"Of course," baba "will not allow any of these statesmen to conduct politics, wrote Zofia Moraczewska in 1916. Three years later, as one of only eight women (out of 436 men!), She entered the Legislative Seym, which gave shape to the independent Second Polish Republic.
The deputies - as they were called for lack of a better idea - had a titanic job to do, all the more so because, at least at first, hardly anyone took them seriously. Piłsudski himself, speaking to the Seym, addressed the gathered people as "gentlemen". Meanwhile, as Anna Kowalczyk notices:
All the first female parliamentarians were experienced social activists and , compared to their colleagues, excellently educated - have completed at least secondary school (...), while every fourth MEP had no education or only elementary school.
So who were the women who paved the way for Poles in politics and who built a free Poland alongside men?
Advocate of science. Zofia Sokolnicka
Born on May 15, 1878, the granddaughter of a November insurgent and the daughter of a January insurgent had patriotism in her genes. During World War I, she worked as a spy for the Central Polish Agency in Lausanne. Above all, however, she fought for the right of women to education.
She herself, brought up in the Prussian partition, felt the effects of the reform of Gustav von Gossler, the minister of culture in the Bismarck government, on her own skin. On the assumption that intellectual effort is harmful to women, he ordered the level of teaching in girls' schools to be lowered .
Józef Piłsudski opens the first session of the Legislative Seym in February 1919. There were five women among over 400 men then, and three more later.
Even before 1914, Sokolnicka was involved in work for educating women. She was active in "Warta" (Society of Friends of Mutual Teaching and Child Care), organized Reading Rooms for Women, and ran a secret school board of education.
In independent Poland, she demanded an increase in expenditure on education. “You need heroism to deal with science nowadays (...). Annual budget [for science - ed. ed.] is almost as much as was spent on war in two hours, ”she argued at the session of the Sejm in November 1920. She tried to lighten the darkness of ignorance while herself plunged into the darkness - relentlessly losing sight. She died on February 27, 1927, at the end of the first term of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland.
"Really the whole man." Zofia Moraczewska
For years she was overshadowed by her husband, prime minister and minister of public works, Jędrzej Moraczewski. Meanwhile, born on July 4, 1873, Zofia was - as she wrote herself - "really the whole person".
She passionately devoted herself to the national cause. Even before her wedding, she became involved in political activities and joined the Galician Social Democratic Party. In January 1919, as the only woman in the club of the Association of Polish Socialist Members of Parliament, she sat on the seats of the Legislative Sejm . As Ilona Florczak reports:
She attended nearly all the Constituent Assembly meetings. As a member of the Public Health Committee, she contributed to the passing of the Act on Combating Infectious Diseases by the Seym on 25 July 1919. However, work in the Sejm did not suit Z. Moraczewska; she did not feel called to it.
On September 26, 1922, resigned, explaining that she was responsible for running the house . After the May coup, however, she returned to political life and, together with her husband, worked to work on the rebirth of Poland. She was also involved in women's movements. In 1930, she became an MP again, but did not take part in the debates anymore.
After the Second World War, during which she lost her husband and the remaining two of her four children (her two eldest sons died earlier - in 1902 and 1920), she practically withdrew from public life. She died on November 16, 1958.
The PPS club in the Constitutional Sejm. There is only one woman among the men - Zofia Moraczewska.
A fighter for the sobriety of the nation. Maria Moczydłowska
She was born on October 4, 1886 in Łomża. From childhood, she knew what she wanted from life. She finished a seven-grade salary and the secret University of Warsaw and became a teacher. When she introduced her future husband, Mieczysław Moczydłowski, to the family, she heard that it was a poor choice, but she still chose her way.
She was not an ordinary wife and mother. She practically did not cook, she flashed from cleaning, did not care much about her appearance. On the other hand, she was the first woman to speak at the meeting as a deputy. She worked in three committees:labor protection, education and social welfare. It required a lot of sacrifice, considering that the Sejm did not have specific meeting dates, so it was sitting almost all the time - also on Sundays!
As Olga Wiechnik reports in her book Posełki. The Eight First Women ":" In the Legislative Sejm, Maria struggles with the alcoholism of Polish society. It starts right away, in March 1919 ”. A year later, the MP proposed a prohibition proposal. Ultimately, she managed to push through somewhat less stringent anti-alcohol regulations, henceforth referred to as "Lex Moczydłowska".
She did not get another term in office, but despite this, she was active in women's organizations until the end of her long life. Probably she did not have to resort to the tricks she became famous for as an MP. She simulated fainting then and ... she went to call when she wanted to "push" one law or another that her own club did not agree with. She died on April 26, 1969.
Pouring illegal alcohol in the US. In the Second Polish Republic, Maria Moczydłowska fought for the introduction of prohibition. It was just one vote short of its stringent law.
The voice of a Polish woman. Franciszek Wilczakowiakowa
Only scraps of information have survived about Franciszka. She was born on October 4, 1880 in Bielawa, she was a Polish diaspora activist in western Germany, and entered the Sejm after supplementary elections. Until recently, it was not even known what she looked like.
Her father was an illiterate worker - and perhaps that is why, as a parliamentarian, she got involved in the fight to improve the lot of the poorest Poles. She was one of the first to speak out loud about the abuse of power.
When she finished her political career, she started editing "Głos Kobiet", a monthly magazine published in 1927–1939 by the Union of Women's Cultural and Educational Societies in Poznań. In the magazine, she called for "women who went through life collecting copious experiences, to speak up, give advice, and even rebuke where necessary."
First lady in government. Irena Kosmowska
Before or after her, no woman in the history of the Second Polish Republic held a position in the government, although her career as a deputy minister in the self-proclaimed office of Daszyński lasted only a few days. Nevertheless, Irena Kosmowska managed to achieve a lot.
Born on December 20, 1879 in a family of intellectuals in Warsaw, the activist betrayed her political commitment in her youth. She was involved in the fight for the rights of peasants, ran the cultural and educational department of "Zaranie", an influential weekly for the people, and fell into conflict with the law many times .
She did not like the vision of a woman's life, which is "devoid of initiative to labor (...), the monotony of everyday troublemakers, interrupted only by the increased effort of frequent motherhood." Thus, she eagerly used the opportunities offered by granting Polish women full electoral rights .
She ran to the Sejm in the Lublin district with the party she helped create - PSL Liberation. As an MP, she became a member of the constitutional committee. In subsequent terms, she worked, among others, in the foreign affairs committee. During World War II, she became involved in the activities of the underground. Arrested by the Gestapo on the night of July 18-19, 1942, she spent the rest of her life in prison. She died on August 21, 1945 in Berlin.
"With a face similar to Kosciuszko". Gabriela Balicka
The first Polish woman to graduate from botanical studies and one of the first with a doctorate was not lucky in love. Her husband, writer and political activist Zygmunt Balicki, after 20 years decided that Gabriela - with her Kościuszko profile - was not the ideal of a woman and demanded that the marriage be annulled.
Probably, however, he was more disturbed by the activities of his wife than the lack of beauty. This devoted herself to scientific work with great enthusiasm and organized secret conventions for women . Olga Wiechnik in "Members of Parliament" describes these secret meetings as follows:
The first time the participants officially debated poultry farming and met in private homes in the evenings. During that "chicken congress" they talked mainly about organizing secret teaching, but in subsequent ones they also start to talk about their own right to education. Almost to work, pay and divorce. Or rather about the lack of these rights.
Gabriela Balicka was one of the first Polish women with a doctorate.
Balicka - already as an MP - demanded it and demanded that the working time of women be limited and that they should be secured in their old age . It was also focused on the problem of prostitution that was burning in the interwar period. However, the laws she helped draft - on combating fornication and fighting venereal diseases - did not enter into force in the end.
Polish village reformer. Jadwiga Dziubińska
Jadwiga's family home was crowded. She, her five siblings and countless children of our neighbors were running freely around the Dziubińskis' garden at Aleje Jerozolimskie in Warsaw. When she grew up, she led a rather solitary life. She did not start her own family; Instead of looking for a husband, she preferred to find a way to reform the Polish countryside. And her ideas were revolutionary.
Its main goal is to fight illiteracy and to teach the peasant population to "think serfdom" . After all, in independent Poland, all citizens were to be equal. On July 9, 1920, she thundered in the Seym:"We must create an ideological army to fight ignorance (...), billions should not be saved for an army fighting for light for all citizens." She also stressed that "we have 59 percent illiterate in the country."
Together with the education commission, she created the law on agricultural schools, and then went on a tour of the country to find suitable places to establish them. She did not take part in the next elections - she preferred to return to grassroots work. The homeland paid her back ... by not granting a pension. In the end, she managed to win the benefit she was owed, but the distaste remained. She died on January 28, 1937.
Sudden motion made by Jadwiga Dziubińska regarding Poles in Russia.
Patriot among the Germans. Anna Piasecka
She was born on March 13, 1882 in the Łęgowski estate in Feliksów. She had eleven siblings. She was a teacher and social activist. She taught Polish in secret education in Toruń ... and little else is known about her. This is how Anna Piasecka's biography is summed up by Olga Wiechnik in "Posełki":
The last woman, who joined the seven members of the Legislative Sejm, became a member of parliament as a result of the supplementary elections on May 2, 1920, in Pomerania. She was ninety-eight years old. She had four children, five grandchildren and a dozen great-grandchildren. Not a single letter left of her.
There are, however, memories of a zealous patriot and a progressive teacher who was not afraid of crossing the borders. And she kept her straight until the end.