About several forgotten literary ideas of Karolina Swaracka (1815–1846)

Abstract

This article discusses three stories of Carolina Swaracka, a Romantic Lithuanian writer, today almost unknown. She owed her debut in „Atheneum” in 1843 to Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, who recognized her attempts as worthy and interesting. In her novels such as The Theatre of the Small Village or The Dreams and Reality, Swaracka raised the problem of new aspirations of women and the various responses of the environment to their emancipationist efforts. She also drew attention to women’s difficulties in defining their new needs and ways of existing in society. In another novel entitled Converted Woman, she drew the unconventional image of the feeling between a Jewish girl and a young nobleman. The author described not only how strong the stereotypes in the society were but also how those constrains deconstructed the young couple’s love. A few years later Kraszewski wrote a similar story probably inspired by Swaracka’s concept. Although the heroines created by Swaracka were not artistically perfect, they had a lot of modern features which could be surprisingly appealing to the contemporary reader.