Marta by Eliza Orzeszkowa

No history of Polish literature would be complete without Eliza Orzeszkowa (1841 – 1910). I am chomping at the bit to present Dziurdziowie or Folk Medicine (1885) to an English-speaking audience because I know that modern readers would get a kick out of its dark and brooding tones. Folk Medicine is a psychological thriller involving religious fanaticism, family strife, crime, and so much more. Gripping, right? However, as my translation is not yet fit for public consumption, I am going to introduce Orzeszkowa through another novel: Marta (1873). This short melodrama about a mother's struggles to provide for her daughter is available in a beautiful English translation by Anna Gąsienica Byrcyn and Stephanie Kraft (Ohio University Press, 2018). Marta and Folk Medicine are two very different works, but both exhibit the qualities that I love most about Orzeszkowa's prose: the psychological depth of her characters and her compassion.

The English translation of Marta contains a fantastic introduction by Grażyna Kozaczka. It really brings the historical context for Marta to life and provides the best explanation of Polish Positivism that I have ever read. Poland was under foreign occupation at the time of Marta's publication (the Hapsburg Empire, Prussia and Russia had annexed swathes of its territories in 1772, 1793 and 1795 as part of the Partitions of Poland). The January Uprising was an attempt to regain independence in 1863, but it ended in failure. The tragic loss of life from the ill-fated insurrection as well as the severe repercussions for those who survived it led Polish intellectuals to reject further military action. Polish Positivism contended that passion needed to yield to reason, and authors such as Bolesław Prus (1847 – 1912) and Maria Konopnicka (1842 – 1910) advocated the need to strengthen Polish society from within through initiatives such as better access to education. Orzeszkowa herself had participated in the doomed uprising, delivering correspondence between clandestine groups of insurrectionists, and several of her works reveal that she never lost the Romantic sensibilities of a rebel. Nevertheless, it is indisputable that her best-known works belong to the tradition of Polish Positivism.

Marta is a textbook example of this era in Polish literature. Orzeszkowa takes a social issue (the deleterious effects of undereducating women) and sets out to convince a reader that it should and could be solved: following the death of her husband, Marta Świcka finds herself responsible for supporting herself and her daughter. Despite her determination to seek employment, no matter how exploitative, she soon learns that she is unprepared for life beyond the domestic sphere.

Orzeszkowa deserves credit for avoiding the mawkish depiction of characters that can sometimes characterise Positivist literature. Given that Positivism aimed to initiate social change, it is no surprise that authors sought to tug at readers' heartstrings, but there is a fine line between creating a character to highlight the plight of a downtrodden group and reducing that character to a two-dimensional stereotype. Marta remains on the right side of that line thanks to her psychological depth. There were a few moments when I questioned whether someone in a situation as dire as Marta's would have maintained such lofty principles, but, on the whole, I thought that Marta reacted to her changing circumstances in a realistic manner. It was tough to see her hopes rise time and time again, and the brutal realisation that her determination alone would not be enough to support her daughter hit home.

It was Orzeszkowa's insight into her characters' thoughts and feelings that first got me hooked on her work in the first place. Marta and Folk Medicine are in most respects chalk and cheese: Marta has a linear, episodic plot, and the characters and narrator spell out their position on the issues under discussion; Folk Medicine, on the other hand, jumps around in time, and, as a general rule, Orzeszkowa's approach is to show not tell. That said, despite these major differences, thanks to Orzeszkowa's awareness of the psychological barriers preventing the oppressed from improving their lot in life, I think that it is obvious that the same author penned both novels. To take just one illustration of Orzeszkowa's psychological insight in Marta, the heroine's difficulties in securing employment lie in the fact that she never had the opportunity to develop the skills necessary for a profession. This is primarily a social issue, but Orzeszkowa recognised a further associated psychological issue: Marta is not even cognisant of the fact that her self-development has been stunted. She is unaccustomed to evaluating her intellectual needs. Each time she tries her hand at a new profession, her realisation that her skills and experience fall short of what is needed comes as a shock.

Marta illustrates another characteristic of Orzeszkowa's writing that I deeply admire: her compassion. She shows pity towards the deserving and the undeserving. I think her compassion shines brightest in Folk Medicine, in which even the most despicable of characters are shown to be victims of their circumstances, but it is certainly present in Marta too. Orzeszkowa does not excuse people who harm others, but she does try to understand the world through their eyes. Consequently, there are few real villains in Marta, just people who do not understand the harm that they are doing.

So much for content. Marta also demonstrates some of the stylistic features that characterise Orzeszkowa's works. Even in her shortest stories, Orzeszkowa's prose is rich in descriptive detail, and I admired the concision with which Anna Gąsienica Byrcyn and Stephanie Kraft rendered some of the adjective-laden Polish of the original into smooth, free-flowing English. I would be fascinated to see their approach to some of the more demanding passages in Folk Medicine! Orzeszkowa's ability to shift up and down registers at the drop of a pin stands out too. That said, I do not want to create the false impression that Marta is typical of all Orzeszkowa's writing. To give you a taste of the breadth of Orzeszkowa's artistic range, both Marta and Folk Medicine employ a straightforward third person singular narration, but Orzeszkowa wrote works in the first person singular (e.g. Echo, 1892) as well as first person plural (e.g. Wiedźma or The Witch, 1921). Gloria Victis (1910) is even narrated from the perspective of trees and the wind!

Marta and her daughter will haunt my mind for many years to come. It is marvellous that such an adept translation of Marta exists in English, and I would encourage anyone who is reading this blog to get hold of a copy. If you are itching to read an extract from my translation of Folk Medicine, you can find it on the Edinburgh University Press website here for free. It was awarded second prize in the John Dryden Translation Competition to find the best unpublished translation from any language into English for 2024-2025. I hope you like it!