Małgorzata Król
Women living in a country that did not appear on maps were heroic. It is a fact. But how do we define the few who sacrificed the happiness and safety of their families by engaging in conspiratorial activities? Who were exiled for their activities? What do you call a woman who, as the ONLY exile, also became the mother of an exile bishop who later became a saint of the Catholic Church? The one and only is Ewa Felińska (née Wendorff).
Ewa Felińska was born [on 26 December 1793 in the Uznoha estate in the Slutsk district – editor’s note] into the Wendorff family. Zygmunt – her father – was one of the 14 children of Karol Wendorff (the writer’s grandfather, married twice), after whose death disagreements over the estate began. Zygmunt’s two half-brothers (Karol and Antoni) found their way to the court of Karol Radziwiłł ‘Panie Kochanku’ in Nesvizh. And this is where Zygmunt went, asking them to guide him in his life. On their advice and help, he ended up at a Novogrudok lawyer’s and started his own practice. Soon afterwards, he married Zofia Sągajłłówna and settled down in Novogrudok. Regrettably, the war of 1792 threw their marital happiness into disarray and forced them to leave home. The already pregnant Zofia, fearing wandering, went to her elder sister, where her daughter Ewa was born on 26 December 1793.
The family spent the time of political and economic chaos with Karol Wendorff in Ciecierowiec and later returned to Novogrudok when the situation in the country began to get back to normal. While there, the joy of the birth of their daughter was intensified by the birth of their son Julian. For some unknown reason, the Wendorffs moved to Slutsk, but family happiness did not last long there. Soon after the move, Zygmunt passed away.
After her husband’s death, Zofia, a gentle, quiet, hard-working woman who had hitherto meticulously fulfilled her duties, was not up to the challenge of managing the estate and taking on her husband’s tasks. This left her with no choice but to go to someone close to her for help. A few weeks later, having taken the (as it later turned out, not the wisest) advice of her guardian, Stanisław Wendorff, she handed over the management of the estate to her brother-in-law Ignacy. This decision became the cause of the family’s financial disaster. The guidance of the youngest of the Wendorffs, famous for his love of a carefree lifestyle, brought the widow to the brink of bankruptcy and deprived the children, Ewa and Julian, of the delights of a peaceful childhood. Their mother knew that she was in no position to afford them not only a proper education, but also an environment conducive to becoming socially sophisticated. For this reason, as early as 1800, she placed the girl, who could already read and write, in the care of her aunt Peliksza, who provided her with preparatory training at the school at her home. Ewunia Wendorff’s first academic authority became ‘[…] the pedagogue we used to call Mr Headmaster. He was a significant and memorable figure for us. He deeply imprinted in our memory. […] As the eagle by Jupiter and the peacock by Juno were necessary symbols, so was discipline by Mr Headmaster. It is impossible to imagine him without that mark of dignity which he used to instil fear and respect in us. He always had a menacing expression, and in spite of his young age and unsightly features, there was something harsh in his face, as if he was always dissatisfied with everything’. [Pamiętniki z życia (Diaries of a Lifetime), Vilnius 1856, series 1, volume I, pp. 88–89; further: Pam. 1, I]. Under his tutelage, the girl improved her reading and writing skills and was introduced to the basics of arithmetic. And while reading gave her considerable pleasure, because she did it ‘[…] seamlessly, with no mistakes; and if I sat down at the table with a book, […] it was only to shout along with the others, because it amused me’, and she had no problems with arithmetic either because ‘[…] the children’s understanding was not put to a great test, and elementary arithmetic concluded the teachings’ [Pam. 1, I, 97], calligraphy was a nightmare. For she had to forgo her mother’s instructions, teaching neat handwriting ‘without any embellishments’, and conform to the expectations of a teacher demanding ‘beautiful curlicue’. She failed to meet this challenge. She thus experienced the headmaster’s cruelty towards insubordinate resistant pupils.
Education in Halynka
Although the time at her aunt’s house passed in a flash, it was permanently etched in the girl’s memory. Ewa spent a year in the nobleman’s dwelling, where every day she came into contact with national customs (here she had the opportunity to see the ‘kontush gentlemen’) and the tradition that was already dying out. She was soon introduced to the new, fashionable world when she made her way to Halynka and to Stanisław Wendorff, who lived there with his family. She was now living in a place full of ‘fashionable bachelors’ who, before her very eyes, discarded Polish clothes in favour of French ones, heedless of the fact that they often exposed themselves to ridicule.
At her uncle’s house, together with his daughters, she continued her education. The girls’ education was taken care of not only by the governess, but also by her husband, who taught piano, and a separate teacher to teach writing and reading. And here again, calligraphy proved to be the most difficult. Because when she finally met the requirements of the previous pedagogue, she had to recall her mother’s advice and the habits bluntly suppressed by the headmaster in Uznoha: ‘Oh my God! I thought to myself while re-writing the lines as if I had just started learning to write. What was the use of so much laborious work and so many spankings taken, not to mention sadder incidents? And if you have to go through the same roller coaster when unlearning as you do when learning, the future is not the brightest. […] Oh, Mr Headmaster! Mr Headmaster! You will pay a heavy price before God for my sufferings past, present and perhaps yet to come. They will all be counted against you’ [Pam. 1, I, 150].
She found it easy to learn French, which earned her the nickname of ‘bright’. However, the standards were not very high. Neither the accent nor the correct syntax was of any concern. There was also a low level of academic focus on other subjects – such as geography – which resulted in a poor level of history being taught. Places remained in heads as facts, and ‘the relations of localities were created by each head according to its own vision’.
Ludicrousness and mischief
She had no other activities, so she spent her free time with her only companion, reckless Antosia Wendorff. Under her influence, she eventually abandoned systematic self-education and became a participant in her cousin’s most ridiculous ideas. Although she did not enjoy the transformation she had undergone, she could not resist the influence of her peers. And so she learnt: resourcefulness, coping skills – and who knows if that sort of education didn’t prove more useful in her life? But, it must be acknowledged, the young ladies left unattended, with no activities to curb the swagger, did: ‘[…] such ludicrousness and mischief that, if we have not paid dearly for them, we owe it to the special grace of Providence and the protection of the Guardian Angel’ [Pam. 1, II, 66-66].
Gaps in education would affect Felińska throughout her life. The problem reappeared repeatedly in both her Diaries and Memoirs from Siberia, in which she wrote: ‘The waves of the water threw ashore and set small pebbles of various shapes and colours on the sand. Lacking knowledge of mineralogy, I had no way of knowing their significance, which I deeply regretted. However, there were some very beautiful ones in between; transparent and dark, green, smooth and line-dyed lilac, marbled, and the ones I liked the most were the coloured ones, sprinkled as if with gold or silver sand. Their density was considerable, it seems that sanded down they could be very nice’. [Memoirs from the trip to Siberia, a stay in Berezovo and Saratov, Vilnius 1852, vol. I, pp. 69–70 – further: W., I].
Young Mrs Felińska
Ewa suddenly noticed that she was starting a new stage of life. Antosia, quite unexpectedly perhaps to herself (June 1807), married Jan Zubko and moved in with her husband. Ewa ended up in Boratycze, with the young Szemesz family. She felt great there. She was already 15 and aware that she was entering into adulthood.
In September 1811, 18-year-old Ewa met Gerard Feliński. He was a handsome, stocky blond man with a delicate complexion and grey-blue eyes. He charmed her with his openness, the vividness of his feelings and the ease which he revealed them with. Initially, there was little hint that the meeting might result in marriage. For Ewa rejected the possibility of marrying a man not much older than her and was simply afraid of this kind of acquaintance. She restricted contacts, but these efforts had the opposite effect. She did not analyse the emotions of her heart and was shocked when Feliński revealed one day: ‘I love you with all my soul, all my life. And if you wish to share my life and take me as your husband, I will be the happiest of people’, and she, surprising herself, accepted! At her fiancé’s request, she also agreed to push ahead with the wedding, which took place ‘without […] any fuss, without a dowry, without preparations from either side […]. On the wedding day, Feliński wanted to wear his usual everyday tailcoat. However, some friends did not allow it, and having taken off the black one, he put on a navy blue one, and so he got married in a borrowed tailcoat. I didn’t notice it, but Feliński told me later. My white dress which I had worn on many an occasion before was decorated with a few springs of rosemary. My long curls were let down from the back hair to the shoulders, and the bridal attire was thus composed’ [Pam. 1, III, 377, 441].
In 1811, Ewa was then a married woman with the virtue of patience and boundless love. Without murmurings about anything, she endured the discomforts, inconveniences and harassing troubles that began with her spouse’s often ill-advised, impulse-driven decisions. Such as the one about the demolition of an almost new house. Having realised that the building was of no use to its owners, constantly becoming the quarters of troops fighting in the campaign of 1812, Gerard decided to demolish it. Believing that reason would prevail over a decision made in a moment of anger, his wife did not try to protest, although she found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that a house built with so much effort, including financial (the money from the lease, which was the basis of the entire family’s livelihood, did not allow for extravagance) was to cease to exist in an instant. But Feliński, who was quick to put his every idea into practice, ordered the demolition.
The hardships of 1812–1813 did not bypass the Feliński family. Ewa’s concern was Gerard’s deteriorating health. With each illness of the children coming into the world, the mother’s heart was filled with justified fear as it turned out in the end. As many as four of them were a bundle of joy for their parents only for a very short time. The tragic death of the first-born, Stasio, preceded the deaths of Emilia, Amilcar and Gerardyna. Administration of the estates (Voiutin and Zboroshov) had to be delegated to others, as Gerard, elected deputy of the Main Court, had to move to Zhytomyr. Along with him, perhaps to forget the domestic dramas, his spouse set off.
The tough school of life
The experience of the first years of married life was a tough lesson. She then understood: ‘[…] that as long as we live, we should walk on ground where there are pits, thorns, precipices, sometimes flowers of short life, and that wisdom and peace do not consist in gathering as many flowers as possible that soon wither, but in choosing the path that is safe between thorns and precipices, and in walking along it, without crippling or falling, to the goal’ [Pam. 2, II, 392–393].
If we were to describe Felińska’s story only on the basis of her Pamiętniki, there would be room for summaries here. It could then be argued that after perhaps not carefree, but peaceful and secure, albeit stigmatised by loneliness, came an intensely lived youth and a marriage for love. A relationship with a man who was noble, righteous but impulsive and unpredictable. Felińska, having accepted him as such, would have been happy if her happiness had not been disturbed by her husband’s illness.
However, information gathered from outside Pamiętniki makes it possible to conclude and it forces a reformulation of the conclusions. After the death of their four children, the most serious crisis of Ewa and Gerard Felinski’s marriage took place. As Zofia Poniatowska, sister of Archbishop Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński, wrote in her diary her father allegedly ‘[…] took it as an excuse that the children were not growing up, and when the fourth in a row died, a new misery awaited the poor grieving mother. She never explicitly told us about it, but I could sometimes sense from her conversations how hard she was getting over it. It wasn’t until soon afterwards that I found out from people and was pointed out to me the skittish woman who was the reason for this’ [Z. Poniatowska, Ostatnie wspomnienia matki dla najlepszych dzieci (A mother’s last memories for her best children). Vilnius, 1881–1898, p. 236, Archives of the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary, ref. F-g-9 – further: Pam. Z. P., 236]. In the rough edition of this diary, there was a passage that was not included in the final version. It depicts Felińska’s emotions and state of mind at the moment she found out about the affair and her husband’s further intentions (he wanted a divorce).
A widow with a brood of children
The marriage did not break down, and back in Zhytomyr, the Felińskis were given comfort with the happy birth of Paulina and Alojzy. But new dark clouds were gathering over the family. Admittedly, the number of children was increasing: (Zygmunt Szczęsny, Zofia, Julian, another Gerardyna and Wiktoria), but soon (in 1833), Felińska had to come to terms with the death of her husband. As a widow, she was faced with having to bring up and educate a sizeable brood of children. Paulina was 12 years old and Wiktoria was just over one year old.
Four years later, their mother came to think the older children needed to start their education. She opted to move to Kremenets, where getting a proper education was incomparably easier. Although the secondary school was closed down, the professors gave private tuition ‘[…] at very affordable prices. Housing and living cheaper than anywhere, the village beautiful and sound, many families settled there for the upbringing of their children and the mother chose this point as the most convenient because it was also not far from home’ [Pam. Z. P., 26]. When, on arrival, she booked the teachers and set up the timetable, it seemed that nothing would disturb the happiness of the family again. Meanwhile, it suddenly became apparent that the children were also being ‘orphaned’ by their mother.
The article is based on the book: M. Cwenk [M. Król], Felińska, Lublin 2012. Mid-titles by the editorial team. A follow-up to the story of this exceptional Sybirak mother in the next article!
Dr hab. Małgorzata Król lectures at the Catholic University of Lublin
Translated by Małgorzata Giełzakowska