„Wśród kominów Łodzi” Marii Przedborskiej – wiersze społecznie zaangażowane
‘Among the Chimneys of Łódź’ – Socially Engaged Poetry by Maria Przedborska

Author(s): Krystyna Pietrych
Subject(s): Cultural history, Poetry, Studies of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: poetry; Maria Przedborska; social involvement; proletariat
Summary/Abstract: The article recalls Maria Przedborska, a unique figure for the Łódź intelligentsia and workers in the interwar period. First, her professional and social activity, resulting from her role as a labor inspector in factories in Łódź, was presented, and then her journalistic and poetic works were presented. Through both her professional and journalistic activities, the Przedborska inspector tried to change existing social relations, thus fighting to improve the fate of Łódź workers. Przedborska, the poet, set herself the same task in the cycle of poems Among the chimneys of Łódź, published in "Głos Poranny" in the years 1932–1936. The poems that make up this cycle, drawing direct inspiration from the observations that Przedborska made during her inspector's activity, provide numerous testimonies of the life and work of women workers in Łódź textile factories. They show the most destructive aspects of the functioning of large-scale factories during the Great Depression of the 1930s: excessive work, accidents with machines, layoffs, unemployment, diseases, hunger, poverty, prostitution. In her poetry, Przedborska shows a large-industrial city undergoing radical political and social changes, which are the result of accelerated industrialization, which were not accompanied by extensive modernization changes. Przedborska's works do not only have a documentary function, they are equally important in showing solidarity with the workers, appealing to a sense of social sensitivity and defending those who were most affected by the negative aspects of the modernization processes.

• Details
• Contents