk/) and the Polish Cultural Institute, London. As an outcome of this seminar, the first task was to launch an international journal Women’s Writing Online whose main aim was to popularize academic research on women’s writing, art, film, theatre, and cultural history in both Poland and Russia as well as in other countries of Eastern and Central Europe. We wished to build an international network of researchers, thinkers and writers as well as initiate a platform for academic exchange in the form of academic conferences, research seminars and workshops, projects, internet websites, blogs on women’s writing or other feminist concerns in Eastern and Central Europe, which would reach interested readers all over the world, and contribute especially to building bridges between so-called East and West. Most of the articles published in the current volume initially appeared online in Women’s Writing Online issue 1 under the title Poland under Feminist Eyes. Subsequently, however, we decided to gather the articles together and combine them as a separate printed volume, also now enhanced by two new articles and a revised introduction. Women’s Writing Online still exists and serves it role as an international platform for publishing and popularizing Eastern European literary and academic works. Nevertheless, this volume is designed to reach a wider audience by presenting in-depth viii Preface analyses of the changes to the perception of Polish culture from the feminist and woman’s point of view during recent decades. The editors would like to thank the many enthusiastic colleagues and collaborators who contributed to various aspects of the project, in particular: Marja Rytkönen, Kirsi Kurkijärvi, Asia Zgadzaj, Polina Koski, Arja Rosenholm and Irina Savkina, as well as the authors of the articles, and the peer reviewers of the volume, Małgorzata Radkiewicz and Knut Andreas Grimstad, and finally but not least our supportive friends and families. INTRODUCTION FEMINISM TODAY: REFLECTIONS ON POLITICS AND LITERATURE URSZULA CHOWANIEC Almost every time the gendered perspective on a particular issue (so often called obliquely the woman’s voice) appears in the media, it is immediately confronted by the almost formulaic expression “feminism today,” which suggests instantaneously that feminism is, in fact, a matter of the past, and that if one needs to return to this phenomenon, then it requires some explanation. Such interconnections between gender, women and feminism are a constant simplification, which this volume wishes to examine, asking how it has functioned in Poland as a part of Central and Eastern Europe in recent cultural history. The volume seeks to elaborate this problem of generalization expressed by such formulas as “feminism today.” “Feminism today” is a particular notion, which indeed refers to the long political, social, economic and cultural struggles and transformations for equality between the sexes, but also implies the need for its updating. Feminism seems to be constantly asked to supply footnotes as to why the contemporary world might still need it, as though equality had been undeniably achieved. This is the common experience of all researchers and activists who deal with the questioning of the traditional order. Even though the order examined by feminism for over 200 years has been changed almost all over the world to various extents, the level of equality achieved is debatable and may still be improved in all countries. Nevertheless, the word feminism has become an uncomfortable word; hence its usage always requires some justification. 2 Introduction During the past few years in Britain, attempts to re-define feminism may be noted in various media. Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune of the Zed Books publication have provided an account of contemporary feminist movements on the global and local levels, elaborating also the level of identity felt among academics or activists with the word feminism or with feminist engagements (Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement, 2010). At the same time, in Spring 2011, a whole issue of Granta: The Magazine of New Writing under the title “The F Word,” was devoted to feminism today, in which the British writer Rachel Cusk proposed the following definition of today’s feminist: She is an autobiographer, an artist of the self. She acts as an interface between private and public, just as women always have, except that the feminist does it in reverse. She does not propitiate: she objects. She’s a woman turned inside out (Cusk 2011, 19). The feminist creates
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