writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

RELATIONS TROUBLE IN ANNA KOWALSKA’S DIARY
Matylda MAŁECKA *
The main goal of my research was to look at the process of identity shaping which was
documented in the diary of a person functioning in a socially non‐normative way. The material basis
of my analysis was the manuscript of the diary of Anna Kowalska stored in the Department of
Manuscripts at Adam Mickiewicz’s Museum of Literature.
One of the most important functions of cultural practice of keeping a diary is that of identity
framing. This is done through the narrative, which is a fundamental feature of structured
understanding of ourselves and the world. Narrative identity of an individual is enabled by the
division of internal and external reality, and by recognition of changes experienced by an individual
with the passage of time. Narrative formation theory states that the identity or the process of selfunderstanding
is constructed in a narrative form. It refers to the structure of that process, in which
the meaning is not derived from the action itself, but from its consequences, and from the meanings
of events in which the individual has been involved. Diary may be considered as a material fixation of
specific narratives of identity in line with Anthony Giddens statement that the continuity of identity is
determined by the continuity of the experience of the self and one's own body 1 .
My research examines the diary of Anna Kowalska, who was in a long‐lasting relationship with one
of the greatest Polish female writers of the 20th century – Maria Dąbrowska. That itself is the only
reason why Anna Kowalska’s life may be called atypical. She was born on April 26, 1903 as the
daughter of Ludwik Chrzanowski, agronomist, and Maria Ochabska. She spent her childhood and
youth in Lviv. With this city she was connected untill the outbreak of war in 1939. At the Lviv
University she studied classical and French philology. In 1924, she married Jerzy Kowalski, a professor
of classical philology. She continued her education in Lausanne, attending lectures on Latin literature,
and in Paris, where she resumed her studies in classical philology. Between 1926 and 1927 she visited
Italy, Greece, Turkey and Tunisia. In 1929, she received a Master's degree in French and Italian
literature at the Lviv University. Later, she studied classical culture in Berlin and Munich and,
together with her husband, travelled to United Kingdom, France and Spain. In 1934 Mr. and Mrs.
Kowalski also visited Italy and Greece.
In 1933‐34, Anna joined the literary life of Lviv. She worked with the musical and literary journal,
she belonged to the Lviv Chapter of the Union of Polish Writers, and was a member of the literary
group The Suburb. Then she travelled to Northern Europe, where she visited Sweden and Denmark.
From September 1938 until April 1939, along with her husband Anna lived in Paris, where she spent
most of her time in libraries collecting materials for her research. When the Second World War broke
out, she was in Lviv, where Jerzy Kowalski was holding a position of a professor at the university until
1941. During the occupation she was running a tea room, and, subsequently, a pastry shop.
Both Anna Kowalska and Maria Dąbrowska were in parallel relationships with men. The Kowalskis
met Maria Dabrowska and her friend Stanisław Stempowski in 1940 in Lviv at mutual friends’. This
connection prompted Anna Kowalska to move to Warsaw in 1943. After the fall of the Warsaw
Uprising, the four of them (Kowalskis, Maria Dabrowska and Stanisław Stempowski) were forced to
leave the city. In October 1945 she and her husband moved to Wroclaw, where Jerzy was a professor
and Vice‐Rector of the University of Wrocław.
In Wrocław, she actively participated in the literary life. She founded the Circle of Lovers of the
Polish Literature and the Polish Language, together with Tadeusz Mikulski she edited a literary
journal “Wrocław Notebooks”. Furthermore, she published in several journals, and collaborated with
the Polish Radio. Initially, Anna Kowalska published jointly with her husband. Together they were
writing historical short stories. Later, she published her own novels and short stories. She even
published fragments of her diary in the magazines.
*
University of Warsaw – Warsaw, Poland.
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