Life
Zapolska was born on 30 March 1857 in Podhajce, Volhynia, to a family of Polish gentry; on the territory ruled by Austria-Hungary after the Third and final Partition of Poland, (now Pidhaitsi, Ukraine). Her father was a marshal of Volhynian szlachta. Zapolska studied at the Sacré Coeur Institute and in the Institute of Education and Science in Lwów. In 1876 she was forced by her family to marry a Polish lieutenant in the Tsarist guard, Konstanty Śnieżko-Błocki, but soon left him and divorced in 1888. During the years of 1879–1880 she lived in Warsaw, where she acted in an amateur theatre ran by the Philanthropy Society. In 1881 Zapolska became pregnant by an out-of-wedlock relationship and left her family. The same year she made her own short story debut by Jeden dzień z życia róży (One Day in the Life of a Rose). The following year, in 1882, she became a professional actress in the Kraków theatre, and assumed the pseudonym of Gabriela Zapolska. She also acted in Poznań, and in travelling troupes throughout the Congress Poland. In October 1888 she reportedly made a suicide attempt.
In 1889 Zapolska moved to Paris in hope to make an artistic career. There, she played minor roles in boulevard theatres, Théâtre Libre and Théâtre de l'Œuvre. She played in a stage adaptation of Intérieur (Interior) by Maurice Maeterlinck in Théâtre Libre. In Paris, Zapolska established contacts within the artistic milieu as well as with Polish socialist emigrants, which influenced her social views.
After coming back to her country, she settled in Kraków and acted in garden theatres, travelling troupes, and then in Kraków Juliusz Słowacki Theatre directed by Tadeusz Pawlikowski. Her defiant, suffragist nature led to conflicts with theatre principals. Following Pawlikowski's departure, in 1900 she abandoned her contract. After that, Zapolska set up her own stage which was active time-by-time. In 1902 Zapolska ran a drama school in Kraków and the Gabriela Zapolska Independent Theatre was founded later. Her experiences in Paris let her to produce two Maeterlinck stage adaptations – Princess Maleine, and L'Intruse (The Intruder), both produced in 1902.
In 1904 she moved to Lwów and married a painter, Stanisław Janowski. She became a patron of the travelling theatre named after her (Gabriela Zapolska Theatre) which during the years of 1907–1908 toured Galicia. She divorced her second husband in 1910. In the years of 1912–1913 Zapolska was a literary director of Teatr Premier. As a feuilletonist and theatre critic she collaborated with Gazeta Krakowska, Słowo Polskie, Nowa Reforma, Ilustracja Polska and Wiek Nowy. In 1915, after Lwów was captured by the Russian Army, she ran a small confectionery. Zapolska died on 21 December 1921 in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) and buried at the Lychakivskiy Cemetery there.
Read more about this topic: Gabriela Zapolska
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he rated it as a gain in coming to America, that here you could get tea, and coffee, and meat every day. But the only true America is that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)