Poles Apart: Women in Modern Polish Culture

1. Public Women, Parochial Stage: The Actress in Late Nineteenth-Century Poland

Public Women, Parochial Stage: The Actress in Late Nineteenth-Century Poland Beth Holmgren In 1893 I was invited by the Committee of the World's Fair Auxiliary Women's Congress, in Chicago, to take part in the theatrical section of the Congress and to say something about "Woman on the Stage" .... It may be remembered that one of the features of the Congress was a series of national women's delegations, each of them describing the position of women in their country. Among others, there was expected a delegation of ladies from Russian Poland, but none of them came to Chicago . Apparently they were afraid of the possible conflict with their government, and they limited their activity to sending a few statistical notes-ah! Most poor, bashful notes! In the face of this obstacle, wishing by all means to have a representative of our nationality, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, the Chairman of the Executive Board, appealed to me, requesting most urgently that I appear as the proxy of the Polish delegates and speak on their behalf. Mrs. Sewall, who for years has been my friend, put such pressure on me that I finally consented... . The auditorium was packed, and I had some difficulty in reaching the platform. The beginning of my speech was an excuse for the absence of my countrywomen from the Congress... Warmed up by the subject, and trying to arouse the sympathy of the brilliant audience for our cause, I was probably not careful enough in the choice of my expressions, but I said such words as my heart prompted me at the moment. (Memories and Impressions ofHelena Modjeska 512-13) On May 19, 1893, at the World's Congress of Representative Women held at the Chicago World's Fair, Helena Modjeska (1840-1909), the great Polish actress become American stage star, graciously substituted for absent Polish delegates in a panel discussion"about the poHelena Goscilo and Beth Holmgren, eds. Poles Apart: Women in Modern Polish Culture . Bloomington, IN: Siavica, 2006, 11 - 35. (Indiana Slavic Studies, 15 .) 12 Beth Holmgren sition of women in modern life."1 She had delivered her scheduled lecture on "Woman in the True Drama" a few days prior, yet it was this impromptu performance that stirred her public and articulated, in the words of one chronicler, "her most significant statement about Poland" (Coleman 623). Modjeska's "heartfelt" speech celebrates Polish women-particularly Polish gentry women-as family providers of biblical mettle, willing warriors "against the Turks or the Tartars," and equal partners in enlightened marriages (Coleman 625-26). Although she ultimately contains her incendiary examples with the verbal firewall of "Polish mother," she arrays them beside the militant models of Roman matron and Spartan mother and concludes with a salvo eastward: "Our enemies are making a great mistake if they think that they can kill patriotism. As long as there is one Polish woman left alive, Poland will not die, and the more they persecute us the better it is for us now" (Coleman 630). Over the years Modjeska's myriad Polish admirers have read this speech for its supercharged patriotic content, the more so because its target, the tsarist authorities in Russian Poland, consequently forbade her return engagements at the all-important Warsaw Imperial Theater2 Less remarked, but no less important, is her speech's local political context. The Polish actress had been recruited by May Wright Sewall, a key member of the suffragist National Council of Women, whose proposed Congress invited "discussions of every subject in relation to the woman question.,,3 At the first World's Fair which could 1 This Polish star debu ted in Poland under the wholly concocted stage name of Modrzejewska, which she subsequently shortened and simplified to "Modjeska" for Americans' ease of pronunciation. I refer to her as Modjeska in my text; quoted texts may feature the Polish version of her stage name. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from the Polish are mine. 2 In his copious Zywot Modrzejewskiej, J6zef Szczublewski remarks on the speech's potency as political contraband: "Its Polish version would make its way into the country and pass as a conspiratorial text from hand to hand in numerous copies throughout the three partitions" (Szczublewski 554). In her Memories and Impressions Modjeska admits her "grievous disappointment" at the consequent prohibition, which encompassed both Warsaw and St. Petersburg performances and, eventually, her travel everywhere in Russian Poland (513-18). 3 Jeanne Madeline Weimann's richly illustrated The Fair Women (1981) details how...