CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Gruziel, Dominika Maria |
|---|---|
| Title | At the Crossroads of New Catholicism and the "Woman Question": Polish Roman Catholic Laywomen`s Social Activism on Behalf of Women in the Three Zones of Partitioned Poland, 1878-1918 |
| Summary | This thesis explores Polish Roman Catholic laywomen’s involvement in various types of social activism on behalf of women in Partitioned Poland from 1878 until 1918, using local, national, and transnational perspectives. The research addresses questions about the timing, forms of and reasons for Polish Catholic laywomen’s activism to change women’s social, economic and political situation in both the private and public spheres. It explores what triggered the Catholic laywomen’s social engagement and who were the leaders, members and recipients of their various projects. The thesis investigates to whom the Catholic laywomen reached out for support and/or possible cooperation, as well as their overall recommendations with respect to altering women’s situation in the period. It studies whether their activities were part of Catholic laywomen’s movements/networks or were ad-hoc or stand-alone initiatives. It also explores instances of Catholic laywomen’s cooperation between the zones of Partitioned Poland and on the international level. Contrary to most available historical scholarship that suggests the early twentieth century as the dawn of modern Catholic laywomen’s social activism, by exploring the social projects of four female pioneers – Jadwiga Zamoyska, Antonina Machczyńska, Cecylia Plater-Zyberkówna and Maria Kleniewska – this thesis argues that Polish Catholic female laity of priviliged social backgrounds became socially active and began organizing themselves as early as the 1880s. Subsequently, I identify three major forms of social activism available to Polish pious women between the 1880s and 1918: in various pious women-launched and run individual social projects, within the framework of Church-founded and supervised pious associations, and in confessionally motivated nevertheless lay organizations that were supervised by female activists, but stayed in close touch with the Church hierarchy. My thesis argues that Polish Catholic laywomen’s social projects chiefly appeared at the crossroads of two broader phenomena: the woman question and New Catholicism. The woman question was informed by concern over the lack of educational opportunities for Polish women and later over their general socio-economic and political underprivileged position when compared with men, as raised by various parties (secular, religious, feminist, liberal) across the lands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the papacy of Leo XIII (1878-1903) New Catholicism’s emergence propelled the Church`s novel approach towards contemporary social issues. The employed tripartite historical perspective – the woman question and New Catholicism in the context of the Polish Partitions – enables me to uncover and analyze these women’s responsibilities and loyalties to three intertwined but competing projects: the improvement of women’s situation, the reestablishment of Catholicism in the public sphere, and the desire for an independent nation state. This thesis’s major contributions are, firstly, retrieving part of Polish Catholic women’s history and depicting them as historical actors engaged in various contemporary processes; secondly, reopening the discussion about the relation between Catholicism and the woman question; and thirdly, adding to the historical debates since the 1980s about the role of the religious and the secular in the modern period. The thesis is based on extensive archival material and primary sources which, for the most part, have not been used in historical investigation yet. |
| Supervisor | Francisca de Haan |
| Department | Gender Studies PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/gphgrd01.pdf |
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