Where Is Poland? | Strongwomen

Chapter 6

Strongwomen

One of the areas in which women led the way in preserving the Polish identity was organising and teaching clandestine classes in Polish. Women themselves had no access to higher education, but taught underground classes or led campaigns promoting universal education.

Two teachers with pre-school children, ca 1914. Photo: Polona.pl

For the excluded

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the underground education network covered around a third of Poland’s population. One of the most important of these educational groups was the Women's Rural Teaching Circle.

Women set up networks of illegal schools and trained other women to become teachers. They also prepared teaching aids and popular brochures introducing the most important ideas of contemporary authors (with their permission). They supported women in rural areas in becoming professionally active by creating trade cooperatives and promoted temperance by setting up alcohol-free inns. They were driven by democratic and patriotic values, aiming to improve opportunities for women in rural communities and engaging peasants with Polish culture.

The Polish suffragists also tackled numerous social issues. They campaigned against employment inequalities and opposed pimping and trade in women; one such initiative involved setting up missions at railway stations in major cities, approaching young women travelling in search of employment and providing them with accommodation and help finding work.

Another important activity was providing support for prisoners and exiles. Stefania Sempołowska wrote:

'No other nation’s history has been as affected by prisons as Poland’s. For a century and a half, everyone in Poland who lived and strived for her freedom had spent time within prison walls. For generations, prison cells were the cradle and grave of the very ideas of independence and democracy. In the wake of the partitions, having spent time in prison has become a badge of honour.'

Allegory of the Society of Folk Education, drawing by Piotr Stachiewicz. Source: Polona.pl

Maria Curie studies underground

Since they had no access to universities, Polish women created their very own underground academies. In 1879, Józefa Bojanowska founded the Women’s Academic Reading Room in Warsaw – one of the first institutions of its kind. In 1882, Jadwiga Szczawińska-Dawidowa founded a clandestine college for women under the umbrella name ‘Flying University’. This name was a reference to the changing lecture venues due to regular invigilation by Tsarist authorities. An estimated five thousand women graduated from the illegal academy during its twenty years.

Some of the students went on to become eminent scholars, including the chemist and physicist Marie Curie and the anthropologist Maria Czaplicka, as well as scores of others who became stalwarts of clandestine teaching and the emancipation movement, such as Paulina Kuczalska-Reinschmidt, Stefania Sempołowska, Maria Wysłouchowa and Zofia Daszyńska-Golińska. The teaching quality was high, and instructors included some of the finest scholars of the era. On completion of the six-year course, graduates received an 'underground' Flying University diploma.

The Society of Female Polish University Students, post 1910. Photo: Mark Kadyson. Source: Polona.pl

First women at universities

Although the first women were enrolled at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 1896, the University of Warsaw didn’t start admitting women until 1915. Women from wealthy families studied abroad, in cities such as Geneva, Paris and St. Petersburg. However, many universities in Western Europe still did not admit women. Zofia Stryjeńska, one of the finest Polish artists of the interwar period, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich before the First World War while disguised as a man.

The Jagiellonian University started enrolling women following a clever campaign by local suffragist Kazimiera Bujwidowa. She found a loophole in the academy’s regulations: a status permitting students to attend lectures and sit exams, although not leading to an official qualification. Any women wishing to attend also had to obtain written permission from the professors. In 1894, Bujwidowa encouraged over sixty women to apply to study at the Jagiellonian. The university authorities selected three candidates – Jadwiga Sikorska, Stanisława Dowgiałłówna and Janina Kosmowska – who were admitted by the Austrian Education Ministry to study at the Faculty of Pharmacy. The remaining applicants were rejected. By 1897, women were able to study at the Faculties of Medicine and Philosophy, although the other departments remained inaccessible until Poland’s independence.