The power of women* of Poland can be felt as soon as you arrive here – and it is not just about red lightning we see sprayed on the streets and masks. While their extremely mighty energy and willingness to fight back for their rights can’t leave you indifferent, in this blog I’d like to talk about Polish women that made it in history.
1) Maria Skłodowska Curie.
Obviously. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person to win in multiple sciences (physics and chemistry). But not just this. The first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris. Discovered polonium (guess why this name ;)) and radium. During World War I she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals. Even though she spent most of her life in France (went to study and work there at the age of 24, married a French man), she never lost her sense of Polish identity and kept visiting her home country as well as teaching her daughters Polish (I wish somebody taught me too). We can even say, she died in the name of science – the radiation exposure she worked with could not but affect her health.
2) Jadwiga of Poland (1384-1399):
The first female monarch of the Kingdom of Poland. Apparently, having a woman on the throne was so new for Poles, they didn’t even have a title for her and called her ‘king’. crowned with the title of ‘King’ during an era when female rulers were relatively uncommon in Europe. She donated most of her personal wealth (including royal insignia) to charity and education, funding and restoring many schools and hospitals, and focused on maintaining peace and development during her rule. Rumour has it, her future husband Jagaila had to beg her to marry him and even pledged to convert to Catholicism.
3) Tamara de Lempicka –
a renowned painter of the Art Deco movement and gained international fame for her decorative portraits. She is known for her unconventional style of self-expression, and her art manifested bisexual, bold, liberated female sexuality. (sorry I stole this paragraph it just sounds so cool)
4) Olga Tokarczuk is a Polish writer and poetess. Winner of the International Booker Prize (2018) and in 2019 Tokarchuk received the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature with the wording: “for imagination, with an encyclopedic passion showing the violation of boundaries as a way to live”. Some of her remarkable works include Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2009), The Journey of the Book-People (1993) and E.E. (1995).
To sum up I would like to say that these are just some of my favourite, while there are much much more. Women took part (and often leading) in different spheres and activities such as science, sport, culture, politics and so on, but unfortunately, their accomplishments were often hidden behind males figures backs or not recognised as they should have been. This is why knowing and sharing the information as well as supporting women is something we all should do.
If you are interested to find out more admirable Polish women, feel free to visit this page: “100 remarkable women from Polish history to celebrate 100 years of women’s suffrage” at Krakowpost.com.