Franciszka Arnsztajnowa - Life and Work

Life and Work

As a poet Arnsztajnowa debuted at the age of 23 with the poem "Na okręcie" (On Board a Ship) published in the newspaper Kuryer Codzienny of 1 October 1888. She issued her first collection of poetry in book form in 1895 under the title Poezye, a volume which she dedicated to her mother, the novelist Malwina Meyerson. The book is divided into six distinct sections under such headings as "Sonety" (Sonnets), "Melodye" (Melodies), "Historye" (Histories), and "Z gór Tyrolu" (From the Mountains of Tyrol). The opening poem, untitled but beginning with the words "O nie płacz..." (Weep thou not...; p. 7), sets the tone for the entire collection as she tries, with uncommon tenderness and filial piety, to soothe her mother's pain at having her own songs dispersed by the winds of time to the farthermost recesses of the soul: the implication is that the poems in this collection will become her mother's own, which the daughter will now sing for her, the lute in hand, sitting at her feet. (In the very last poem of the collection the poet again addresses her mother directly, "O mother, why give me a heart so | Tender...") The chief characteristic of the collection, thematically speaking, was however the preoccupation and love she evinced for the people living close to the land, their ordinary lives and folkloric customs. At the same time she delicately touched upon the social questions of the day employing language in the balladic-melancholic key. The volume will instantly establish Arnsztajnowa as a major voice in Polish poetry among those exploring the nation's folk themes.

Her next collection appeared in 1899 under the title Poezye: serya druga ("Verses: Second Series"; 2nd ed., 1911). The latter volume contains the poem "Z nocy bezsennych" (Out of the Sleepless Nights) dedicated to her husband, Marek Arnsztein, as well as the memorable “Wspomnienie Meranu” (A Remembrance of Merano) that evokes her travels in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of Italy, and which begins:

Meran… pamiętam… nieraz dziś w zimy rozgwarze,
Mroźnem tchnieniem owiana, nagle zamknę oczy,
I o błogosławionej dolinie zamarzę.
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Meran… I recall… as nowadays oft by winter’s clamorous decree
Frosty gusts me shroud, I soon close my eyes asudden
And slip down the blessed valley into reverie.

Wacław Gralewski (1900–1972), a poet and prominent Lublin littérateur, cites a report (which he qualifies as uncorroborated) that Arnsztajnowa was supposed to undergo a (successful) therapy for tuberculosis at Merano, an option open only to the very rich.