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Pani Dulska #1
Moralnosc Pani Dulskiej
A play in hardcover called 'Moralnosc Pani Dulskiej'.
287 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1906
37 people are currently reading
1417 people want to read
About the author
Gabriela Zapolska
62 books16 followersMaria Gabriela Stefania Korwin-Piotrowska, known as Gabriela Zapolska, was a Polish novelist, playwright, naturalist writer, feuilletonist, theatre critic and stage actress. Zapolska wrote 41 plays, 23 novels, 177 short stories, 252 works of journalism, one film script, and over 1,500 letters. She received most recognition for her socio-satirical comedies. [wikipedia]
Gabriela Zapolska, właśc. Maria Gabriela Janowska z domu Piotrowska herbu Korwin, primo voto Śnieżko-Błocka (ur. 30 marca 1857 w Podhajcach, zm. 17 grudnia 1921 we Lwowie) – polska aktorka, dramatopisarka, powieściopisarka i publicystka.
Przedstawicielka polskiego naturalizmu, wykpiwała moralną obłudę mieszczaństwa; pisała komedie satyryczne, dramaty i powieści. [wikipedia]
Gabriela Zapolska, właśc. Maria Gabriela Janowska z domu Piotrowska herbu Korwin, primo voto Śnieżko-Błocka (ur. 30 marca 1857 w Podhajcach, zm. 17 grudnia 1921 we Lwowie) – polska aktorka, dramatopisarka, powieściopisarka i publicystka.
Przedstawicielka polskiego naturalizmu, wykpiwała moralną obłudę mieszczaństwa; pisała komedie satyryczne, dramaty i powieści. [wikipedia]
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 664 reviews
December 14, 2024
nikt was nie ostrzega, ze moralnosc pani dulskiej po prostu nie istnieje
November 22, 2023
te odcinki trudnych spraw sa coraz lepsze
February 13, 2021
Z serii: nadrabianie kanonu lektur szkolnych.
Całkiem zgrabny dramacik, obnażona kołtuneria i wątpliwa moralność Dulskich
Tylko Meli szkoda, no i Hanki oczywiście
Minęło sto lat z okładem, a ludzie wciąż tacy sami
Całkiem zgrabny dramacik, obnażona kołtuneria i wątpliwa moralność Dulskich
Tylko Meli szkoda, no i Hanki oczywiście
Minęło sto lat z okładem, a ludzie wciąż tacy sami
October 31, 2022
zbyszko mood ale hesia wkurwia
November 24, 2022
fajny dramat, nie ma jakiś chocholich tańców ani ateny zakochanej w chlopickim, dość przyjemne i ponadczasowe
February 5, 2023
Autentycznie momentami mnie bawiło, zwłaszcza ruchliwość głównej bohaterki i opisujące to didaskalia XDD
DULSKA
(wpada jak bomba)
Naprawdę szybko i przyjemnie się to czyta!
A co do moralności - jak można się domyślać, jest ona bardzo specyficzna i płytka. Sprowadza się do starań, by pokazać reszcie świata swój nienaganny obraz, jaki by on tak naprawdę nie był.
Bezwzględnie rozprawia się z tym, co uważa za hańbę - i tak np. wymawia mieszkanie lokatorce, która próbowała popełnić samobójstwo.
"Zażyła pani zapałek... Taka trywialna trucizna... Ludzie się śmieli. I jeszcze jak się to skończyło. Cała komedia - gdyby pani była umarła - no..."
Nie ma natomiast problemów z tym, by wynajmować mieszkanie prostytutce, mimo że nią gardzi. Klienci zawsze stają kilka domów dalej, nie ma rozgłosu, więc wszystko jest w porządku. Tak można żyć.
Cała rodzina Dulskich tak właściwie jest dziwna. Oprócz pani domu mamy także męża, Felicjana (gigachada, który ma wyjebane i jest mu dane), dwie córki (słodką, kochaną Melę i Hesię, wredny pomiot) oraz pierworodnego, Zbyszka - "czarna owca" w rodzinie, a jednocześnie chyba najbardziej ludzka i rzeczywista postać (no i jest turbo sassy, uwielbiam go za to).
"[...] Ja was wszystkich nienawidzę i siebie razem z wami"
Do tego wątek niezgody na otaczającą go rzeczywistość i bunt:
DULSKA
Ja tam nie mam czasu myśleć...
ZBYSZKO
Właśnie, właśnie. Więc też ja myk z domu, bo w domu właściwie cmentarz. A czego? Myśli - swobodnej, szerokiej myśli.
.
.
.
MELA
Ty ze wszystkiego się śmiejesz.
ZBYSZKO
Tak śmieją się wisielce.
DULSKA
(wpada jak bomba)
Naprawdę szybko i przyjemnie się to czyta!
A co do moralności - jak można się domyślać, jest ona bardzo specyficzna i płytka. Sprowadza się do starań, by pokazać reszcie świata swój nienaganny obraz, jaki by on tak naprawdę nie był.
Bezwzględnie rozprawia się z tym, co uważa za hańbę - i tak np. wymawia mieszkanie lokatorce, która próbowała popełnić samobójstwo.
"Zażyła pani zapałek... Taka trywialna trucizna... Ludzie się śmieli. I jeszcze jak się to skończyło. Cała komedia - gdyby pani była umarła - no..."
Nie ma natomiast problemów z tym, by wynajmować mieszkanie prostytutce, mimo że nią gardzi. Klienci zawsze stają kilka domów dalej, nie ma rozgłosu, więc wszystko jest w porządku. Tak można żyć.
Cała rodzina Dulskich tak właściwie jest dziwna. Oprócz pani domu mamy także męża, Felicjana (gigachada, który ma wyjebane i jest mu dane), dwie córki (słodką, kochaną Melę i Hesię, wredny pomiot) oraz pierworodnego, Zbyszka - "czarna owca" w rodzinie, a jednocześnie chyba najbardziej ludzka i rzeczywista postać (no i jest turbo sassy, uwielbiam go za to).
"[...] Ja was wszystkich nienawidzę i siebie razem z wami"
Do tego wątek niezgody na otaczającą go rzeczywistość i bunt:
DULSKA
Ja tam nie mam czasu myśleć...
ZBYSZKO
Właśnie, właśnie. Więc też ja myk z domu, bo w domu właściwie cmentarz. A czego? Myśli - swobodnej, szerokiej myśli.
.
.
.
MELA
Ty ze wszystkiego się śmiejesz.
ZBYSZKO
Tak śmieją się wisielce.
June 14, 2010
Easy to read. No orgasm.
September 13, 2022
mr dulski king
April 20, 2023
Zbycho na poczatku kozak a potem sie stal pizdeczka
Pewnie byl hot
Pewnie byl hot
October 26, 2019
2007 English translation by Teresa Murjas.
This 1906 play is a staple of literature and theatre in Poland, and a fixture on school curricula there. It has also been a set text for Polish A-level in England. Dulska is a byword in Poland for a strain of bourgeois prudery, hypocrisy, social climbing and obsession with conventional respectability - like a less comical, more hegemonic Hyacinth Bucket - and has also occasionally been referenced positively in right-wing rhetoric.
This English edition has a long introduction by translator, theatre director and drama academic Teresa Murjas ; it is considerably longer than the play itself. Some of its early sections are about Murjas' experiences of growing up as a second-generation Polish immigrant in England, about understanding her Polish-British identity, and negotiating the different sets of assumptions people make about it, such as popular perceptions of Poles as what would now be termed racialised and racist. (And this was written in 2006-7, not long after Poland's accession to the EU and resultant increased immigration to the UK, before the credit crunch, before the Brexit referendum and before there was a hard-right government in Poland.) However, Murjas' experience is mediated by having a name that most British people assume to be Spanish. All this was extremely interesting to me as someone else with British-Polish heritage who has read next to nothing of other people's writing about it, and certainly nothing else in a book. (Perhaps the generation of British Poles whose parents arrived in the the last 15 years will eventually have more to say.) But a lot of this section of the introduction is so specific to Britain that it may be of limited interest even to Polish Americans. And not all British Poles would be interested in histories of memorials in Portsmouth: it may require a certain level of geekery. (The Polish community there has quite a long history, Murjas explains; Portsmouth became the home of refugees and soldiers who left Russian Poland following the suppression of the 1830-1831 November, and who later produced significant early socialist writings in Polish.)
After the memoir chapters of the introduction, I read the play itself, and went back later to the informational content about the author and the work itself.
The play seemed to have an energy similar to Ibsen and Strindberg (at least as I've watched them in English productions) minus the anguished finales. It became evident there was a reason for this, once I'd read that Zapolska had acted in Ibsen's plays, and met the writer himself during her years in Paris. However, there are significant differences from the Norwegians' best-known plays. There are farcical, comic moments in Dulska. Most of the major characters are female, with distinct and varied personalities. And the conclusion is pragmatic, upholding the social order after criticising it. No-one comes out of it too badly, even if grand emotional fulfilment and social change are not achieved. I didn't feel there were many stand-out scenes or lines - though those featuring Dulska's teenage daughters, or her niece Juliasiewiczowa, were probably the most fun - and my overall impression was of a solid, workmanlike play for sensible people.
Zapolska is associated with the decadent, modernist and more politicised Young Poland literary movement of her era, but the ending of Dulska seems to echo the resignation preceding Positivist cultural phase, in which the favoured outlook on Poland's occupied state, and therefore Polish culture, was compromise, survival, and individuals getting ahead materially and in education. As a naturalist writer interested in depicting gritty social reality, and what was then regarded as the seedier side of life, Zapolska was sometimes dubbed "Zola in a skirt" by dismissive contemporaries. I am a relative newcomer to Polish literary history, but it seems to me that this sort of naturalism is a bridge between Positivism and the more romantic and modernist aspects of the Young Poland scene - for instance Stanisław Wyspyański's hugely influential play The Wedding, later made into a film by Andrzey Wajda.
Dulska's twentysomething son, Zbyszko, seems like a typical young middle-class man enjoying the fashionable and dissolute liberties of the 'naughty nineties' and the Edwardian era; he talks a little bit revolutionary, but, as current popular feminism would point out, he's actually at least as exploitative as the older generation. Zbyszko is one of the play's most obvious emblem of youthful decadence, and he's certainly not a positive one. Juliasiewowica, meanwhile, despite being considered somewhat scandalous by her aunt, is socially adept and helps broker solutions to the dilemma at the heart of the play; she is modern, liberated *and* capable.
The significance of the servant-girl Hanka - whom Mrs Dulska manoeuvres her son into exploiting, in order to try and keep him at home - becomes richer with some background from the introduction:
"in fin-de-siècle Poland, and most specifically Galicia, where the play is set, under conditions of heavy censorship, ethnographers played an extremely significant role, via the formal study of folklore, in transforming the image of Poland to a more socially inclusive ideal in which peasant and feudal lord are presented as sharing a common cultural and political bond… The relationship between the Dulski family and Hanka might be read as Zapolska’s tongue-in-cheek ‘resurrection’ of the said semi-feudal power dynamic in an early-twentieth-century, more urbanized context." And within the home - in the Dulski's relationships with their servants, and with the tenants Mrs Dulska financially exploits with literal cheerfulness.
The strength of the female characters, and the passivity (Dulska's husband) or irresponsibility (Zbyszko) of the men has been interpreted as an analogy for Poland's political situation - though most of her plays reportedly feature major female characters. "Irena Krzywicka… argues that Zapolska’s overwhelming focus on relationships within the urban domestic sphere, predominantly a matriarchal space, held as implicit for its contemporary audience the acute political and social disempowerment of Polish men in the public domain during the years of occupation and repression, a suggestion that may provide us with new ways of reading Felicjan and Zbyszko Dulski and their complex, silent relationship." Murjas mentions that the scene in which Mr Dulski senior goes for a walk "to the castle" inside the house (one that is easy to think about in the political context of an occupied country) was actually inspired by the author's father, a minor noble who had as a young man planned to become a priest. He still wanted to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but administrative and family responsibilities kept him in Poland, so he calculated the number of steps involved, and instead walked them around his estate. (In the original play, the castle is one in Lwów, but Mujas moved it to Kraków, which made sense for a UK audience who didn't know the play's history, but which surprised older Poles aware that this is also what used to be done in Polish performances during the Communist era.
After this tight, fairly conventional play which seems maturely resigned to a prevailing conservative order to which it is nevertheless opposed on principle, it was a big surprise to read of the chaotic and colourful existence of its author. (The Atlantic review of the new Susan Sontag biography suggests that Sontag's disciplined writing and intellectual approach was a deliberate counterpoint to the turbulent intensity in her personal life; perhaps something similar was the case for Zapolska too.) I hazard a guess that Zapolska could be seen in a similar way to the position of Virgina Woolf in the English canon several decades ago: this woman writer ranked among overwhelmingly male counterparts, who, despite having the sort of unstable and transgressive life that traditional patriarchy despised and opposed, and alienating a number of influential people in her lifetime - through volatility as well as by flouting the strict moral standards of the day - ended up placed on the podium alongside the male greats. (Her life sounded rather like a missing chapter from Bitch by Elizabeth Wurtzel.) She was also, until around 1900, an actress, who like the negatively-proverbial actress of her era had torrid love affairs, but she was for a time a writer-actress-director, a combination which I didn't even know any woman had done back then, never mind getting to be remembered afterwards primarily as a playwright. (She was also a journalist and prose writer. There are two sequels to Dulska in short-story form; I'm not aware of any English translations.)
In one of those minor synchronicities that sometimes happen between books, I found that Zapolska shares half of her maiden surname (Korwin-Piotrowska) with the subject of the book I read just before this one, The Journal of Countess Françoise [Korwin-] Krasińska. Though this may not mean they were related - the Wikipedia article on Polish Korwins seems to suggest there were either several branches or several separate foundations; the English could be clearer.
Dulska was a huge hit in Poland - and whilst the play was decent, everything I read of the reception and history felt a little disproportionate to the text I'd just read. "In 1932, Boy-Żeleński, a writer, avid social commentator and translator" [who crops up in even cursory literary histories of Poland at this time, and seems to have known everyone on the cultural scene] "perceived similarities between Zapolska and Molière. A keen French colleague whom he escorted to a performance had verified, apparently between fits and starts of admiring laughter, that Mrs. Dulska ‘completes Molière’, since she does not exist in his oeuvre. Żeleński’s waxes increasingly lyrical, asserting that, ‘[w]hen Dulska was created she was simply a type – now she represents a whole epoch. We can say “The age of Dulska”, as much as we can say “The age of Louis XIV or Louis XV.”’
Theatre was, and remained, a bigger deal in Polish literature than it was in Britain at the same time - perhaps, as it's suggested here, because travelling theatre companies, and gathering to watch their plays, were important in keeping Polish culture and language alive during the more than 120 years of partition, with productions often touring the Austrian, Russian and Prussian zones. " Both Raszewski and Braun assert that Polish theatre of the nineteenth century emphasized the role of the actor and an important factor from this perspective is the suggestion that live performance can evade censorship in politically productive ways, even when written text has been cut/altered." There were rumours that Zapolska was a spy, apparently never conclusively proven or disproven by biographers (so she was probably a good one if she was…) and touring theatre would have made a good cover for the travel involved. Her home was, significantly, in the Austrian partition, in Galicia. This was the poorest and least industrialised region of Poland, which is why there were so many immigrants from Galicia in the late 19th and early 20th century (the ancestors of many Polish Americans) - but the Austro-Hungarian government was somewhat more liberal than the Russians, meaning more freedom in art and culture. (although there was still some censorship.)
Zapolska also lived and worked in Paris for several years from 1889. Many foreign actors and actresses who were successful in their homelands tried to make it in Paris at this time, it's stated, but were held back by their accents. Zapolska got a big break via a part as a Romanian princess, which led to further roles, and she mingled not only with Polish emigré writers but with major French and European authors including Zola and the aforementioned Ibsen, and she returned to Poland with a considerable collection of French contemporary paintings. This phase of her life put her in touch with developments in Polish expat writing, and in European theatre. Murjas explains that "many actors in ‘Poland’ did not have what are now considered some of the most significant Polish plays of the period at their disposal, nor can it be said that Polish practitioners participated in an overt and unrestricted fashion in the Great Theatre Reform or the Independent Theatre Movement, of such crucial importance to the development of European practice and its growing insistence on theatre as a potentially non-literary art form." (There could be more clarity about what and was not staged in Poland. Were the late 19th-century Polish partitions really still cut off from work by the likes of Goethe, Victor Hugo and Byron, as seems to be implied? It is more obvious why romantic-nationalist Polish authors such as Mickiewicz and Słowacki - both deceased by the time Zapolska was born - would have been difficult to print throughout the partition period.)
Murjas' introduction quotes from the two best-known general historians of Poland in English, Norman Davies and Adam Zamoyski. Interweaving lines from their writing with personal experiences and opinions gives something that reads rather like an extended blog or Goodreads review whenever she ventures outside her own expertise of theatre academia. It is not a deep scholarly introduction from someone who has read widely in the history and literature fields in the original language, as you might assume from the length. However, there are details of teaching and creating theatre and performance here, including research productions, which are evidently specialist.
The play itself is a quick read, and worth a look if you are interested in Polish culture or in exploring some European playwrights or women authors who are less well-known in English - though it may be worth tempering your expectations. The introduction is a weightier proposition unless you have a high level of interest, but I've tried to distil its (IMO) most interesting points here. At any rate, I'm glad to know a bit about this Polish classic now, and may try to see a film version to try and understand more about its singular appeal and impact.
Read for Women in Translation month, Aug 2019; reviewed Sept 2019.
This 1906 play is a staple of literature and theatre in Poland, and a fixture on school curricula there. It has also been a set text for Polish A-level in England. Dulska is a byword in Poland for a strain of bourgeois prudery, hypocrisy, social climbing and obsession with conventional respectability - like a less comical, more hegemonic Hyacinth Bucket - and has also occasionally been referenced positively in right-wing rhetoric.
This English edition has a long introduction by translator, theatre director and drama academic Teresa Murjas ; it is considerably longer than the play itself. Some of its early sections are about Murjas' experiences of growing up as a second-generation Polish immigrant in England, about understanding her Polish-British identity, and negotiating the different sets of assumptions people make about it, such as popular perceptions of Poles as what would now be termed racialised and racist. (And this was written in 2006-7, not long after Poland's accession to the EU and resultant increased immigration to the UK, before the credit crunch, before the Brexit referendum and before there was a hard-right government in Poland.) However, Murjas' experience is mediated by having a name that most British people assume to be Spanish. All this was extremely interesting to me as someone else with British-Polish heritage who has read next to nothing of other people's writing about it, and certainly nothing else in a book. (Perhaps the generation of British Poles whose parents arrived in the the last 15 years will eventually have more to say.) But a lot of this section of the introduction is so specific to Britain that it may be of limited interest even to Polish Americans. And not all British Poles would be interested in histories of memorials in Portsmouth: it may require a certain level of geekery. (The Polish community there has quite a long history, Murjas explains; Portsmouth became the home of refugees and soldiers who left Russian Poland following the suppression of the 1830-1831 November, and who later produced significant early socialist writings in Polish.)
After the memoir chapters of the introduction, I read the play itself, and went back later to the informational content about the author and the work itself.
The play seemed to have an energy similar to Ibsen and Strindberg (at least as I've watched them in English productions) minus the anguished finales. It became evident there was a reason for this, once I'd read that Zapolska had acted in Ibsen's plays, and met the writer himself during her years in Paris. However, there are significant differences from the Norwegians' best-known plays. There are farcical, comic moments in Dulska. Most of the major characters are female, with distinct and varied personalities. And the conclusion is pragmatic, upholding the social order after criticising it. No-one comes out of it too badly, even if grand emotional fulfilment and social change are not achieved. I didn't feel there were many stand-out scenes or lines - though those featuring Dulska's teenage daughters, or her niece Juliasiewiczowa, were probably the most fun - and my overall impression was of a solid, workmanlike play for sensible people.
Zapolska is associated with the decadent, modernist and more politicised Young Poland literary movement of her era, but the ending of Dulska seems to echo the resignation preceding Positivist cultural phase, in which the favoured outlook on Poland's occupied state, and therefore Polish culture, was compromise, survival, and individuals getting ahead materially and in education. As a naturalist writer interested in depicting gritty social reality, and what was then regarded as the seedier side of life, Zapolska was sometimes dubbed "Zola in a skirt" by dismissive contemporaries. I am a relative newcomer to Polish literary history, but it seems to me that this sort of naturalism is a bridge between Positivism and the more romantic and modernist aspects of the Young Poland scene - for instance Stanisław Wyspyański's hugely influential play The Wedding, later made into a film by Andrzey Wajda.
Dulska's twentysomething son, Zbyszko, seems like a typical young middle-class man enjoying the fashionable and dissolute liberties of the 'naughty nineties' and the Edwardian era; he talks a little bit revolutionary, but, as current popular feminism would point out, he's actually at least as exploitative as the older generation. Zbyszko is one of the play's most obvious emblem of youthful decadence, and he's certainly not a positive one. Juliasiewowica, meanwhile, despite being considered somewhat scandalous by her aunt, is socially adept and helps broker solutions to the dilemma at the heart of the play; she is modern, liberated *and* capable.
The significance of the servant-girl Hanka - whom Mrs Dulska manoeuvres her son into exploiting, in order to try and keep him at home - becomes richer with some background from the introduction:
"in fin-de-siècle Poland, and most specifically Galicia, where the play is set, under conditions of heavy censorship, ethnographers played an extremely significant role, via the formal study of folklore, in transforming the image of Poland to a more socially inclusive ideal in which peasant and feudal lord are presented as sharing a common cultural and political bond… The relationship between the Dulski family and Hanka might be read as Zapolska’s tongue-in-cheek ‘resurrection’ of the said semi-feudal power dynamic in an early-twentieth-century, more urbanized context." And within the home - in the Dulski's relationships with their servants, and with the tenants Mrs Dulska financially exploits with literal cheerfulness.
The strength of the female characters, and the passivity (Dulska's husband) or irresponsibility (Zbyszko) of the men has been interpreted as an analogy for Poland's political situation - though most of her plays reportedly feature major female characters. "Irena Krzywicka… argues that Zapolska’s overwhelming focus on relationships within the urban domestic sphere, predominantly a matriarchal space, held as implicit for its contemporary audience the acute political and social disempowerment of Polish men in the public domain during the years of occupation and repression, a suggestion that may provide us with new ways of reading Felicjan and Zbyszko Dulski and their complex, silent relationship." Murjas mentions that the scene in which Mr Dulski senior goes for a walk "to the castle" inside the house (one that is easy to think about in the political context of an occupied country) was actually inspired by the author's father, a minor noble who had as a young man planned to become a priest. He still wanted to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but administrative and family responsibilities kept him in Poland, so he calculated the number of steps involved, and instead walked them around his estate. (In the original play, the castle is one in Lwów, but Mujas moved it to Kraków, which made sense for a UK audience who didn't know the play's history, but which surprised older Poles aware that this is also what used to be done in Polish performances during the Communist era.
After this tight, fairly conventional play which seems maturely resigned to a prevailing conservative order to which it is nevertheless opposed on principle, it was a big surprise to read of the chaotic and colourful existence of its author. (The Atlantic review of the new Susan Sontag biography suggests that Sontag's disciplined writing and intellectual approach was a deliberate counterpoint to the turbulent intensity in her personal life; perhaps something similar was the case for Zapolska too.) I hazard a guess that Zapolska could be seen in a similar way to the position of Virgina Woolf in the English canon several decades ago: this woman writer ranked among overwhelmingly male counterparts, who, despite having the sort of unstable and transgressive life that traditional patriarchy despised and opposed, and alienating a number of influential people in her lifetime - through volatility as well as by flouting the strict moral standards of the day - ended up placed on the podium alongside the male greats. (Her life sounded rather like a missing chapter from Bitch by Elizabeth Wurtzel.) She was also, until around 1900, an actress, who like the negatively-proverbial actress of her era had torrid love affairs, but she was for a time a writer-actress-director, a combination which I didn't even know any woman had done back then, never mind getting to be remembered afterwards primarily as a playwright. (She was also a journalist and prose writer. There are two sequels to Dulska in short-story form; I'm not aware of any English translations.)
In one of those minor synchronicities that sometimes happen between books, I found that Zapolska shares half of her maiden surname (Korwin-Piotrowska) with the subject of the book I read just before this one, The Journal of Countess Françoise [Korwin-] Krasińska. Though this may not mean they were related - the Wikipedia article on Polish Korwins seems to suggest there were either several branches or several separate foundations; the English could be clearer.
Dulska was a huge hit in Poland - and whilst the play was decent, everything I read of the reception and history felt a little disproportionate to the text I'd just read. "In 1932, Boy-Żeleński, a writer, avid social commentator and translator" [who crops up in even cursory literary histories of Poland at this time, and seems to have known everyone on the cultural scene] "perceived similarities between Zapolska and Molière. A keen French colleague whom he escorted to a performance had verified, apparently between fits and starts of admiring laughter, that Mrs. Dulska ‘completes Molière’, since she does not exist in his oeuvre. Żeleński’s waxes increasingly lyrical, asserting that, ‘[w]hen Dulska was created she was simply a type – now she represents a whole epoch. We can say “The age of Dulska”, as much as we can say “The age of Louis XIV or Louis XV.”’
Theatre was, and remained, a bigger deal in Polish literature than it was in Britain at the same time - perhaps, as it's suggested here, because travelling theatre companies, and gathering to watch their plays, were important in keeping Polish culture and language alive during the more than 120 years of partition, with productions often touring the Austrian, Russian and Prussian zones. " Both Raszewski and Braun assert that Polish theatre of the nineteenth century emphasized the role of the actor and an important factor from this perspective is the suggestion that live performance can evade censorship in politically productive ways, even when written text has been cut/altered." There were rumours that Zapolska was a spy, apparently never conclusively proven or disproven by biographers (so she was probably a good one if she was…) and touring theatre would have made a good cover for the travel involved. Her home was, significantly, in the Austrian partition, in Galicia. This was the poorest and least industrialised region of Poland, which is why there were so many immigrants from Galicia in the late 19th and early 20th century (the ancestors of many Polish Americans) - but the Austro-Hungarian government was somewhat more liberal than the Russians, meaning more freedom in art and culture. (although there was still some censorship.)
Zapolska also lived and worked in Paris for several years from 1889. Many foreign actors and actresses who were successful in their homelands tried to make it in Paris at this time, it's stated, but were held back by their accents. Zapolska got a big break via a part as a Romanian princess, which led to further roles, and she mingled not only with Polish emigré writers but with major French and European authors including Zola and the aforementioned Ibsen, and she returned to Poland with a considerable collection of French contemporary paintings. This phase of her life put her in touch with developments in Polish expat writing, and in European theatre. Murjas explains that "many actors in ‘Poland’ did not have what are now considered some of the most significant Polish plays of the period at their disposal, nor can it be said that Polish practitioners participated in an overt and unrestricted fashion in the Great Theatre Reform or the Independent Theatre Movement, of such crucial importance to the development of European practice and its growing insistence on theatre as a potentially non-literary art form." (There could be more clarity about what and was not staged in Poland. Were the late 19th-century Polish partitions really still cut off from work by the likes of Goethe, Victor Hugo and Byron, as seems to be implied? It is more obvious why romantic-nationalist Polish authors such as Mickiewicz and Słowacki - both deceased by the time Zapolska was born - would have been difficult to print throughout the partition period.)
Murjas' introduction quotes from the two best-known general historians of Poland in English, Norman Davies and Adam Zamoyski. Interweaving lines from their writing with personal experiences and opinions gives something that reads rather like an extended blog or Goodreads review whenever she ventures outside her own expertise of theatre academia. It is not a deep scholarly introduction from someone who has read widely in the history and literature fields in the original language, as you might assume from the length. However, there are details of teaching and creating theatre and performance here, including research productions, which are evidently specialist.
The play itself is a quick read, and worth a look if you are interested in Polish culture or in exploring some European playwrights or women authors who are less well-known in English - though it may be worth tempering your expectations. The introduction is a weightier proposition unless you have a high level of interest, but I've tried to distil its (IMO) most interesting points here. At any rate, I'm glad to know a bit about this Polish classic now, and may try to see a film version to try and understand more about its singular appeal and impact.
Read for Women in Translation month, Aug 2019; reviewed Sept 2019.
November 7, 2022
"Być Dulskim - to katastrofa."
Read
November 19, 2023utozsamiam sie z panem dulskim
November 13, 2021
Jestem fanką Zbyszka! Jego podejście do życia i całej rodziny Dulskich rozbawił mnie do łez. Jestem w stanie przeboleć zwyczaje i podejście kobiet z tamtego okresu.
January 27, 2022
śledzik na raz
November 9, 2023
Pozwala się kilka razy szyderczo uśmiechnąć pod nosem.
December 7, 2023
ale jazda, Zbyszko razem z Antkiem Boryną to archetypy badboyów w polskiej literaturze
April 4, 2024
zyjemy w spoleczenstwie
January 21, 2023
~Hanka się ze Zbyszkiem puściła i późnej przez nogi swe dziecko wypuściła~
Krótka lektura szkolna, jak ktoś nie lubi czytać to strasznie wystarczy.
Moje favorites cytaty:
1. Zbyszko : ,,Moja droga... każda kobieta to fortepian, tylko trzeba umieć grać ![...]''
2. Zbyszko : ,, [...]A przestań się malować, bo wyglądasz jak kamienica odnowiona na przyjazd cesarza. [...]''
Krótka lektura szkolna, jak ktoś nie lubi czytać to strasznie wystarczy.
Moje favorites cytaty:
1. Zbyszko : ,,Moja droga... każda kobieta to fortepian, tylko trzeba umieć grać ![...]''
2. Zbyszko : ,, [...]A przestań się malować, bo wyglądasz jak kamienica odnowiona na przyjazd cesarza. [...]''
December 31, 2023
trudne sprawy wersja XXw na papierze
May 20, 2020
daj ta, matka chrzestna, spokój. hanka deserved better than this. felicjan walking around the house to meet the daily target of steps came to fruition just more than a hundred years later with people losing their minds when they made 9900 steps that day. i absolutely adore this play for all the wrong reasons
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 16, 2022
"A niech was wszyscy diabli!" - złoto
April 7, 2022
Emocje, jak na grzybach
February 6, 2025
Klub polskiej książki klasycznej
April 8, 2021
3.5
Bardzo lekki i ciekawy dramat - nic więcej powiedzieć nie mogę. Po prostu było to dobre i komfortowe, ciepłe do czytania (chociaż nie w kontekście tematyki).
Bardzo lekki i ciekawy dramat - nic więcej powiedzieć nie mogę. Po prostu było to dobre i komfortowe, ciepłe do czytania (chociaż nie w kontekście tematyki).
April 24, 2023
"Ty i twój ojciec- to jedna dusza. On co dzień w cukierni, a ty- Bóg wie gdzie..."
November 2, 2025
Co to była za telenowela xdd
June 3, 2023
Przyjemna lektura
September 14, 2023
jestem dulskim
November 13, 2021
dawno się tak nie uśmiałam na lekturze!!
str. 67 to moja fav…no i ogólnie cała książka jest wypełniona moimi reakcjami - a to coś znaczy hshahah
str. 67 to moja fav…no i ogólnie cała książka jest wypełniona moimi reakcjami - a to coś znaczy hshahah
May 29, 2023
Nie wiem, czy tylko ja tak miałam, ale w liceum nie czytałam lektur. Spędzałam pół swojego wolnego czasu na pochłanianiu fantastyki, kryminałów, powieści i klasyki literatury, ale NIKT, naprawdę NIKT nie był w stanie zmusić mnie do sięgnięcia po martyrologiczno-sarmackie utyskiwania białych mężczyzn nieumiejących zrobić sobie obiadu, nieważne, jak bardzo próbował mi wmówić, że jest to Wielka Literatura. Odrzucał mnie przymus, odrzucał mnie konflikt z moją polonistką (której ferdydurkowski styl nauczania sprawiał, że chciałam jak najszybciej z tych lekcji uciec), odrzucała mnie tematyka i sposób rozmowy o literaturze, a przede wszystkim odrzucało mnie, że zamiast czytać fajną, adekwatną, 'relatable' literaturę musieliśmy czytać coś totalnie abstrakcyjnego i niezrozumiałego. Spędziłam rok życia, "zgłębiając" poezję antyczną, oczywiście bez znajomości łaciny, greki czy kontekstów, ale w programie klasy z językiem polskim na poziomie podstawowym nie starczyło czasu na "Mistrza i Małgorzatę", "Lolitę" czy Dickensa.
Na szczęście - i nie piszę tego w żaden sposób ironicznie - nie starczyło go również na "Moralność pani Dulskiej". I bardzo dobrze, bo dzięki temu mogłam ten dramat poznać dopiero jako już w miarę ukształtowana osoba dorosła, jako osobne dzieło, a nie kolejny wytwór martyrologicznych fantazji jakiegoś frustrata układającego program mający kształtować umysły młodych pokoleń w zgodzie z linią Najświętszej Partii. (Zaletą jest też, że nie musiałam "Moralności..." omawiać pod kątem światopoglądu mojej polonistki, co również prawdopodobnie nie skończyłoby się dobrze).
Jeżeli jeszcze dramatu Zapolskiej tak jak ja nie znacie, a macie ochotę na coś dobrego, wspaniałego, niezwykle aktualnego (zwłaszcza dzisiaj) i krótkiego, to bardzo, bardzo polecam. Ja odnalazłam w szafce (inne niż wybrane na Goodreads) wydanie z jakiejś taniej książki za złotówkę, ale można przeczytać za darmo chociaż na Wolnych Lekturach.
Najbardziej podoba mi się, jak fantastycznie Zapolska wykreowała postaci dramatu - tytułowa pani Dulska jest kreowana tak żywo, że czułam się, jakbym czytała reportaż. Ja znam takich ludzi i Wy też znacie takich ludzi, takich ludzi widzi się w serialach, w telewizji i często we własnej rodzinie - dominujących, rządzących twardą ręką, mocno oszczędnych, kierujących się frazesami w rodzaju "bo tak trzeba" i przede wszystkim poświęcającymi większą część życia na myślenie o tym, co wypada, czego nie i co pomyślą sąsiedzi. Nie ma Dulska żadnej autorefleksji, zastanowienia nad tym, co słuszne, dobre albo szanujące potrzeby innych, jest tylko arbitralnie przez nią przyjęty kodeks moralny, który odpowiada jakoby temu, "CO TRZEBA", ale w którym najważniejsze jest tak naprawdę jej samopoczucie i sztuczne kreowanie obrazu, że robi i że porządna oraz że ma rodzinę. Dulska subtelnie terroryzuje wszystkich dookoła, wbijając im lekkie szpileczki, ale próbując też sterować ich życiem i zupełnie w żadnym razie nie rozumiejąc ich pobudek czy potrzeb. Doskonale rymuje mi się ta postać z wybitną psychologiczną książką "Dorosłe dzieci niedojrzałych emocjonalnie rodziców", którą obecnie czytam - Dulska jest przykładem osoby totalnie oderwanej i niedojrzałej emocjonalnie, która jest centrum własnego świata, a jednocześnie zupełnie nie umie w tym świecie zauważyć nikogo innego (a tym bardziej: zrobić dla niego miejsca).
Wszystkie inne postaci dramatu określane są "przez" Dulską, tzn. ich relację do Dulskiej (co znów pokazuje, jak jej charakter dominuje życie wszystkich pozostałych domowników). Ciekawym zabiegiem jest to, że największy udział w fabule ma Zbyszko, syn Dulskiej, który desperacko wręcz próbuje się wyrwać spod jej osaczających szponów (zgodnie z terminologią "Dorosłych dzieci..." określilibyśmy go jako eksternalizatora ze względu na odreagowywanie przemocy psychicznej na zewnątrz, tzn. "hulaszczym" trybem życia), jednak nawet on nie jest w stanie stanowić jakiejkolwiek realnej przeciwwagi dla Dulskiej.
Inne postaci z rodziny Dulskiej wręcz nikną na jej tle - jej mąż, nieodzywający się właściwie ani słowem przez całą sztukę, bardzo uciekający od własnego losu, dwójka jej córek, zziębniętych na skutek jej nadmiernej oszczędności, nieuświadomionych, niemogących porozmawiać z matką na jakikolwiek temat. Jest także służąca, czyli osoba z zewnątrz, która zostaje przez Dulską nieświadomie wciągnięta w chorą grę, której ofiarą pada - byle tylko nie było skandalu, byle tylko sąsiedzi nie podejrzewali czegoś niewygodnego.
Bardzo cieszę się, że poznałam ten dramat dopiero teraz, gdy ileś takich sytuacji już w życiu widziałam, iluś doświadczyłam, a o iluś dowiedziałam się np. z reportaży. Jest to absolutnie przedoskonała dla mnie rzecz, o której myślę właściwie bez przerwy od paru dni. Bardzo, bardzo polecam.
Na szczęście - i nie piszę tego w żaden sposób ironicznie - nie starczyło go również na "Moralność pani Dulskiej". I bardzo dobrze, bo dzięki temu mogłam ten dramat poznać dopiero jako już w miarę ukształtowana osoba dorosła, jako osobne dzieło, a nie kolejny wytwór martyrologicznych fantazji jakiegoś frustrata układającego program mający kształtować umysły młodych pokoleń w zgodzie z linią Najświętszej Partii. (Zaletą jest też, że nie musiałam "Moralności..." omawiać pod kątem światopoglądu mojej polonistki, co również prawdopodobnie nie skończyłoby się dobrze).
Jeżeli jeszcze dramatu Zapolskiej tak jak ja nie znacie, a macie ochotę na coś dobrego, wspaniałego, niezwykle aktualnego (zwłaszcza dzisiaj) i krótkiego, to bardzo, bardzo polecam. Ja odnalazłam w szafce (inne niż wybrane na Goodreads) wydanie z jakiejś taniej książki za złotówkę, ale można przeczytać za darmo chociaż na Wolnych Lekturach.
Najbardziej podoba mi się, jak fantastycznie Zapolska wykreowała postaci dramatu - tytułowa pani Dulska jest kreowana tak żywo, że czułam się, jakbym czytała reportaż. Ja znam takich ludzi i Wy też znacie takich ludzi, takich ludzi widzi się w serialach, w telewizji i często we własnej rodzinie - dominujących, rządzących twardą ręką, mocno oszczędnych, kierujących się frazesami w rodzaju "bo tak trzeba" i przede wszystkim poświęcającymi większą część życia na myślenie o tym, co wypada, czego nie i co pomyślą sąsiedzi. Nie ma Dulska żadnej autorefleksji, zastanowienia nad tym, co słuszne, dobre albo szanujące potrzeby innych, jest tylko arbitralnie przez nią przyjęty kodeks moralny, który odpowiada jakoby temu, "CO TRZEBA", ale w którym najważniejsze jest tak naprawdę jej samopoczucie i sztuczne kreowanie obrazu, że robi i że porządna oraz że ma rodzinę. Dulska subtelnie terroryzuje wszystkich dookoła, wbijając im lekkie szpileczki, ale próbując też sterować ich życiem i zupełnie w żadnym razie nie rozumiejąc ich pobudek czy potrzeb. Doskonale rymuje mi się ta postać z wybitną psychologiczną książką "Dorosłe dzieci niedojrzałych emocjonalnie rodziców", którą obecnie czytam - Dulska jest przykładem osoby totalnie oderwanej i niedojrzałej emocjonalnie, która jest centrum własnego świata, a jednocześnie zupełnie nie umie w tym świecie zauważyć nikogo innego (a tym bardziej: zrobić dla niego miejsca).
Wszystkie inne postaci dramatu określane są "przez" Dulską, tzn. ich relację do Dulskiej (co znów pokazuje, jak jej charakter dominuje życie wszystkich pozostałych domowników). Ciekawym zabiegiem jest to, że największy udział w fabule ma Zbyszko, syn Dulskiej, który desperacko wręcz próbuje się wyrwać spod jej osaczających szponów (zgodnie z terminologią "Dorosłych dzieci..." określilibyśmy go jako eksternalizatora ze względu na odreagowywanie przemocy psychicznej na zewnątrz, tzn. "hulaszczym" trybem życia), jednak nawet on nie jest w stanie stanowić jakiejkolwiek realnej przeciwwagi dla Dulskiej.
Inne postaci z rodziny Dulskiej wręcz nikną na jej tle - jej mąż, nieodzywający się właściwie ani słowem przez całą sztukę, bardzo uciekający od własnego losu, dwójka jej córek, zziębniętych na skutek jej nadmiernej oszczędności, nieuświadomionych, niemogących porozmawiać z matką na jakikolwiek temat. Jest także służąca, czyli osoba z zewnątrz, która zostaje przez Dulską nieświadomie wciągnięta w chorą grę, której ofiarą pada - byle tylko nie było skandalu, byle tylko sąsiedzi nie podejrzewali czegoś niewygodnego.
Bardzo cieszę się, że poznałam ten dramat dopiero teraz, gdy ileś takich sytuacji już w życiu widziałam, iluś doświadczyłam, a o iluś dowiedziałam się np. z reportaży. Jest to absolutnie przedoskonała dla mnie rzecz, o której myślę właściwie bez przerwy od paru dni. Bardzo, bardzo polecam.
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