The great 19th-century novel written by Bolesław Prus was adapted for the screen not once, but twice this year. First, the film, directed by Maciej Kawalski, stars Polish superstar Marcin Dorociński as Stanisław Wokulski and Kamila Urzędowska as Izabela Łęcka. The movie is a more classic interpretation of the book and one of the biggest cinematic productions in recent years. Second is the six-episode streaming series directed by Paweł Maślona, with Tomasz Schuchardt as Wokulski and Sandra Drzymalska as Łęcka, an unconventional take you can now watch on Netflix.
Two dolls in the fall
The national debate over the extravagant Netflix adaptation (it uses modern language including elaborate curse words, introduces characters that don't appear in the book and makes a feminist out of the rather dull aristocrat Łęcka), which premiered mid-September, was so heated that even Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk had to intervene, asking Poles not to fight too much over it ('I love Prus's The Doll; I've enjoyed the TV series, and what pleases me most is that almost the entire country is talking about it. But I beg you: let's not tear each other apart over this.').
Controversy seems to be the platform's way of engaging the public – they did something similar when loosely adapting Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher and making significant changes to internationally acclaimed novels such as Italian Il Gattopardo or Jane Austen's Persuasion – which makes economic sense, since even if you are hate-watching a series, you are still watching it.
Creators of the film used an entirely different strategy – they shot for the stars, casting pretty much everybody who's anybody in Polish cinema (from veterans such as Maja Komorowska, Krystyna Janda and Andrzej Seweryn, to Ida's Agata Kulesza and The Green Border's Maja Ostaszewska); built a partnership with the city of Warsaw – the set became an open exhibition: you could visit Wokulski's shop in Krakowskie Śródmieście, and costumes by famous fashion designer Tomasz Ossoliński were exhibited in Łazienki Park. Their efforts seem to have paid off: the film had its best opening weekend since the pandemic ended.
Discussions about these two adaptations mirror worldwide debates over Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, and what happens pretty much every time a new Jane Austen film/series comes out is: is it faithful to the original? Does it have to be faithful, or can it be a modern interpretation? But is the interpretation true to the book's spirit? What does this or that way of telling the story tell us about our view of history? Can any recent versions compete with the previous ones (there were two: Wojciech Jerzy Has's 1968 film and Ryszard Ber's 1977 TV series)? And, obviously, who is the best Darcy…? Wokulski, I mean, Wokulski.
Thankfully, when it comes to the last question, it was the main protagonist of the film and one of Poland's favourite actors, Marcin Dorociński, who settled the rivalry: the day after his film's premiere, he posted a picture with Schuchardt, congratulating him on the role and asking audiences to enjoy both versions. And that's exactly what we shall do, but before that, let's dig deeper into what all this fuss is about.
Time for school
The Doll is one of the greatest novels in Polish literary history, and few people would argue with that. When adult Poles go back to books they had to read in school, they usually recall lengthy descriptions of nature that bored them to death, a never-ending series of large-scale battles from Henryk Sienkiewicz's Trilogy and The Knights of the Cross, and romantic or modernist poems which are difficult to decipher even for literature graduates, let alone for teenagers. Yet not many overtly complain about The Doll, even though the book is over a thousand pages long. It's a compelling read that touches on so many subjects that everyone can find a subplot they find intriguing. It is also an endless source of themes for school essays and the matura (matriculation) exam.
According to cultural historian Alicja Urbanik-Kopeć, author of books about marriage and sex work in the 19th century, this is one of the reasons why the debate surrounding The Doll adaptations is so heated: not only has everyone who's ever read anything read at least some parts of it, but also the Polish education system tends to underline the importance of the 19th century and its literature in shaping our national identity. For example, the tension between romanticism and positivism, the book's underlying subject, serves as an interpretive tool to analyse much of Polish history, from the Warsaw Uprising to the Solidarity protests, and how Poland was shaped after the fall of communist rule. So people not only feel competent to discuss The Doll, but also believe the story touches some of the most important topics related to their identity as Poles.
But there is so much more: love and marriage, investments and money, the place of women in society, scientific discoveries and political intrigues, antisemitism and poverty hidden in plain sight, an old class system falling apart and a new bourgeoisie at the gates... All of this against the backdrop of a rich panorama of Warsaw in the 1870s. The Doll has it all.
One story to rule them all
Let's take a quick look at the plot: The protagonist, Stanisław Wokulski, is the middle-aged son of an impoverished noble family who took part in the failed 1863 uprising. He is now a widower who inherited a haberdashery on Warsaw's Royal Route and returns to the city after making a fortune during the Russo-Turkish War. We learn about many of his adventures through the diary of the store's manager Ignacy Rzecki, who romanticises the times of Napoleon Bonaparte – and his own youth (Rzecki is forty-seven years old at the beginning of the book, yet as youngsters we all imagined him as a grey-haired elderly gentleman – partly because he was meant to represent the previous generation and partly because in previous adaptations he was often played by older actors. And, of course, partly because forty-seven is so ooooold, when you are a teenager being forced to read a book for school).
Wokulski, now rich but lacking social status, goes on to have many meetings, discussions, endeavours, and interests, from investing in international trade and real estate to travelling to Paris and funding scientific discoveries. Yet he can't stop thinking about Izabela Łęcka, the beautiful daughter of a bankrupt aristocrat, who ignores him and doesn't deem him worthy of her hand. He tries to convince her to love him, but he is too clumsy, has 'large, red hands' that appal her, and cannot compete with suitors who have never sullied their hands with work. The social distance between them is too large. As essayist Cezary Michalski wrote:
The bourgeois modernisers, of whom Wokulski is the most fascinating representative in Polish literature, are people 'on the move '. They do not reproduce the aristocratic, landed-gentry, or intelligentsia traditions of their families. They are self-made men, products of social advancement – or, more precisely, of social change (…) To be, like Wokulski, a 'man from nowhere,' especially in the eyes of the elite one is seeking to enter, is the surest source of resentment.
A modern tale for the modern world
The Doll is a fascinating book about unhappy love in a changing world, about class conflicts and the birth of the modern city as we know it. These are vital and universal subjects, yet the novel never entered the European literary canon alongside works it can be compared to, such as Vanity Fair, Anna Karenina, The Ladies' Delight, or The Red and the Black. Why? The reason hardly lies in its literary quality or the obscurity of its topics. Urbanik-Kopeć explains that while she reluctantly uses the term 'colonialism' when talking about Polish culture, it's impossible not to notice that the best-known 19th-century novels come from Great Britain, France, and Russia, all of which were empires. It would be difficult for a book written in a minor, actively opposed language in a non-existent country to enter the international scene, so it never did.
Can this change now that David J. Welsh's English translation, along with over twenty other translations, is available to international readers, and now that we have both a cinematic blockbuster with internationally renowned Dorociński and a widely available Netflix series? It's probably too late for Prus to become as widely recognised as Thackeray and Stendhal, yet while reading his greatest novel as well as while watching both adaptations – however different in tone and their approach to the original they may be – one has a sense of being right in the centre of the Western world, as both the themes and the narrative structures belong to the great 19th-century European tradition. While Prus lived in the times of political oppression and had to take into account Russian censorship, which gives a particular context to everything he wrote, the 2026 adaptations are clearly made in a free, modern country, by filmmakers who have the means and the capacity to make compelling stories about modernity, class, money and love.