The directory «Plots»
Zapolska Gabriela
(1857—1921)
Gabriela Zapolska (nee Korwin-Piotrowska) belonged to the older generation of writers creating at the turn of the 19th century.
She was born in a landed gentry family in Podhajce near Łuck, and she went to school in Lviv. In 1876 she married lieutenant Konstanty Śnieżko-Błocki, but three years later the couple separated and a few years after that the marriage was officially declared invalid. She collaborated with Gazeta Krakowska, and in 1882 she became an actress. It was then that she assumed pseudonym Gabriela Zapolska. She performed in itinerary theatres in Cracow, Lviv and Poznań, but she never was particularly successful. In 1889 she left for Paris, where she performed in small boulevard theatres and from 1892 also in Antoine’s theatre (Théâtre Libre) well-known in Paris as well as, later, in modernist Théâtre de l’Oeuvre. After returning to Poland, she continued her stage career, gaining some reputation for her performances in Warsaw’s summer open-air theatres and then also in theatres of Cracow and Lviv. Ultimately, however, she gave up the stage due to conflicts with theatre directors.
In 1900 she started publishing articles and theatre reviews. In 1902 she opened an acting school in Cracow, which gave a few performances at the beginning of 1903. In 1904, she moved to Lviv, where together with her second husband (painter S. Janowski, whom she divorced later in 1904) she founded a strolling actors’ company.
Zapolska debuted as a writer in 1881, when she published a short story titled Jeden dzień z życia róży. Then she published numerous novels and short stories in Lviv’s and Warsaw’s journals (e.g. short story Małaszka, 1883 and novel Przedpiekle, 1889). Her first book publication– a volume of short stories titled Akwarele – appeared in 1885. Deploying elements of naturalist poetics, the texts triggered sharp objections of conservative critics. However, it was exactly this ideological and artistic stance that became a recognisable mark of Zapolska’s mature writings.
The writer’s best prose includes among others Menażeria ludzka (a czcle of short stories, 1893) and novels: Janka (1895), Fin-de-sièclistka (1897), Sezonowa miłość (1904), O czym się nie mówi (1909), O czym się nawet myśleć nie chce (1914), and Kobiety bez skazy (1913).
Nevertheless, Zapolska is known first of all as a dramatist. Her greatest achievements are plays which sharply criticise bourgeois mentality, e.g. Żabusia (1897), Moralność pani Dulskiej (1904), Ich czworo (1907), Skiz (1910), and Panna Maliczewska (1910).
Around 1910 Zapolska travelled widely, among others to Austria and France. During World War I, she stayed in Lviv, where in 1915 she ran a small pastry shop. After the war, she received several awards for her dramas (1918, 1919).
Poland, 1978, Gabriela Zapolska
