Czy Zofia Kossak pisze herstorię? Literacki portret Maryny Mniszech w powieści Złota wolność
Is Zofia Kossak’s work a herstory? A literary portrait of Maryna Mniszech in the novel Złota wolność

Summary/Abstract: Zofia Kossak introduced Maryna Mniszchówna as one of the historical characters in her novel Złota Wolność. By doing that she took the challenge of facing the tradition of writing about the empress (present for example in Józef Szujski’s dramas). The article includes an analysis of the method in which Kossak turns Maryna into a literary character, using available sources thoroughly, but creating a different, new story. The writer emphasizes the difference by introducing into the novel the character of Jadwiszka Paryshazówna as an alter ego of the empress, personifying all the vices attributed to her in stereotypes. Kossak used her own social experience (including the traditional role of a woman) to show a famous historical figure in a different way, thanks to which she was able to satisfy her female readers, who did not find a fully developed heroine in previous historical novels. Researchers who deal with Kossak’s work have not paid attention to Maryna Mniszech before. In the analyses that investigate the presence of the empress in cultural texts, the novel Złota wolność has been neglected or mentioned briefly. The article fills this gap.

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