Jadwiga Łuszczewska

Polish poet and novelist, writing under the literary pseudonym Deotyma. From childhood, she displayed extraordinary poetic talent. An outstanding improviser whose salon literary meetings were attended by distinguished guests – the cream of the crop of 19th-century Warsaw.

Fri, 08/01/1834 - 12:00 - Wed, 09/23/1908 - 12:00

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Jadwiga Łuszczewska, 1851-1862, photo: Maksymilian Fajans/Biblioteka Narodowa Polona

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The mid-19th century was a special period in Polish literature. The great Romantic poets were slowly passing away, while the new generation, which would later be called the positivists, had not yet matured enough to pick up a pen. Younger writers, such as Narcyza Żmichowska, Teofil Lenartowicz or Roman Zmorski, focused on underground activity at the expense of creative work during the time of the Spring of Nations (Cyprian Kamil Norwid was an exception, but no one counted him among the greats at the time). Readers at home and in exile were therefore waiting for the next bard, who would draw the whole nation with his poetry. For this reason, the debut of the 17-year-old Jadwiga Łuszczewska, nicknamed Deotyma, at her parents’ famous salon aroused great excitement and hope. It was expected that Łuszczewska would soon take Mickiewicz’s place as a poet and improviser. However, this did not happen. Today, she is mainly known as the author of historical novels for young people – Branki w Jasyrze (Captive Women) and Panienka z Okienka (Lady from the Window).

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Jadwiga Łuszczewska, 1900, photo: Antoni Pietkiewicz/Biblioteka Narodowa Polona

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Born in 1834, Jadwiga Łuszczewska was the daughter of Wacław Józef Łuszczewski, state councillor and director of the Industry and Crafts Department of the Kingdom of Poland’s Internal Affairs Committee, and his wife Magdalena, known as Nina. The colourful and distinctive Nina had as her parents Edward Żółtowski, a general in Napoleon I’s army, and Kazimiera Skoraszewska, a folk dancer. It was at Nina’s initiative that the Łuszczewskis began to hold literary and artistic meetings in their successive Warsaw apartments in the 1830s – at Nowy Świat, at the Sapieha Palace, and finally at the Saski Palace. At the same time, their daughters, Jadwiga and Kazimiera, were born.

The Łuszczewskis opted for homeschooling – Wacław taught history, geography and arithmetic, and Nina religion, poetry and philosophy. Occasionally, friends – music teachers and Polish language experts – helped with this home education. Interestingly, Nina considered the study of foreign languages to be a waste of ‘powers of mind and memory’ and excluded them from the girls’ education. In addition, she gave them challenging readings from an early age and forbade contact with other children so that the sisters, having contact only with adults, would mature more quickly. The parents’ connections also allowed the young Jadwiga to visit the Astronomical Observatory under Jan Baranowski’s directorship. The Łuszczewskis took the whole family on annual trips around the country and abroad. At the age of nine, impressed by a visit to Kraków and Vienna, Jadwiga wrote her first poetic work. Soon afterwards, between 1846 and 1849, she and her sister Kazimiera produced a handwritten monthly magazine, Pszczółka, to which older friends and relatives also wrote.

From 1849, Jadwiga was allowed to attend literary meetings in her parents’ salon as an observer, ‘in a corner and almost invisible’. At that time, they grew to become one of the most important cultural events in Warsaw, and artists such as Stanisław Moniuszko, Narcyza Żmichowska, Teofil Lenartowicz, Maria Kalergis and Cyprian Kamil Norwid frequented the meetings. And when Nina discovered Jadwiga’s talent as an improviser, she decided to arrange for her to perform in front of guests. She also chose her nickname ‘Deotyma’ after one of the heroines of Plato’s Symposium, Diotima of Mantinea, a soothsayer and ancient philosopher, and instructed her to dress in Greek robes. Deotyma’s debut performance took place on 17th May 1852 in her parents’ living room – the guests asked her to improvise on the theme of... improvisation itself. According to the 17-year-old’s account, she performed brilliantly. Józef Kenig reported in Gazeta Warszawska:

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There were about sixty poems, for no one took notes; and I was not able to count. Each stanza was a development of one main idea [...]. There was no reciting: it was an even, somewhat muffled voice, and one could tell that the words were flowing into the mouth directly from the spirit [...]. Mr Komorowski, an excellent reciter, of whom there was certainly no one better at reading poetry in our country, said to me at the time: ‘once in my life I would like to recite a poem like that, even if someone else’s’. [...].

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Józef Simmler, 'A portrait of Jadwiga Łuszczewska as Deotima', 1855, photo: Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery/Wikipedia.org

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News of the improviser began to spread throughout Warsaw, and her performances became a regular part of the evenings in her parents’ living room. People even came down from other cities to take part. In time, Łuszczewski came up with the idea of noting down his daughter’s improvisations and then, together with some of her poetic attempts, publishing them in 1854 in a volume entitled Improwizacye i Poezye (Improvisations and Poems), with illustrations by Juliusz Kossak and Maksymilian Fajans. Shortly afterwards, Deotyma abandoned improvising in favour of writing poetic works, which she read out in her parents’ living room. She began work on a cycle of epic poems, Polska w Pieśni (Poland in Song), describing stories from Polish history. In 1859, she published the first of these, Lech. At this time she also began to engage in patriotic activities – she took part in demonstrations and protests, and in 1861 carried a wreath of thorns during the funeral of the ‘five fallen’ – protesters who had been killed by the tsarist army.

When the January Uprising broke out, Wacław Łuszczewski, in a demonstrative gesture, renounced his title of Tsar’s chamberlain, for which he was sentenced to several months’ exile to Jadryń, Symbirsk and Czembar. Jadwiga decided to leave with her father to accompany him and manage his household in exile. From there, she sent letters to her mother, who remained in Warsaw, praising the country and the culture of the Russians, and the latter circulated them in the hope that Wacław would be pardoned. These efforts were successful and, on his return to Warsaw, Łuszczewski was restored to his government salary along with other rights.

At the end of the 1860s, Jadwiga’s parents died, and she moved to a large tenement house at 153 Marszałkowska Street (on the corner of Królewska Street), where her friend Eugenia Wolff, née Zdzieniecka, lived. From 1870, Łuszczewska ran a salon there on her own, where she held artistic and literary evenings every Thursday. Erotic or patriotic subjects were not allowed at the meetings, but the guests allowed themselves to make frequent allusions to the latter. Unlike her sister, who married Antoni Komierowski (which, incidentally, eventually linked them in a knot of affinity with Norwid), Jadwiga never married, treating this as a sacrifice to poetry. After a break due to exile, she also returned to writing. She began with the publication of a drama, Narzeczona z Ogrodzieńca (The Bride of Ogrodzieniec), based on a 12th-century legend. She then discovered a passion for writing novels – between 1877 and 1879 she managed to publish as many as three: Na Rozdrożu (At the Crossroads), Krzyż nad Otchłanią (Cross Over the Abyss) and Zwierciadlana Zagadka (The Mirror Riddle). She regularly read out her own works at the Thursday meetings, which were enduringly popular for many years. ‘More than once I came to sign up not just a hundred or two hundred people each, but sometimes up to three hundred’ – she noted in her diary. Amateur theatrical performances were also held there, in which the roles were played by the guests themselves. Among its most loyal regulars were Antoni Edward Odyniec, poet and old friend of Adam Mickiewicz, and Hipolit Skimborowicz, writer and publicist.

Soon Jadwiga returned to the idea from her youth and decided to continue the Poland in Song series, which she had begun years before. Although she created the texts Rapsoda o Chrobrym Królu (Rhapsody on King Chrobry) and Biesiada u Siemomysła (A Feast at Siemomysł’s), they did not win her much popularity. However, Deotyma’s star continued to shine brightly – the poet was even invited to lecture on literature in other cities. It was not until Odniec’s death that the glow of the evenings in her salon began to fade. Łuszczewska then concentrated on literature – she completed the series Poland in Song with her most ambitious work: Sobieski pod Wiedniem (Sobieski at Vienna), and published further novels – Panienka z Okienka and Branki w Jasyrze. Her friends also persuaded her to write down her memoirs, which were published in 1897 as Pamiętnik Deotymy (Deotyma’s Memoirs).

That same year marked Jadwiga’s jubilee, organised on the initiative of the Parnassian group. Evenings in her salon were held until 1905, when the 70-year-old Łuszczewska fell ill. From then on, she spent more and more of her days in bed, but she did occasionally receive guests closest to her heart. She died in 1908 of oesophageal cancer and was buried in Powązki Cemetery.

Bibliography:

Witkowska A., Przybylski R. (2009). Romantyzm. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Łuszczewska J. (1968). Pamiętnik Deotymy. Warsaw: Czytelnik.

polish romantic literature

polish romantic poets