Józefa Sawicka (Ostoja) – prekursorka ideału Nowej Kobiety w literaturze polskiej końca XIX wieku. Próba portretu zapomnianej nowelistki
Józefa Sawicka (Ostoja) – Precursor of the Ideal of the New Woman in Polish Literature of the End of the XIX Century. Attempt of a Portrait of a Forgotten Novelist

Summary/Abstract: Józefa Sawicka (Ostoja) is one of the many woman writers of the second half of the 19th century who were inspired by the works of Eliza Orzeszkowa. In correspondence with Sawicka, the author of Marta [Martha] expressed her talent with great serenity, as did the critics (including Piotr Chmielowski). What made the almost brilliant writer of 1881 a forgotten literary woman shortly after her death in 1920? Edmund Jankowski, commenting on Orzeszkowa’s correspondence with Ostoja, claims that Chmielowski simply overestimated the talent of the author of the debut Ulicznik. Is not such a declaration a simplification? Definitely yes. In my article I deal with Sawicka and her selected works – an author who deals with the problems of women’s emancipation and uses the feminocentric literary tradition, a naturalist (or perhaps a realist?), a woman forced by her circumstances to earn a living. I wonder if the figures of the heroines created by Ostoja can be regarded as one of the first realisations of the pattern of the New Woman in Polish literature. In addition, I am interested in the question of why the person and the work of Sawicka have been forgotten so quickly and permanently.

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