Between sacrifice and duty. The changing image of the Polish Mother-Patriot and evolution of women’s national agenda in the Province of Posen at the turn of the twentieth century

ABSTRACT

One of the consequences of depriving the Polish population of its own sovereign state in 1795 was that women were now tasked with fulfilling a ‘patriotic mission’. It was to constitute their contribution to culture and, in the long run, to winning back an independent nation. That was when the figure of the Polish Mother-Patriot became the role model, which throughout the nineteenth century remained as the only socially acceptable archetype of conduct for women. Until recently, the prevailing view proposed in the source literature has been that the Polish Mother-Patriot model held in the Province of Posen was static and subject to no change. However, research findings indicate that both civilisational changes and the periods of intensified Germanisation caused the tasks set for mothers to begin to vary, resulting in the model itself undergoing certain transformations. The purpose of this article is to discuss these modifications in literary, familial, social, and political terms. Owing to modern motherhood being reinterpreted to include national needs, women in the Province of Posen were given the opportunity to participate in public life and join the national community.

KEYWORDS:

• Polish Mother-Patriot
• the woman question
• Prussian Poland
• the Grand Duchy of Posen

Introductory comments

In 1815, in accordance with the provisions of the Congress of Vienna, the lands of the western and central Greater Poland region were incorporated into Prussia. This created the Grand Duchy of Posen, which functioned in the Prussian administrative system as the Province of Posen. Despite outnumbering their German counterparts, Poles in the Grand Duchy of Posen merely enjoyed the status of a national minority with all the associated restrictions. The building of a strong German state entailed an intensified policy of Germanisation. The latter reached its peak in 1908 with the announcement of the expropriation law in March, followed two months later by the coming into effect of a law on associations with the so-called muzzling section preventing the use of Polish at public gatherings in counties where Germans made up more than 40% of the population.

It was the need to nurture national identity that led to the symbolic right to citizenship being granted to Polish women in the national imagery. Admittedly, this was not connected with any formal granting of political or civil rights, but women now had the opportunity to participate in public life. Almost until the end of the nineteenth century, they could carry out the perceived patriotic activity in the domestic space alone, as their contribution for the benefit of the family. The figure of the Polish Mother-Patriot, conceived in this way, assumed that the woman should devote her entire life to fulfilling the ‘patriotic mission’ and subordinate herself to raising her offspring in the national and Catholic spirit. Initially, this model applied to the landed gentry and the bourgeoisie, only to gradually penetrate the workers’ and peasants’ circles later.¹ Although the figure of the Polish Mother-Patriot took shape in the late eighteenth century, it was in the second half of the nineteenth century that it became the only socially acceptable personal model for all Polish women to aspire to.

The political situation in the Grand Duchy of Posen and the removal of the Polish language and Polish culture from public space significantly affected the tasks Polish women faced. The events of 1908 renewed the discussion in the press about the links between the woman question and the national question and the need to build a modern nation under the regime of the Prussian Poland. A growing number of voices postulated the necessity of combining the Polish Mother-Patriot model with citizenship, while entering women's associations was itself a patriotic duty for Greater Poland's women. They also proclaimed the need to fight against the tightening Germanisation policy and German national propaganda which—with regard to women—also promoted motherhood, albeit as part of a model of the German woman and her role in strengthening Germandom in the so-called German East.

The purpose of this article is to seek an answer to the question of whether the situation in the Province of Posen had any modifying impact on the characteristics of the figure of the Polish Mother-Patriot in that geographical area. The prevailing view in the source literature has so far been that there was a single common Polish Mother-Patriot model in place and that mothers’ tasks were subordinated to the national mission.² It is also assumed that the model was not subject to evolution with regards to its essence and that the same formula of that model was advocated across the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia, and Prussian Poland alike. The findings of research on this subject in relation to the Polish lands as a whole in the nineteenth century were summarised by Natalie Cornett.³ The social, political and economic transformations taking place in Prussian Poland at the turn of the twentieth century, including a civilisational leap forward, prompt myself to look at how the Polish Mother-Patriot figure was perceived at that time. Thus, the following discussion complements Cornett’s research by pointing to the complex situation of Poles in the Province of Posen⁴ and the drive observed there in the early twentieth century to modernise the figure of the Polish Mother-Patriot by significantly enhancing the visibility of women’s role in the national discourse. It was thanks to this drive that the women's movement in the Province of Posen distinguished itself from its counterparts elsewhere, including in the rest of the former Polish territory. Therefore, this article aims to demonstrate what modifications the Polish Mother-Patriot model underwent in the Province of Posen. The present attempt at capturing these changes will be served by considering the model in four dimensions—literary, familial, social and political. Depending on the perspective adopted, the tasks expected of women kept changing while reinforcing the conviction of motherhood as their natural vocation. Responsible for rearing the next generation of Poles, women contributed to nation-building while maintaining the traditional gender order. In these terms, the Polish Mother-Patriot model came as a Polish response to the female allegories of nations popular in the nineteenth century, whose aim was to unify society through a common symbol referring to the ‘mother-nation’. At the same time, the use of an image of a female figure was meant to inspire men to fight for their threatened fatherland. The Polish Mother-Patriot can thus be compared to the German Germania, British Britannia, and French Marianne, who played a similar role in shaping a sense of national unity and identity.⁵

Literary genesis of the Polish Mother-Patriot

The origins of the Polish Mother-Patriot model can be traced to Polish Enlightenment literature and the works of the poet Franciszek Dionizy Kniaźnin (1750–1807). In his poem Mother-Citizen written around 1780, he portrayed the figure of a mother worried about the future of her young child. Rather than the infant’s health, however, the woman is concerned about whether he will grow up to be a patriot. After all, raising a traitor of the fatherland would be the embodiment of her worst nightmares. Thus, the family relationship, understood as the relationship between mother and child, in this poem became equivalent to the idea of unconditional love of the fatherland. A similar technique was utilised by another of the Enlightenment Polish poets—Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801). ‘We all come from one mother, and the mother is in distress’⁶ Krasicki wrote in a poem in 1781, referencing the current political situation Poland had found herself in. What do both these examples have in common? They both feature a dualistic understanding of the figure of the mother, who on the one hand is meant to signify a woman, and on the other, the fatherland. Both embodiments were developed with the advent of the Romantic era, when the sense of enslavement led to an ever growing need to fight for the preservation of national identity. According to the image outlined in To a Polish Mother-Patriot, a poem published in 1831 by Adam Mickiewicz, Poland’s foremost poet of the Romantic era, this model was incarnated by a woman who was faithful, caring, and ready to make sacrifices.⁷ She was also a tragic heroine, because while raising patriots, she was supposed to prepare her sons to be martyrs to the national cause. While fostering the fighting spirit in the men, she had to reckon with them possibly being arrested or killed. Faced with the necessity of running the household on her own, she was additionally expected to consciously give up her own needs, both economic and emotional. This was the price to pay in the struggle for the fatherland’s interests. Interestingly, it was the set of qualities that Mickiewicz ascribed to ‘his’ literary version of the Polish Mother-Patriot that would become the model applicable in real life. In the face of the intensifying policy of Germanisation, it was this image of the mother conceived in works of literature, and thus an idealised one, that Polish women were expected to follow. The Polish Mother-Patriot was supposed to watch, in dignified suffering, her sons’ battle and sacrifice themselves in the name of Mother-Poland. At the same time, this image fitted within the ideal of a woman outlined by French and British reformers in the 1840s. This was a time that the model to follow was one of a virtuous and modest woman who devoted her life to fulfilling the roles of a mother, a wife, and a housewife, imposed on her by society. At the same time, that woman would not attempt to engage in politics on her own, limiting herself only to supporting men in their public activities. In the private space, her overriding task was to nurture tradition and culture. Thus, instead of ‘noisy, impudent women on the barricades’, the pedestal was reserved for ‘patriotic mothers’ who, through their activities on behalf of the family, had an indirect influence on the public sphere, without however demanding civil rights for themselves.⁸

Already at the end of the eighteenth century, Polish lands saw the emergence of the concept of the Mother-Citizen who, through education, was becoming more aware of her patriotic duties which, in turn, was to translate into raising offspring in the spirit of civic duty and sacrifice. The beginning of the nineteenth century, thanks to educators, doctors and philosophers accentuating the need for changes in the approach to parenthood, saw the beginning of a gradual process of transformation of attitudes toward motherhood. In the following decades, especially after the failed November Uprising (1830–1831) and January Uprising (1863–1864), the scope of mothers’ educational tasks kept expanding as the necessity of pursuing a ‘patriotic mission’ within the family was pointed out. Therefore, the natural predisposition of women to be wives, mothers, and caretakers at home, was widely emphasised, while at the same time they were denied the right to go beyond the accepted model. Their activity for the benefit of society was limited to charitable work. Attempts to promote a new vision of womanhood in the Province of Posen in the early nineteenth century by progressive activists such as Helena Rzepecka and Zofia Tułodziecka, associated with women’s access to education, greater independence in the public sphere and rejection of the submissive femininity model, were met with ostracism and incomprehension among the Greater Poland population.

Polish Mother-Patriot: the family perspective

The conscious process of assigning women a different place than that occupied by men in the bourgeois society taking shape in Western Europe began in the eighteenth century. The social imperative that women should submit to the tasks arising from their essential vocation of motherhood meant that they could not claim the autonomy guaranteed to men. The very origins of the family were presented as eternal and linked to the sacred. Following the principles of Catholicism, marriage was entered into for procreation and was considered an inviolable union. The wife was subordinate to her husband, while his responsibility was to provide for her and the children. Thus, both should engage in activities determined by their respective sexes, although their goals were complementary. Due to their character traits and biological predispositions, women were intended for procreation and domestic life. Their emotionality was thought to be defined by such qualities as submissiveness, weakness, shyness, emotionality, and religiosity. Women were therefore defined by motherhood and by how they fulfilled the tasks imposed by marriage. Men, on the other hand, were characterised by rationality, wisdom, decisiveness, and courage. Their role was to create culture.⁹ Such postulated complementarity of the sexes was well reflected in the words of Lorenz von Stein, a German economist and sociologist born in 1815, who divided reality into a hostile outer world and a friendly inner world where the man was awaited by his woman. The woman's space was thus epitomised by the home, which was to be associated with love and tranquillity, while the man's world was defined by gainful employment and enterprise in the public space.¹⁰

The industrialisation and modernisation processes progressing in Western Europe in the nineteenth century, which also took place, with some delay, in Polish lands, affected the functioning of society as a whole. While at the turn of the nineteenth century bourgeois women took an active part in family-run merchant enterprises, by the end of the century their involvement had already become merely negligible. Progressive industrialisation resulted in the separation of public and private spaces. Work at the place of residence or the workshop adjacent to the home was discontinued. Men found employment outside the home, which for women meant being now confined to the domestic sphere and working for the household and family. For this reason, as well, women’s place in bourgeois society was determined by the roles of wife and mother. This was the universal model applicable both in the Province of Posen and the rest of Poland, as well as Western Europe. Thus, the head of the family was the father to whom all other family members were subordinate, whereas the women were deprived of the legal grounds to decide for themselves. Despite the privileged legal and social position of men, however, unlike in Western countries, extreme patrocentrism did not develop in Polish families.¹¹ On the other hand, the division of roles in the bourgeois family was perpetuated, just as in Germany, France and Britain, by upbringing patterns that differentiated between tasks that were either male or female.¹²

Motherhood, in particular, was seen as the quintessence of femininity. Confirmations of this are to be found in the journalist writings of the time. ‘In no capacity, neither such credit nor such suitable work for herself can she find, as in the capacity of the wife and the mother’, wrote novelist and author of pedagogical works Zofia Kowerska (1845–1929).¹³ This confirms that a woman’s main job was to be her husband’s companion and give birth to his offspring. Thus, girls living in Greater Poland were raised by their grandmothers and mothers in a traditional way learnt through their own experience. A devoted mother and wife, obedient to her husband, devoting all her attention to the affairs of the household was the goal to which they were to aspire. They were prepared to perform the role assigned to them in society from an early age.

As Germanisation in the Province of Posen intensified in the second half of the nineteenth century, Greater Poland’s public understood that the consequences of Prussia’s policies called for more commitment. The firmness of the family began to be seen as guaranteeing the preservation of Polish identity. In the following decades, after the Polish national uprisings ended in defeat, the attribution of a ‘patriotic mission’ to women became apparent. The role of women in the Province of Posen was combined with the need to nurture Polish culture. Their duty was no longer only to give birth to offspring, or to take care of the household but also to instill national tradition and the Catholic religion into the next generations. Thus, the role of mothers as the first educators of their children was emphasised. The Polish Mother-Patriot, therefore, became first and foremost the protectress of Polishness. From now on, it was her job to raise her children in the spirit of patriotism by familiarising them with the nation’s history or remembering the insurrectionaries who died in the uprisings. Due to the gradual eradication of the Polish language from schools after 1871 as part of the effort to create the German nation-state, it was the women, who stayed at home, that were expected to teach children to read and write in Polish.¹⁴ The diligence with which this task was completed, and the patriotic atmosphere that was maintained in the family homes, especially among Polish landed gentry, led to a situation in which many young people of both sexes treated involvement in social activities as a national duty.

The influence of the Catholic Church was not without significance for the formation of the nineteenth-century family life model in the Province of Posen. The fight against the Church, sparked by the Kulturkampf under the government led by Otto von Bismarck, combined with the removal of the Polish language from public life, was aimed at depriving the clergy of its influence on Polish society.¹⁵ In 1871, the Reichstag passed the so-called ‘Pulpit Law’, which imposed custodial sentences of up to two years on clergyman using the pulpit to criticise the policies of the authorities. Other anti-Church actions included the ban on the Society of Jesus in the Reich enacted in 1872, the so-called May Laws of 1873,¹⁶ and ultimately making it possible to expel resistant priests from the Reich. The actions undertaken by the authorities and their Kulturkampf policy met not only with violent opposition from the clergy, but also from the society itself. The struggle against the Church in Greater Poland resulted in the strengthening of its authority and reinforcement of national consciousness. With the progressive persecution of the Polish minority, the view that the defence of the Catholic faith was tantamount to the defence of Polish nationality was perpetuated. The only institution that the invaders’ administration had no impact on was the family. It was therefore particularly important that religious attitudes should be developed among children, for instance by teaching them to pray in their native language. Indeed, patriotism and religiosity were inextricably linked to each other. As Zofia Rzepecka wrote in her memoirs,¹⁷ ‘raised in the atmosphere of true religiousness and ardent patriotism, I had to fill myself with the feelings of love for God and the fatherland, which guided me in my life’.¹⁸ It was a general belief that whoever loved God must also love the fatherland.

However, the way that the Polish Mother-Patriot model was presented showed a certain gender ambivalence, for she never appeared as a woman but always as the mother of the next generation of patriots. Thus, the Polish Mother-Patriot seen as such was not supposed to embody family values but was rather part of a model that confirmed the reign of the patriarchal worldview. Because of the model’s Romantic and nationalist roots, as well as the expectation that the focus be on the sons alone, women had to be asexual, which meant they held purely reproductive functions. Should the mothers’ femininity be exposed, the fatherland they represented would be stripped of its dignity, for the Polish Mother-Patriot was a figure linked to the nation both in the religious and patriotic dimensions. The model contained elements of both landed gentry culture and the Polish myth of the Pole-Catholic.¹⁹ Its origins are to be sought in the cult of the Virgin Mary, protectress of the nation.²⁰

Religiosity was an extremely important component of the figure of the Polish Mother-Patriot. On the one hand, one’s fervent Catholic faith was to be an element of connection with the lost homeland, while on the other it was supposed to put Polish Catholic women in opposition to other faiths, especially Protestantism and Orthodoxy. Therefore, in the Province of Posen, where the Catholic Church had German members, there was always a need to emphasise the Polish-Catholic aspect of piety. This piety was characterised by including national elements, which were passed on to children, for instance, in daily prayers. At the same time, reliance on Marian devotions developing in the nineteenth century could justify the postulated need to devote oneself to the children at the expense of giving up one's own needs. The tasks set before women that combined religion and patriotism are unambiguously expressed in a passage written in 1871 by Józef I. Kraszewski in Polish Program: ‘The home is our temple, tabernacle, school—with the mother as the first priest and the father as the highest guardian’.²¹ It was the family’s job to resist attempts at denationalisation in the era of a partitioned Poland. Consequently, the role of the mother became increasingly important, as she was now the guardian of the hearth and home, organiser of family life, and protectress of national culture, the Polish language, and the Catholic faith. Such was the set of notions that women raised future citizens with.²² Although it was widely believed that the purpose of every woman's life was to start a family, childless women were also encouraged to be involve in the ‘patriotic mission’, as it was through acting for the benefit of the society that they were able to find a use for their layers of untapped maternal love. Taking into account the biological factors of women, motherhood thus became their ‘sacred mission’ and a space in which they were to realise their part in the quest for independence. As there was no chance to rebuild an independent state, the family became the guarantor of national identity and motherhood a political issue.

Polish Mother-Patriot: the social perspective

Industrialisation brought about social changes, one of which was the emergence of the working class in Europe. The low wages of workers, especially women and children, meant that everyone in the family had to contribute to the household budget. The hardships of working-class women’s life and work took their toll on their and their children’s health. This situation became one of the topical subjects in the nineteenth-century European discourse on women's responsibility for the physical condition and upbringing of children that dated back to the second half of the eighteenth century.

Mothers’ relevance in the educational process was also emphasised by such nineteenth-century thinkers as Theodor Fliender, Friedrich Fröbel and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. At the time, also the pedagogical discourse came up with the concept of ‘education for motherhood’, which was developed within the religious and national contexts.²³

Motherhood also became a topic in the medical discourse, and since the mid-nineteenth century it emerged in the debate on infant mortality and everyday life hygiene improvement. The developments in medicine helped raise concern for the health of women as ‘mothers of the nation’. Mothers became the subject of interest for hygienists, as well. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the latter paid particular attention to mothers from peasant and working-class backgrounds. Hygiene rules (for example, cleanliness, proper nutrition) and breastfeeding of infants were encouraged among these social strata.²⁴ Adherence to these conditions was expected to reduce maternal mortality in the perinatal period, as well as the rates of infant deaths. From the 1870s onward, Germany witnessed a decline in birth rates, especially among the upper classes. According to statistics, the working class demonstrated increased fertility rates and a high percentage of single mothers. The measures undertaken were intended to improve the health of the women and children and in this way halt the nation’s degeneration process initiated by industrialisation.

The protection of mothers was also taken account of in the German Empire's emerging social policy As industrialisation progressed and the working class emerged, the situation of women, who often worked in factories for several hours at a time, became increasingly difficult in the second half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, workers’ low wages led to the need for women to work, which simultaneously increased the latter’s significance to the economy.²⁵ As a modern, welfare-oriented German state was forming, it was essential that protection and adequate living conditions were provided for those belonging to the risk groups. Women workers’ gainful employment outside the home was perceived as a sign of destabilisation of the family's position. Initially, as mothers, they were deprived of any legal protection. It was not uncommon for them to have to work until they gave birth and then return to work immediately. This frequently happened to unmarried women. To protect family cohesion, female workers were gradually included in the legal protection system, though still a privileged position of men regarding division of labour was preserved.²⁶ In Germany, of crucial importance was the law enacted in 1878, which introduced the so-called maternity protection (Mutterschutz), for instance, a ban on employing mothers within three weeks after childbirth. In 1883, one of three insurance laws (Die gesetzliche Krankenversicherung, or GKV) was passed, which granted mothers 50% of their salary during these three weeks after giving birth. In 1910, the benefit eligibility period was extended to eight weeks, while women’s working hours were limited to ten a day.²⁷ The purpose of the reforms was not only to protect the interests of working women but also to secure motherhood and the working-class family. Consequently, the observation that the civilisational transformations had led to ramifications, including in particular a decline in birth rates, brought mothers and motherhood into the state's sphere of interest.²⁸

The debate took place in the press and academic publications, and within associations and social organisations. An alarmist tone was evident in the background of the discussion, which spoke of a moral, health and lifestyle crisis. It was argued that the prosperity of society and the nation depended on the values held within the family as a basic unit of society. The mother educated the children, passed on traditions, and shaped civic attitudes, which was to guarantee the well-being of the entire state. The declining birth rates and health caused some to conclude that there was a need for eugenics to ensure a ‘better quality’ of newborns as future taxpayers and recruits.²⁹ Any effort related to raising offspring was to be undertaken in tandem with health, education and concern for public health in Germany.³⁰ The mother thus had to become an informed recipient of the content addressed to her by hygienists, doctors and pedagogues. The new scientific and cultural trends led to the previously prevailing models being reinterpreted and the concepts of the ‘new woman’, ‘new upbringing’ and ‘new motherhood’ emerging. Additionally, these new ideas were revised through the prism of national needs in the Province of Posen. Authors of press articles and guidebooks claimed that women should remedy their educational shortcomings by reading guidebooks and then implementing their recommendations. In the early twentieth century, girls preparing for the roles of mothers were no more merely expected to rely on the experience of previous generations and their own intuition but were also supposed to make use of the knowledge that resulted from various spheres of social life now having been better researched. Therefore, the woman started to be considered as better prepared for motherhood not just because of her biological predisposition or her innate character traits but also because of the knowledge she had acquired. It was assumed that as long as she understood her vocation, she would make a deliberate and professional effort to prepare to fulfil it.³¹ In this way, a ‘new mother’ model took shape, as she was now expected to be professionally prepared for motherhood, be nationally aware and demonstrate a high level of morality, which was supposed to positively influence the next generation of Poles being raised by her. This was how the Polish Mother-Patriot figure in the Province of Posen, which had originally promoted a vision of the woman that was based on her subordination and sacrifice, was now untied to absorb new content and dynamised by linking it to the ‘modern maternity’ concept.

Additionally, the early nineteenth century witnessed a gradual transfer of motherhood to the public space through women’s involvement in welfare and education, that is, those spheres for which they were responsible in their families. This began as individual philanthropic activity, which then grew to become organised. In the Province of Posen, Gryzelda Celestyna Działyńska of the landed gentry founded the Charitable Society of Polish Ladies (Towarzystwo Dobroczynności Dam Polskich). Subsequently, in 1853, she founded the Association of the Ladies of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (Towarzystwo Pań Miłosierdzia św. Wincentego á Paulo), headquartered in Posen, which looked after the poor, the elderly, and children, and was the first women's organisation in the city.³² In 1871, women of the Polish landed gentry founded the Society of Educational Help for Girls (Towarzystwo Pomocy Naukowej dla Dziewcząt), which created opportunities for women to gain qualifications so they could work should they be left destitute. One of the prominent figures in this field was Emila Sczaniecka. The Society for Folk Education (Towarzystwo Oświaty Ludowej) was founded around the same time, which focused on promoting widespread education and establishing libraries in villages. A similar educational endeavour was also undertaken by the Society of Women-Landowners for the Grand Duchy of Posen and West Prussia (Towarzystwo Ziemianek na Księstwo Poznańskie i Prusy Zachodnie), established in 1910. This organisation sought to further educate women activists and implement a programme of Catholic social work tailored to the needs of the rural class among peasant women, children and families, as well as farm worker families. The Society’s board was headed by Ludwika, the wife of Jan Turno, owner of the Słomowo estate.³³ The activities that the women engaged in pointed to their well-developed sense of national identity. By nurturing Polish culture, promoting patriotism, and strengthening the Catholic faith, they committed themselves to social work understood as effort for the national cause.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, women from the intelligentsia and bourgeois classes were also increasingly involved in social work. When the Polish language was removed from secondary schools in 1874 and elementary schools in 1887, these women began to organise themselves in order to help uneducated mothers gain suitable knowledge so that they could educate their own children in turn. 25 May 1894 witnessed the establishment of the Society of Friends for Mutual Child Education and Care (Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Wzajemnego Pouczania oraz Opieki nad Dziećmi), known as ‘Warta’ (Eng: ‘Guard’).³⁴ The impetus for its foundation came when the Posen-based activists wished to organise an anniversary fete celebrating the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794, a past struggle of persisting significance to Poles. When distributing their leaflets to poor children, they quickly realised that most could not read in Polish. Thus, Warta’s official goal was to aid parents in raising their offspring. And so, day-care centres for children were organised, and courses in needlework and the like, or talks for mothers, were held. Their other activities included thematic celebrations and excursions, and a savings bank. The Society’s unofficial goal, though, was to teach the Polish language. Pursuing this objective, children were introduced to Polish culture, history and geography. In order to incite patriotism among the children, female social activists such as Aniela Tułodziecka, Helena Rzepecka, Klara Paczkowska i Teresa Gantkowska organised national and Christmas fetes. Thanks to these activists’ involvement, seven libraries for children were opened in 1898, and within six years their number grew to twelve. This allowed for promoting reading among the youngest, later followed by adults. The Society gradually expanded its reach, to eventually include teenagers. In subsequent years, it set up a Parental Care Society, a Legal Advice Office, a loans plan, and a shelter for the elderly. In addition to their concern for education and the promotion of culture, the female activists took part in the celebration of national anniversaries and events commemorating distinguished Poles, which had a great impact on the development of women's self-awareness in the region. By involving with ‘Warta’, Greater Poland's bourgeois women entered the public sphere under the banner of social and national work, the aim of the latter being to support mothers in fulfilling their ‘national mission’. ‘Warta’ thus focused on promoting civic education, and its basis was to be concern for national welfare regardless of gender or the social stratum represented.

In addition to the women's movement’s welfare trends or tendencies representing the interests of women workers, there were also those that were inspired by clerical-nationalist circles. Implementing the words of St. Augustine ‘Give me praying mothers and I will rescue the world’, the clergy sought to use the women's movement for the defence of the Christian faith. By establishing associations, they also wanted to protect women workers from losing their Catholic faith. The mission of educating women in the religious and moral spirit was carried out since 1889 by Our Mother of Perpetual Help Society of Factory Workers (Towarzystwo Pracownic fabrycznych pod wezwaniem Matki Boskiej Nieustającej Pomocy) founded by Aniela Karłowska. It ran a gratuitous legal advice office and a health insurance, dowry and burial fund, and issued its own journal Female Worker.³⁵

Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum and Catholic social teaching opened a new chapter in the activity of the Catholic Church in the Province of Posen. While implementing its tenets in the early twentieth century, the clergy became involved in work among women workers. Occurring first in Posen, followed later by other towns, Catholic working women's associations were being formed under the auspices of the clergy. These were, in 1906, merged into the Union of Associations for Catholic Working Women (Związek Stowarzyszeń Katolickich Kobiet Pracujących). The Catholic Church enjoyed influence among Greater Poland’s landed gentry and intelligentsia women and encouraged them to work among female workers in the spirit of social and national Catholicism, under so-called patronages, for instance, in female councillor clubs providing legal and educational assistance to female workers belonging to working women's societies operating under the patronage of priests.³⁶ The clergy emphasised the role of mothers as educators of the next generation of the Catholic Polish nation. In their publications, they also underlined the need to prepare working women for the tasks of mothers and educators of children. The role model to aspire to was that of a pious and moral mother, one that was knowledgeable in hygiene, health protection, and the running of the household. It was bourgeois women that were supposed to educate them in this regard.³⁷ This involvement of the clergy in promoting the image of the modern Polish Mother-Patriot also among the working class resulted from the growing influence of German Social Democracy among the lowest strata of society, including Poles. In that case, Polish working-class women were also expected to be the protectresses of Polishness and the Catholic faith. This meant that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the figure of the Polish Mother-Patriot was expanded by more than just new elements derived from a range of social life areas now having been better researched. She also became a tool for incorporating female workers into the national community by making them co-responsible for the future of the Polish Catholic nation.

Polish Mother-Patriot: the political perspective

The social and nation-building functions of motherhood contained in the Polish Mother-Patriot figure undergoing modernisation were closely linked to the political dimension of patriotic activity. Women’s educational and self-help work should be treated as part of the national movement defined as collective and individual activity aimed at regaining independence, defending the rights enjoyed by Poles, strengthening the economic standing of Polish people, and popularising and reinforcing Polish national awareness.³⁸

Here, a special role was played by Polish women's rallies organised in Posen since the end of the nineteenth century, convened under the slogan of pursuing maternal obligations. They were an expression of their objection to the policy of restricting Polish-language teaching in schools. It was the maternal concern for children as the future of the nation that legitimised this form of resistance by Polish women who, in the public space during those rallies, acted precisely as mothers. The first rally of Polish women-mothers was held in 1899 under the leadership of Wanda Niegolewska, followed by two more in 1900, which protested the discrimination of the Polish language in teaching and anti-Polish statements by Prussian politicians. Among other things, the women demanded after-school care facilities for the children of working mothers and decided to set up an aid office for indigent mothers. The first three women's rallies were not controversial. The rally participants also strongly emphasised their identification with the role of mothers, and thus accepted the proposed stereotypical association of the role of guardians of the national heritage and guardians of the hearth and home. For some observers of the events, it was the rallies that sparked the broader participation of women in the work of associations and in the national movement.³⁹

References to the Polish Mother-Patriot figure were made at subsequent rallies. In October 1904, women gathered to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the founding of their ‘Warta’ association and called for the education of mothers and for a patriotic and Catholic upbringing of children.⁴⁰ They organised the rally on their own, without the support of the clergy or political and social activists of the time. Extremely negative statements were made about the participants in the conservative Dziennik Poznański daily. Their authors suggested links between the Rallygoers and the feminist and socialist movement, which was meant to discredit the organisers in the eyes of the public.⁴¹ Regardless of the fact that the activists appeared in the public space with a programme that was moderate in expression referring to the traditional familial tasks assigned to women by society, for the conservative-minded part of Polish society any political independence of women was tantamount to feminist and emancipatory aspirations.

Another of the great rallies was convened in May 1908 in connection with two anti-Polish laws: the expropriation law which provided for the seizure of land from Poles, and a new law on associations restricting the use of the Polish language in public spaces. While the earlier rallies attracted between 200 and 600 participants, the 1908 rally was attended by some 2,000 Polish women, not just from the Province of Posen.

The speeches emphasised themes revolving around Polish women’s ‘national mission’, making it clear that it was to be fulfilled not just within the family but also in the society through work in organisations. The new law on associations restricted the Polish language in public spaces but, on the other hand, also lifted the ban on women's membership in political organisations in effect in Prussia since 1850. The programme of tasks facing women was presented in her speech by Helena Rzepecka. The activist pointed to the necessity of countering denationalisation by moving away from the ‘patriotic mission’ carried out in the privacy of the home to women's involvement in broader public activities. Although she did not negate women's duties related to caring for the hearth and home, she considered total dedication to these tasks alone insufficient.⁴²

In their 1908 rally speeches, the female activists stressed the need for national education of children and called for women to be active in associational work.⁴³ Mothers were told to not only give guidance to their daughters and sons but also set a personal example for them to follow. Women were therefore exhorted to join ‘male’ organisations, establish new ones, and take an interest in political life. Mothers’ and fathers’ collaboration in the national movement was a new slogan at the time, whereas it was combined with the postulate that women's education be improved. It was believed that the Polish nation needed well-educated women to be its ‘mainstay’ and be able to perform conscious national and civic work. Maria Skłodowska-Curie was to be the example to look up to.⁴⁴

The last of the great women's rallies, held in 1912, was according to the press attended by approximately 5,000 Polish women.⁴⁵ The growing number of participants indicated an increasing involvement of Polish women in the struggle to maintain national identity. This was fostered by the repeated appeals to Polish women's sense of patriotic duty as mothers of the nation. The speeches alluded to the need to demonstrate maternal concern for future generations and for the motherland. Referring to the concept of modern motherhood, mothers were reminded of their responsibility for the health of their children and urged to feed their offspring naturally and raise them without the help of foreign nannies. Emphasising the national dimension, education and association were encouraged.⁴⁶

That women were given the opportunity to participate in political life through the symbolic right to citizenship was not seen as tantamount to them being equal. The mere ‘patriotic mission’ that Greater Poland’s women were intended to fulfil failed to encourage them to become interested in their own emancipation. Apart from that, Polish politicians and commentators stressed the primacy of the national interest over that of gender. In the Province of Posen, with the traditional idea of social order prevailing, the woman was associated exclusively with the domestic domain. As a consequence of the political situation in this region and the exacerbating Polish-German nationality conflict, women were tasked with helping to maintain and develop national identity.⁴⁷ The views of Roman Dmowski, one of the ‘fathers of Polish independence’ and the main ideologist of Polish nationalism, on the tasks to be fulfilled by women, were a perfect reflection of this sentiment, for he claimed that the woman should be raised to be a good wife and mother and subordinate herself completely to the will and life of her husband. Moreover, he did not support higher education or gainful employment for women, limiting their responsibility to guarding the hearth and home.⁴⁸ On the other hand, however, in his writings he emphasised their role in upbringing children and in caring for national identity, morality, and religious feelings. The space where women were to be engaged was their closest environment, or the so-called little politics on the border between public and family lives.⁴⁹ Ewa Maj described this phenomenon as ‘national feminism’. It consisted in creating the conditions for women to be activated by engaging them in work for the national cause, mainly through their welfare and educational effort.⁵⁰

In a similar vein, Karol Libelt (1807–1875), a Posen-based social activist and philosopher, had even earlier claimed that ‘as high as giving birth and raising children are wives to aim (…) so far should emancipation go … , for here is the apotheosis of their femininity’.⁵¹ Libelt therefore appreciated the role of women in family life and argued that they should be the guardians of Polishness. The emancipation that he was ready to approve of was that aimed at better preparing women for their roles as wives and mothers. Any other sort of their activity in the public space would have meant violation of the traditional Polish customs.

In this way Polish women were excluded from any involvement in the struggle for their rights, since it would have had no relevance for the national question. One exception was the demands for improved girls’ education and for equal rights for women and men in welfare work, as these issues were directly related to Polish women’s ‘patriotic mission’. The same applied to exploiting German legislation for the protection of female workers. The latter issue entailed establishing legal advice offices tasked with disseminating information on female workers’ rights provided for in law. The fact that the national question became tied with the woman question prevented the feminist movement from developing among Polish women in the Province of Posen. A struggle for women's rights would have meant the need to cooperate with the German bourgeois women's movement, which would have amounted to treason.⁵²

Conclusions

An element of Polish culture, the Polish Mother-Patriot figure became a reflection of the difficult history of a nation partitioned by three neighbours for the whole nineteenth century. It combined aspects of Catholicism, conservative values, and traditional upbringing. In addition, its image epitomised the society’s expectations of women, who were to be heroic and ready to make sacrifices and put the good of the nation above their own. The idealisation of women's effort led to a situation where it was almost impossible for them to live up to these notions.

Despite civilisational changes and the modernisation of the society, the woman-mother model was firmly rooted in Poles’ consciousness. However, the multitude of tasks set before women by commentators, politicians and writers moulded the image of the modern Polish woman, who they decided to burden with responsibility for the future of the fatherland. For the women, in turn, the Polish Mother-Patriot figure became both a vocation and another factor of their incapacitation. On the one hand, Poles’ having no sovereign state of their own imposed tasks on them that went beyond the duties of women in other countries. This, in turn, necessitated autonomy in fulfilling this job. On the other hand, these tasks subordinated the women to the ‘patriotic mission’ and took no account of their personal beliefs. The Polish Mother-Patriot became the only acceptable model of conduct.

Compared to the rest of the former Polish lands, the political and social situation in the Province of Posen (with a strong influence of the Catholic religion on society, and with Poles having to contend with the emerging German nationalism) made the Polish Mother-Patriot figure more pronounced and ensured that her role in preserving national identity was exposed more often than it was elsewhere.

Until the second half of the nineteenth century, this was limited to promoting patriotism within the closest family in the domestic space. Polish Mather-Patriot’s job was to raise her sons to be warriors fighting for the fatherland and daughters to be obedient mothers dedicated to the national cause. By fitting into this normative model, women could join the national community and bring a deeper relevance to their own existence. Such politicised motherhood combined the patriotic duty to engage in national affairs in the public sphere with readiness to subordinate one's desires to higher goals and sacrifice. The beginning of the twentieth century, however, saw the Polish Mother-Patriot figure clearly reinvigorate, which was another aspect that made the Province of Posen stand out among other areas. New elements were incorporated, such as theoretical preparation for motherhood and social activity expansion that resulted from extending maternal care from the family alone to the entire nation. In the case of the former, the need to widen women's education by incorporating knowledge of pedagogy, hygiene, and preventive health care, was postulated. The Polish Mother-Patriot figure thus absorbed novelties brought about by civilisational progress. This reconstruction was legitimised by national needs. The arguments for modernising the model were those of concern for the health of the next generation of Poles, and the process went hand in hand with the organicist approach to society which was popular at the time. For this reason, the Polish Mother-Patriot model was also promoted among the working class. It was to be transmitted by bourgeois women preparing women workers for the proper performance of their tasks as mothers. The former shaped in the latter a concern for the biological condition of Poles and the Polish language and culture, as well as an attachment to the Catholic faith. This approach was characteristic of the time and was an expression of national and social solidarism. In this way, the modernised Polish Mother-Patriot model started to integrate workers into the Polish national community.

Moreover, motherhood legitimised women's presence in the public sphere and their involvement in social work, especially after 1908, when legislation enabled them to be politically active. However, it was not a matter of engaging in the struggle for suffrage but rather that of social work in defence of Polishness, which was pictured as the duty that women-mothers of the nation had towards the future Poland that was about to be reborn. By joining organisations, they were supposed to get better education on the one hand and extend their maternal care to the whole society on the other. The need to undertake the effort of implementing the assumptions of conscious motherhood stemmed from the belief that the future of the nation depended on the proper upbringing of the youth. In Greater Poland, not only were the models observed in Western European discourses present, but they were also intentionally exploited to create the image of the ‘new mother’ and ‘modern motherhood’ among women of all social strata. These issues show that in the case of the Province of Posen, the Polish Mother-Patriot figure, described by Natalie Cornett as a static one, clearly evolved in the early twentieth century.

However, the simultaneous apotheosis of the image of the mother failed to affect her legal position as a wife and a woman. Enjoying reverence as an educator of the next generation, a spiritual guide, and a guardian of national values, at the same time she remained completely subordinate to her husband's decisions. This means that there was an extensive and hardly reconcilable discrepancy between the role model and the woman’s actual position in the family. It was believed that the primary task of every Pole was to work towards regaining an independent state, while the greatest fear was that of the loss of national identity. Women's patriotism was therefore measured by the degree of their commitment to nurturing love of the fatherland and fulfilling the tasks of the Polish Mother-Patriot.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Centre Poland [grant number 2020/37/B/HS3/00648].

Notes on contributors

Joanna Morawska-Tołek

Joanna Morawska-Tołek is a Phd Student at the University of Szczecin. Her research interests include social transformations in the nineteenth century with the focus on history of women. She is preparing a dissertation on the image of the mother and motherhood in the Grand Duchy of Posen at the turn of the 20th century.

Notes

1 Anna Żarnowska, ‘Ruch emancypacyjny i stowarzyszenia kobiece na ziemiach polskich przed odzyskaniem niepodległości – dylematy i ograniczenia. Wprowadzenie’, in Kobieta i rodzina w przestrzeni wielkomiejskiej na ziemiach polskich w XIX i XX wieku, ed. Anna Żarnowska (Warszawa: DiG, 2013), 211.

2 Rudolf Jaworski, ‘Polish Women and the Nationality Conflict in the Province of Posen at the Turn of the Century’, in Women in Polish Society, ed. Rudolf Jaworski and Bianka Pietrow-Ennker (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992); Robert Blobaum, ‘The “Women Question” in Russian Poland, 1900–1914’, Journal of Social History 354 (2002); Małgorzata Fidelis, ‘Participation in the Creative Work of the Nation: Polish Women Intellectuals in the Cultural Construction of Female Gender Roles, 1864–1890’, Journal of Women’s History 13 (2000): 108–25; Halina Filipowicz, ‘The Daughters of Emilia Plater’, in Engendering Slavic Literatures, ed. Pamela Chester and Sibelan Forrester (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 34–58; Natalie Stegmann, Die Töchter der geschlagenen Helden. “Frauenfrage”, Feminismus und, Frauenbewegung” in Polen 1863–1919 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2000).

3 Natalie Cornett, ‘From Mother-Patriot to Sister-Lover: Changing Visions of Womanhood in Nineteenth-Century Poland’, Gender & History 0 (2021): 1–18.

4 Cf.: William W. Hagen, Germans, Poles and Jews. The Nationality Conflict in the Prussian East 1772–1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Richard Blanke, Prussian Poland in the German Empire (1871–1900) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981); Mark Tilse, Transnationalism in the Prussian East. From National Conflict to Synthesis 1871–1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

5 Jennifer Heuer, ‘Gender and Nationalism’, in Nations and Nationalism: A Global Historical Overview, Vol. 1: 1770–1880, ed. Guntram H. Herb and David H. Kaplan (Santa Barbara: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008), 48–49.

6 Ignacy Krasicki, O obowiązkach obywatela. Do Antoniego Hrabi Krasickiego, in Ignacy Krasicki, Satyry i listy (Warszawa: Gebethner i Wolff, 1911), 112.

7 Adam Mickiewicz, Do matki Polki (Lwów 1833).

8 Lynn Abrams, The Making of Modern Woman: Europe 1789–1918 (London, New York: Routledge, 2014), 221.

9 Abrams, The Making of Modern Woman, 17–19.

10 See Karin Hausen, ‘Family and Role-Division: The Polarisation of Sexual Stereotypes in the Nineteenth Century- an Aspect of the Dissociation of Work and Family Life’, in The German Family. Essays on the Social History of the Family in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany, ed. Richard J. Evans and W. R. Lee (Totowa, New Jersey: Routledge, 1981), 19–51.

11 Ann Taylor Allen, Feminism and Motherhood in Germany 1800–1914 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Routgers University Press, 1991), 19–20.

12 Ute Frevert, Women in German History. From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1989), 34.

13 Anna Landau-Czajka, ‘Przygotowanie do małżeństwa według wybranych poradników z XIX i XX wieku’, in Kobieta i małżeństwo, ed. Anna Żarnowska and Andrzej Szwarc (Warszawa: DiG, 2004), 9.

14 Jennifer Heuer, ‘Gender and Nationalism’, in Nations and Nationalism: A Global Historical Overview, vol. 1: 1770–1880, ed. Guntram H. Herb and David H. Kaplan (Santa Barbara: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008), 53.

15 Brigitte Balzer, Die preuβische Polenpolitik 1894–1908 und die Haltung der deutschen konservativen und liberalen Partein (unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Provinz Posen) (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1990), 27–19.

16 The Catholic Church was subordinated to the state with regard to education, appointment and dismissal of the clergy.

17 Zofia Rzepecka (1873–1957) was one of the leaders of the Catholic women’s movement in Poznań.

18 Zofia Rzepecka ‘Wspomnienia’, Kronika Wielkopolski 3, no. 111 (2004): 81.

19 Norman Davis, ‘Polish National Mythology’, The Polish Studies Program 4 (1996): 16.

20 Brian Porter, ‘Hetmanka and Mother: Representing the Virgin Mary in Modern Poland’, Contemporary European History 14 (2005): 159–61.

21 Zofia Sokół, ‘Rola czasopism w kształtowaniu modelu domu rodzinnego i wzoru osobowego matki (1860–1914)’, in Partnerka, matka, opiekunka. Status kobiety w dziejach nowożytnych od XVI do XX wieku, ed. Krzysztof Jakubiak (Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uczelniane Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej, 2000), 138.

22 K. Hoffmanowa z Tańskich, Pamiątka po dobrej matce, czyli ostatnie jej rady dla córki (Wrocław: Drukarnia Wilhelma Bogumiła Korna, 1833), 10.

23 Jan Wnęk, ‘The Role of the Mother in Polish Pedagogical Thought 1795–1918’, Wychowanie w Rodzinie 22 (2020): 21.

24 Anne Cova, ‘French Feminism and Maternity: Theories and Policies, 1890–1918’, in Maternity and Gender Policies. Women and the Rise of the European Welfare States, 1880s–1950s, ed. Gisela Bock and Pat Thane (London, New York: Routledge, 1991), 123.

25 Rudolf Jaworski, ‘Kilka refleksji nad dziejami Wielkopolanek w XIX i na początku XX wieku’, in Kobieta i społeczeństwo na ziemiach polskich w XIX wieku, ed. Anna Żarnowska and Andrzej Szwarc (Warszawa: DiG, 1995), 22.

26 Karin Hausen, ‘Arbeiterinnenschutz, Mutterschutz und gesetzliche Krankenversicherung im Deutschen Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik. Zur Funktion von Arbeits- und Sozialrecht für die Normierung und Stabilisierung der Geschlechterverhältnisse’, in Frauen in der Geschichte des Rechts, ed. Ute Gerhard (Münche: Beck, 1997), 742.

27 Gerda Neyer, ‘Die Entwicklung des Mutterschutzes in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz von 1877 bis 1943’, in Frauen in der Geschichte des Rechts, ed. Ute Gerhard (Münche: Beck, 1997), 748–51.

28 Eileen Janes Yeo, ‘The Creation of “Motherhood” and Women’s Responses in Britain and France, 1750–1914’, Women’s History Review 8, no. 2 (1999): 212.

29 Ann Taylor Allen, Feminism and Motherhood in Germany, 1800–1914 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Routgers University Press, 1991), 173–74.

30 J.A. Turkowska, ‘Mastering Troubling Borders. The Ambivalence of Medical Modernization in the Province of Posen’, in From the Midwife’s Bag to the Patient’s File. Public Health in Eastern Europe, eds Heike Karge, Friederike Kind-Kovacs and Sara Bernasconi (Budapest-New York: Central European University Press, 2017), 73–95.

31 Irene Stoehr, ‘Housework and Motherhood: Debates and Policies in the Women’s Movement in Imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic’, in Maternity and Gender Policies. Women and the Rise of the European Welfare States, 1880s–1950s, ed. Gisela Bock and Pat Thane (London, New York: Routledge, 1991), 222.

32 Jan Sydor, ‘Towarzystwo Św. Wincentego a Paulo. Sto pięćdziesiąta rocznica założenia pierwszej Konferencji męskiej w Poznaniu’, Biuletyn Historii Wychowania 11/12 (2000): 55–60; Wacław Umiński, ‘Działalność dobroczynna ziemian na przykładzie Towarzystwa św. Wincentego a Paulo na terenie Wielkopolski w drugiej połowie XIX wieku’, Nasza Przeszłość. Studia z dziejów Kościoła i kultury katolickiej w Polsce 125 (2016): 201–17.

33 E. Zakrzewska, ‘Działalność społeczna kobiet na wsi w Wielkopolsce’, in Pamiętnik Zjazdu Kobiet Polskich odbytego w dniach 11 i 12 maja 1913 (Kraków, 1913), 84–90.

34 Rudolf Jaworski, ‘Polish woman and the Nationality Conflict in the Provinz of Posen at the Turn of the Century’, in Woman in Polish Society, ed. Rudolf Jaworski and Bianka Pietrow-Ennker (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 59.

35 Cf. J. Szulc, ‘Sprawozdanie Związku Katolickich Stowarzyszeń Kobiet Pracujących w archidiecezjach Gnieźnieńskiej i Poznańskiej z dnia 12 lutego 1919 roku’, in Acta Nuntiaturae Poloniae, Vol. 57 (4) (Rzym 1998), 380.

36 H.D. van Leeuwen and Marco H.D. van Leeuwen, ‘Church, State, and Citizen. Charity in the Netherlands from the Dutch Republic to the Welfare State’, in Charity and Social Welfare. The Dynamics of Religious Reform in Northern Europe 1780-1920, ed. Leen van Molle (Lueven: Leuven University Press, 2017), 136.

37 ‘Dzieje Związku Kobiet Pracujących 1906–1931’, in Jednodniówka Jubileuszowa Związku Kobiet Pracujących 1906–1931 (Poznań 1931), 5–7.

38 Witold Molik, ‘Udział kobiet w polskim ruchu narodowym w Poznańskiem na przełomie XIX i XX w. (lata 1894–1914)’, in Udział kobiet w polskim ruchu narodowym na Górnym Śląsku i Śląsku Cieszyńskim w XIX i XX wieku, ed. Helena Karczyńska (Opole: Instytut Śląski, 1996), 45; Natalie Stegmann, Die Töchter der geschlagenen Helden “Frauenfrage”, Feminismum und Frauenbewegung in Polen 1863–1919 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2000), 58.

39 Grażyna Wyder, ‘Działalność edukacyjna kobiet-Polek w Wielkim Księstwie Poznańskim w drugiej połowie XIX wieku jako czynnik kształtowania świadomości narodowej’, Rocznik Lubuski 35, no. 1 (2009): 90–91.

40 III-ci Wiec Kobiet Wielkopolskich odbyty w Poznaniu dnia 30-go października 1904 r., Poznań 1904.

41 For instance, the Dziennik Poznański published the following information that implied the women’s movement’s connection with socialists: ‘“Gazeta Robotnicza”, a socialist paper, advises that their ‘female comrades’ should all go to the rally’. Cf. „W sprawie wieca kobiet”, Dziennik Poznański, no. 246 (1904): 1.

42 ‘Zadanie Polki wobec dwóch nowych ustaw. Mowa panny Heleny Rzepeckiej (a speech delivered at a women’s rally on 10 May)’, Głos Wielkopolanek, no. 9 (1908): 4.

43 ‘Walny wiec niewieści’, Głos Wielkopolanek, no. 7 (1908): 1; ‘Słowo wstępne od pani Róży Erzepkowej’, Głos Wielkopolanek, no. 7 (1908): 5; ‘Głos Zuzanny Morawskiej’, Głos Wielkopolanek, no. 7 (1908): 2.

44 ‘O wychowaniu narodowym’, Głos Wielkopolanek, no. 7 (1908): 3–4.

45 Grażyna Wyder, ‘Działalność edukacyjna kobiet-Polek w Wielkim Księstwie Poznańskim w drugiej połowie XIX wieku jako czynnik kształtowania świadomości narodowej’, Rocznik Lubuski 35, no. 1 (2009): 92–93.

46 ‘Wiec kobiet polskich w sprawie omówienia stanowiska jakie kobieta polska wobec wywłaszczenia zająć powinna’, Kurier Poznański, no. 267 (1912): 1; ‘Wiec kobiet’, Kurier Poznański, no. 270, 1912, 1–4.

47 Bogna Lorence-Kot and Adam Winiarz, The Polish Women’s Movement to 1914, in Women’s Emancipation Movements in the Nineteenth Century. A European Perspective, ed. Sylvia Paletschek and Bianka Pietrow-Ennker (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 213.

48 Witold Wojdyło, Status społeczny kobiety, jej miejsce i rola w poglądach Romana Dmowskiego, in Partnerka, matka, opiekunka. Status kobiety w dziejach nowożytnych od XVI do XX wieku, ed. Krzysztof Jakubiak (Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uczelniane Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej, 2000), 264–65.

49 Joanna Kurczewska, ‘Pierwsi nacjonaliści polscy i sprawy kobiet’, Archiwum Historii Filozofii i Myśli Społecznej 44 (1999): 193.

50 Ewa Maj, ‘Feminizm narodowy’, czyli o kobietach w Narodowej Demokracji, in Feminizm, eds Maria Marczewska-Rytko, Dorota Maj and Marcin Pomarański (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 2015), 217–29.

51 Jan Hellwig, ‘Kształcenie dziewcząt w XIX wieku jako droga do emancypacji (na przykładzie szkół żeńskich w Poznaniu)’, in Partnerka, matka, opiekunka. Status kobiety w dziejach nowożytnych od XVI do XX wieku, ed. Krzysztof Jakubiak (Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uczelniane Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej, 2000), 137.

52 Agnieszka Szudarek, Kwestia narodowa i kwestia kobieca. Zadania Wielkopolanek w obliczu polityki germanizacyjnej w 1908 r. w opinii warszawskich czasopism dla kobiet, in Polityka i politycy w prasie XX i XXI wieku. Polityka w prasie kobiecej, ed. Małgorzata Dajnowicz and Adam Miodowski (Białystok: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku, 2019), 19–20, 22–23; Rudolf Jaworski, ‘Polish Women and the Nationality Conflict in the Province of Posen at the Turn of the Century’, in Women in Polish Society, ed. R. Jaworski and B. Pietrow-Ennker (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 53–70.