Mulierem fortem quis inveniet: Polish Women Classicists under Communism Elżbieta Olechowska* The fate of classics under communism only became, in earnest, a sub ject of studies during the second decade of the twenty-first centu- ry.1 An international project, “Gnothi seauton!”2 under the direction of Collegium Budapest and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Re- search (ibi)3 of the University of Warsaw, funded by the Fritz Thys- sen Foundation, ensured the participation of scholars from most, if not all, formerly communist European countries. After the unwel- come demise of the Collegium Budapest in 2011, the project was continued by two of the participating institutions, the University of Ljubljana and the University of Warsaw. The initial, strictly regional scope was widened to include themes and scholars from the Uni- ted Kingdom and the United States; accordingly, the group became known as Classics and Communism. Three volumes of research were published in Ljubljana and Warsaw: the first one (2013) focused on figures of prominent classicists of the region,4 the second (2016) on teaching the two classical languages,5 and the third (2019) on ancient 1 A short version of this paper was presented at the fiec congress in London, in early July 2019. 2 Under the full title Gnôthi seauton! – Classics and Communism: The History of Studies on Antiquity in the Context of the Local Classical Tradition; Socialist Countries 1944/45–1989/90, the program was convened by Professors Jerzy Axer, György Karsai, and Gábor Klaniczay. 3 Since 2012 transformed into the Faculty of “Artes Liberales.” 4 Karsai, Klaniczay, Movrin, and Olechowska, Classics and Communism, 2013. 5 Movrin and Olechowska, Classics and Class, 2016. * Faculty of “Artes Liberales,” University of Warsaw; Nowy Świat 69, 00-046 Warsaw, Poland; elzbieta.olechowska@gmail.com. doi: https://doi.org/10.4312/clotho.2.2.41-56 MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 4342 theatre used as an ideological medium by both sides of the political scene.6 The main conclusion of the decade-long research within the Classics and Communism project has been the striking diversity among the situations of classics in different countries of the re gion, existing in parallel with an array of homogenous aspects of the com- munist reality present in the whole area. One such consistent trait was the relative absence of women classicists in the position of power in the academic community during at least the first two post-war decades.7 For that reason, the Classics and Communism series in- cludes profiles of only three women classicists from the communist bloc, two academic scholars, and one high school teacher: Olga Frei- denberg in the ussr, Vasilka Tapkova-Zaimova in Bulgaria, and Ste- fania Światłowska in Poland. Among other studies published on the subject of classics under communism,8 none discusses or ex plains what was happening to the very few established and many emerging women scholars. The need to address this gap in research was brought to my atten- tion when I was working on the recently published Biogra phical Dictionary of Polish Women Classicists: 20th Century.9 This article proposes a detailed review of the issue based on the case of Poland, and because of that focus, it is not necessarily applicable in its con- clusions to the other post-communist countries. While the Dictio- nary does not explicitly center on the relations between communist authorities and women classicists, it profiles fifty-six such women active in the second half of the century. It provides extensive bio- graphical and bibliographical data, which makes possible a reason- ably accurate assessment of the situation. The absence or scarcity of women among university profes- sors suggests that the fate of classics in that era, through the force of numbers, depended on male scholars who were the leaders of the academic community. Such was undoubtedly the case of Po- land until World War ii. Communist ideology championed equal 6 Movrin and Olechowska, Classics and Communism in Theatre, 2019. 7 In the ussr, where communism became the dominant ideology almost three decades earlier, the situation was somewhat different. 8 Bers and Nagy, Classics in East Europe, 1996 – a collection of articles based on papers presented at the 1991 annual meeting of the American Philological As- sociation; Natunewicz, “East European Classical Scholarship,” 1975; Connelly, Captive University, 2000. 9 Biographical Dictionary of Polish Women Classicists: 20th Century, 2018. MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 4342 rights for women also in the area of education and academic ca- reers – proclaim ing the intention to break with traditional, back- ward stereo types. Still, it is doubtful that the change was due to the communist rhetoric. If the reality began to evolve, it was for other reasons. Indeed, post-war cohorts of students of classics in general, and classical philology in particular, were composed majoritarily of women, and this tendency has persisted until today. An inevitable consequence was the emergence of a growing number of well-educa- ted and talented women scholars who, in due course, gained prestige and importance, which, in turn, was backed by nominations to high academic posts.10 While “power” may have been still out of reach for women classicists during the first decades of communism, scholarly excellence, recognition, and influence gained through hard work in the basic organizational area were not. During the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, dozens of women – some because they successfully naviga- ted the communist reality, the majority on sheer scholarly merit – re ceived professorial nominations and headed several departments of classics, including ancient history, philosophy, and archaeology. A LOOK DOWN HISTORY LANE AT EDUCATION FOR GIRLS To fully understand this evolution, one must first look back and determine what precisely the situation of classics in Poland was at the moment of the imposition of the Soviet regime in 1945. The six years of war had decimated the Polish classical community. Nazi policies of eliminating Polish intelligentsia and reducing the entire nation to the role of unskilled labor also included the closure of universities and the abolition of the secondary- and high- school system. The experience of civil, and at times, armed resistance 10 Incidentally, by 2019, the situation has evolved but not nearly to the point of parity. There are now many women vice-rectors at the 88 Polish universities and other institutions of higher learning (over 20 percent of all vice-rectors according to Lidia Borell-Damian and Martine Rahier, Women in university leadership: subtle leaks in the pipeline to the top, eua, 2019, available online), but only three artistic academies and two pedagogical universities are led by women rectors. This number (5), valid from 2016 to 2020, did not even register on the eu statistic scales (see the paper by Borell-Damian and Rahier quoted above), even though it constitutes 5.68 percent of all Polish rectors; it is of course nowhere near the average for the eu which is 21 percent. MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 4544 against foreign occupation that lasted over a century, extending from the late eighteenth century to the end of World War i, re- mained vivid in national memory and was to become useful again two decades later. Within months of the German invasion in 1939, an intricate, nation-wide underground network of small classes, taught at all the forbidden levels of the school system, operated at the private homes of students and teachers. Women constituted a large proportion of both the dispensers and the recipients of clan- destine teaching. Classes in the underground network were natu- rally co-educational, contrary to the pre-war tradition of separate schooling for girls and boys. The Polish experience of underground schooling for girls dates back to the tsar’s 1864 decree forcing a transformation of convent11 schools into state schools with Russian as the language of instruc- tion. Teaching the Polish language, literature, history, and other patriotically charged subjects went underground. It took the form of entire clandestine schools or unsanctioned classes taught at the state schools without the knowledge of the occupying authori ties. Barely twenty years later, there were over a dozen such under- ground private high schools for girls in Warsaw alone.12 In the Au- strian and Prussian partitions, girls were educated either at home or in private, often convent schools. Boys attended state schools or a few private schools. When Poland regained sovereignty in 1918, the three school systems that had been imposed on the occupied territories by the partitioning powers (Russia, Prussia, and Austria) embarked on a delicate and painstaking process of integration, following the plans conceived and widely discussed during the war, in preparation for the hoped-for independence of the country.13 While women began studying classics at Polish universities in the late 19th century, they only obtained full access to higher education after World War i. There were no fast tracks from a classics degree to an academic appointment in the traditional, male-dominated higher education. Before World War ii, only fifteen women reached the post-doctoral 11 Among them were schools run by: Ordo Visitationis Beatissimae Mariae Vir- ginis, Moniales Ordinis Sancti Benedicti ab Adoratione Perpetua, Candidus et Canonicus Ordo Praemonstratensis, and Moniales Ordinis Sancti Benedicti; See Winiarz, “Kształcenie i wychowanie dziewcząt,” 12–13. 12 See Nietyksza, “Kobiety w ruchu oświatowym,” 72–73. 13 See my introduction to the Biographical Dictionary of Polish Women Classi- cists, 12–13. MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 4544 degree of habilitation (venia legendi) at the Jagiellonian University, only one among them was a classicist (in fact, an archaeologist, Mieczysława Ruxerówna, in 1937). The war radically slowed down academic careers for both men and women who, once this tragic chapter of European history ended, eagerly resumed their profes- sional lives. During the first decade following the war, women classicists were either teaching Latin at high schools, working for large postwar editorial and lexicographic projects, producing editions of Polish historical sources, translating ancient texts, or working for libraries and publishing houses. Only a small number taught at university. This situation changed gradually and signifi- cantly, in parallel with the course of academic careers of the post- -war cohorts. ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE REGIME Like the entire classical community, the vast majority of women classicists were brought up as Roman Catholics and Polish patriots; both aspects were considered fundamental to the national identity. During the war, these women took part in the resistance movement as clandestine teachers, but also as soldiers of the Home Army. Those who lived in Warsaw fought in the 1944 Uprising. They were, as a rule, opposed to communism. The reasons for such a homogenous attitude of women classicists are only, up to a point, philosophical, or ideological. Communism was perceived as a political system im- posed by Russia, a superpower historically aggressive and hostile towards Poland and now, additionally, godless. In 1939, the Soviet Union united with Nazi Germany to invade Poland. In 1944, during the 63 days of the Uprising, despite the Allies’ urgent requests for assistance, Soviet troops sat across the Vistula, watching the giant Nazi war machine overcome poorly armed resistance forces and kill hundreds of thousands of civilians. After the Uprising ended, the Red Army remained as a spectator in close vicinity and until Janua- ry of the following year,14 let the Nazi Brand- and Sprengkommandos continue razing the city to the ground. War losses in human capital were compounded by territorial losses in 1945. The imposed new borders led to displacements and migration, also resulting in the Soviet annexation of two well-esta- 14 There is a massive amount of research into these events, see e.g., Davies, God’s Playground, 352–357. MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 4746 blished universities with flourishing classics departments: Stefan Bátory University in Vilnius and Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv. Polish scholars of both universities who survived the war were expel- led. The schools were reorganized according to the Soviet template. These traumatic experiences reinforced hostile attitudes towards the imposed ideology, not only among the scholars displaced but in the entire classical community. Two new universities were created within the post-1945 Polish borders. A minor part of their mission was to welcome the scho- lars who had to leave Vilnius and Lviv, classicists included. Both universities were inaugurated in 1946; the first lectures still took place in the Fall of 1945. Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń was organized from scratch. The University of Wrocław – from 1952 to 1989 bearing the name of the Stalinist president of Poland, Bolesław Bierut – had two historical predecessors, the eighteenth- -century tradition of the Jesuit Leopoldina and the Protestant Vi- adrina, transferred to Wrocław from Frankfurt on the Oder in the early 19th century. Most of the classicists from Stefan Bátory Uni- versity ended up in Toruń, those from Jan Kazimierz University went to Wrocław. The first ma degree at the restored University of Wrocław was granted in 1946 to the future classics professor Jerzy Łanowski. The second went to his colleague and also future profes- sor, Ludwika Rychlewska.15 Few women classicists were sympathetic to the new ideology, and even fewer joined the party. The rare communist sympathizers were more noticeable among historians (the transformation of this discipline was crucial to Marxists) than among philologists. People believed that declaring such sympathies could be useful in accele- rating the progress in their academic careers. However, there is no clear evidence of that, and most of the women initially favorable to communism became disenchanted at various tipping points in the history of the People’s Republic of Poland. Decisively so in 1968, after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and even more resolutely in 1981, after martial law was declared, allegedly as a lesser evil than an outright Soviet invasion that could deal with massively growing anti-communist opposition more efficiently than the homegrown, traditional communist apparatus. 15 See her biography by Alicja Szastyńska Siemion in the Biographical Dictionary, 200–206. MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 4746 STATUS OF WOMEN CLASSICISTS Before discussing the various cases of interference or persecution conducted by communist authorities against specific individuals among women classicists, it is vital to briefly sketch out a general picture of the status of these women at Polish universities. While all chairs of Classics after the war were entrusted to well-estab lished pre-war professors, female scholars, junior often only by rank, took care of the mind-boggling logistics of setting up the defunct de- partments and preparing them for the first cohort of students. It was an unusual group composed of various ages and levels of knowledge. Older ones saw their education put on hold during the war or atten- ded underground university classes but did not obtain their degrees. Younger ones completed high school within the same clandestine system. On top of the administration and functioning of the de- partments of classics, a variety of other areas, all requiring conside- rable and sustained work of a typically behind-the-scene character, became the purview of dedicated women scholars. This included departmental libraries and the compiling of a past and current bibliography of books and articles written by Polish scholars for l’Année Philologique. There were the logistics of the reopening and the setting-up of scholarly journals, the resumption of the Polish Philological Society and the organization of its various activities, including regional chapters and annual assemblies and conferences. Women scholars performed these tasks well and enthusiastically, their status stemmed from academic hierarchy and tradition, but they were necessarily encroaching on their time for research. Things began to change with women advancing in their careers, obtaining degrees and university positions, during the second post-war decade. IN SEARCH OF BOOKS Of all the critical but “invisible” tasks performed by women classi- cists immediately after the war, one merits special mention. World War ii created a specific urgent problem for Polish higher education: a penuria librorum. It was solved or somewhat alleviated by women classicists in a particular manner, possibly less known out side of Poland. University libraries lacked the basic resources required for the study of classics. The Nazis had destroyed Greek and Latin texts, along with all the other books, in Warsaw and other centers. MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 4948 High-school libraries remained relatively intact only in the so- called Recovered Lands, a territory that had been Polish in the historical past but belonged to Germany in 1939. The region was ceded to Po- land by the victorious Soviets “in compensation” for the Eastern re- gions annexed by the ussr. Household goods of various kinds abandoned by the retreating Germans were sought for and collected by private individuals for their own use or for sale. In the shortage of basic staples, the Reco- vered Lands seemed like an ideal source of free-for-all goods – to be paid for with the inconvenience of still chaotic travel and the speci- fic risks associated with acquiring abandoned property and dealing with aggressive potential rivals. For women classicists looking only for books, the risks were negligible; still, a lot of courage and dedi- cation was required. It became a labor of love for women involved in the reopening of their departments. They traveled extensively through out the region, collecting books from abandoned schools and private libraries. The most active in the replenishing of the devastated crucial resources were scholars from Warsaw, Maria Maykowska (b. 1892), Gabriela Pianko (b. 1893), and Lidia Winni- czuk (b. 1904) – and Mieczysława Ruxerówna (b. 1891) from Poznań. CASES At the newly-created University of Toruń, the relatively large (and definitely non-communist) group of scholars who arrived from Ste- fan Bátory University after Vilnius became the capital of the So viet republic of Lithuania, was a source of serious aggravation for the authori ties mandated to create “a new socialist university” on the So- viet model. In 1949, barely five years after its creation, twelve chairs in humanities were closed down, and altogether twenty-seven teach- ers were fired, officially and openly for being Catholic reactionaries from Vilnius. Zofia Abramowiczówna (1906–1988) and Leokadia Małuno wicz (1910–1980) were among those who lost their jobs. Both scholars be- gan working at the Scholarly Society of Toruń. Abramowiczówna prepared medieval Latin texts for use by historians, Małunowicz worked as a copyreader. A year later, the Catholic University of Lublin (kul) hired Małunowicz as an adiuncta at the Department of Classical Philology. As a private school, kul enjoyed greater independence than state universities, and was able to appoint her as an Associate Professor in 1956 – the year of the political thaw. MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 4948 Nonetheless, she was only granted the title of professor ordinaria in 1972; the nomination was in the purview of the authorities. She directed the Latin Seminar in 1956–1963, 1969–1972, and from 1974 to 1980. Abramowiczówna, on the other hand, only came back to the university in 1956. The political change was, unfortunately, short- -lived. Abramowiczówna’s academic achievements were widely recognized abroad (for her 4-volume Ancient Greek-Polish dictio- nary and the corrections to the Liddell-Scott Supplement she sug- gested). Still, the progression of her career continued to be hampered by the communist authorities. Her professorial nomination was de- layed even longer than that of Małunowicz, that is, until 1973. Two members of Kazimierz Twardowski’s Lwów-Warsaw School of Philosophy, Daniela Tennerówna-Gromska (1889–1973), and Izy- dora Dąmbska (1904–1983), were both victims of hostile interference by the communist authorities. The survivors of the school16 – many perished during the war, some left the country – “saw little merit in Marxism”17 and did not hide their view. After the war, Gromska did editorial work for well-known Polish scholarly publishing houses, Czytelnik, pwn, and piw. Her excellent translation of the Nicomachean Ethics waited to be published until 1956, but met with high praise and was reprinted many times. The next year, she was offered a post at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where she taught history of ancient philosophy during the following three years and until her retirement. In 1963, she published Theophrastus (with I. Dąmbska and J. Schneyder) in the Library of Classics of Philosophy series, directed by another classical philologist and translator, Irena Krońska (1915–1974). The case of Dąmbska was more complex. On the one hand, she was very well known in Poland and abroad, and had many potential international supporters. On the other, she was fifteen years younger than Gromska. Hence her career under communism spanned several consecutive stages of the evolution of the regime. She left Lviv to avoid arrest by the nkvd in 1945 and moved to Gdańsk, where she worked at the Municipal Library, continuing her academic progression. In 1946, she received the post-doctoral degree of habilitation and began teaching at the University of Warsaw and the University of Poznań. A fate somewhat similar to what happened in 1949 in Toruń befell the University of Poznań in 1950. The Soviet directives ordering Po- lish academic life to model itself on the Soviet system prompted the 16 See Gromska, “Philosophes polonais morts entre 1938 et 1945,” 31–97. 17 Biographical Dictionary, 105. MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 5150 closure of the department of philosophy and other “re-organizations” as a simple measure to eliminate elements considered hostile and dan- gerous to the regime. Dąmbska was among the dismissed teachers. A year later, she protested against a communist campaign targe- ting her mentor, the late Professor Kazimierz Twardowski.18 From 1952 until 1957, Dąmbska worked for pwn, the state publisher of scholarly books, on translations of philosophical texts in the Libra- ry of the Classics of Philosophy series. In 1957, she was given a choice of three chairs of philosophy – in Warsaw, Wrocław, and Kraków. She opted for the Jagiellonian University, which also hired Grom- ska, and until 1964 headed the department of philosophy there. Her didactic talent and exceptional relations with students irritated the communist authorities to the point of forcing on her an involuntary transfer to the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences, where she was restricted to research only. The reason given for the transfer was the Socratic charge of “corrupting the youth.” She wrote a letter to the Council of the Faculty of Philo- sophy and History, expressing her concerns about the transfer. It was never presented at the session of the Council. She refused to be deprived of the possibility of teaching and invited students to attend a seminar on epistemology and metho- dology at her private home. In 1976, the group became a research team of the Kraków chapter of the Polish Philosophical Society. The communist victimization continued after Dąmbska’s transfer to the Academy, and her nomination for professor ordinaria, was withheld until 1974. She enthusiastically rejoined the resistance to the regime when the Solidarity movement exploded and when martial law was declared (1981–1983). The case of Anna Maria Komornicka (1920–2018)19 will illustrate a mechanism that trumped any ideological principles and guaran- teed survival: good connections. One of the “late” beginners, she studied at the Jagiellonian University after the war, wrote her ma thesis on the workers in Aristophanes’ comedies, advised by Tadeusz Sinko; she did her PhD in French on Aristophanes’ stylistics, gui- ded by Kazimierz Kumaniecki. Profoundly religious and traditional in her values, and deprived by the Soviets of her ancestral home in Eastern Poland, she was immune to communist ideology. Still, she 18 See Dąmbska’s biography by Jolanta Janik in the Biographical Dictionary, 58; and Izydora Dąmbska 1904–1983, passim. 19 This story was shared by Anna Komornicka in an interview with the author within the research program “Gnothi seauton!” on October 24, 2009. MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 5150 adapted to the post-war reality and never actively opposed the re- gime. When her professorial nomination stalled in the mid-1980s, in response to her inquiries, she was told by the communist party cell at the University of Łódź, where she worked while permanently living in Warsaw, that before the nomination could go through, she needed a recommendation of a professor who was a member of the Party. She did not know any communist professors in Łódź. How- ever, in conversation with the Party secretary, she mentioned how, when in Łódź, she stayed with her cousin. The cousin was also a professor at the university. Hearing the cousin’s name, the secretary exclaimed: “You need no other recommendation, this woman saved my life during the war!” The nomination went through without a further hitch. Good connections underpinned with talent and a faultless work ethic also helped the brilliant academic career of Iza Bieżuń ska- Małowist, an ancient historian with a solid philological education who graduated in 1938. Of Jewish origin, she tragically lost most of her family during the Nazi occupation. In May 1945, she started working at the Department of Research and Higher Education in the Ministry of Education and came in touch with people influential in the government. While never a party member, she was consi dered by communists as having more affinity with socialism than the staunchly Catholic classicists. Her main research interest and topic of many publications was slavery, a subject very favorably looked upon by communists. She defended her PhD in 1947. Her habilitation in 1951 was followed by an appointment to the function of Head of the Ancient History Department at the History Institute. She was named Associate Professor in 1954, but later had to wait for a full professorship until 1973. She continued directing the Department until her retirement in 1987.20 The full scope of Bieżuńska’s grasp of the communist reality, her talent, and force of personality could be seen in her extraordinary network of international contacts (Paris, Oxford, Princeton, Hamburg, Besançon). She established them un- der challenging conditions and used them to her own, her students’, friends’, and collaborators’, as well as her university’s advantage. Communists eventually realized that she was not getting closer to them, and was indeed evolving towards oppositionist positions, but were too late to do anything about it. 20 Cf. the biography by Krystyna Stebnicka in the Biographical Dictionary, 40–46; and at the website of the Institute of History, University of Warsaw; or any of the commemorative papers listed in the Biographical Dictionary, 46. MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 5352 After the war, the teaching of classical languages, in popular under- standing ideologically associated with national traditions, conservative (read: reactionary) mentality, and the Catholic Church, was viewed with suspicion by communists and systematically curtailed. The various campaigns in defense of Latin at school led by the Polish Philological Association (ptf) met with, at best, a mixed success.21 As a consequence, the number of positions for Latin teachers in high schools, traditionally the leading career path for young classicists, went down. High-school teachers of subjects below the communist radar, such as Latin, were usually left in peace unless they attempted to take a stand in public con- troversies and vocally defend positions not approved by the authorities. Stefania Światłowska (1914–2009) is an example of an outstanding Latin teacher who, at the end of her career, openly took a stand. Her problems with the communist authorities were discussed by Jerzy Axer in Classics and Class: Greek and Latin Classics and Communism at School.22 She inspired her students by the personal example of integrity and discretion; she never mentioned or alluded to her oppositionist activi- ties conducted in collaboration with two much more outspoken teach- ers of the Reytan Gymnasium, where she taught all her educational career. After her retirement in 1974, she continued to teach. When com- munists viciously squashed the workers’ strikes in 1976, she mobilized teachers to give their backing in a letter to Parliament requesting an investigation of the brutalities. She was punished by the interdiction of further teaching. In 1981, Solidarity, jointly with the whole Reytan community, brought her back to school, although only for a short time. On December 13, the imposition of martial law deprived her of teaching again. She remained in the hearts of her former students who funded the annual school award in her name. In 1988, at the tail end of com- munism in Poland, the Polish Philological Society made her an honor- ary member in recognition of her educational and civic achievements. The picture that these seven cases of Polish women classicists and their attitude towards communism combined with the communists’ attitude towards them paint is out of necessity a partial, but hope- fully not a distorted, reflection of the past. This past, as grim as it was, remains a reality that was not deprived of certain glamour; it was shared by several generations of admirable people who should not be forgotten. 21 For the evolution of classics at school during communism and an analysis of the efforts to support the teaching of Latin, see Brzuska, “Latin and Politics in People’s Poland,” 229–286. 22 Axer, “Stefania Światłowska,” 329–336. 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MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 5554 ABSTRACT While all chairs of classics after the war were entrusted to already well-established pre-war professors, female scholars, junior often only by rank, took care of the mind-boggling logistics of setting up the defunct departments and preparing them for the first cohort of students. It was an unusual group composed of various ages and levels of knowledge. Older ones saw their education put on hold du- ring the war or attended underground university classes but did not obtain their degrees. Younger ones completed high school within the same clandestine system. Things began to change during the second post-war decade with women advancing in their careers, obtaining degrees and university positions. The paper discusses the careers of seven prominent classicists: Zofia Abramowiczówna (1906–1988), Leokadia Małunowicz (1910–1980), Daniela Tennerówna-Gromska (1889–1973), Izydora Dąmbska (1904–1983), Anna Maria Komornicka (1920–2018), Iza Bieżuńska-Małowist (1917–1995), and Stefania Świat- łowska (1914–2009). KEYWORDS classical tradition, female scholars, history of communism, Polish classicists, classical scholarship MULIEREM FORTEM QUIS INVENIETELŻBIETA OLECHOWSKA 5756 IZVLEČEK Mulierem fortem quis inveniet: Poljske klasične filologinje pod komunizmom Medtem ko so bila vsa profesorska mesta na oddelkih za klasično filologijo po vojni zaupani uveljavljenim predvojnim profesorjem, so filologinje, ki so jih ti pogosto prekašali le po statusu, skrbele za neznansko zapleteno logistiko pri ponovnem postavljanju uničenih oddelkov in pripravah na prvo skupino študentov. Bile so nenavadna skupina, raznolika po starosti in stopnjah znanja. Starejše so izku- sile, kako se je šolanje med vojno ustavilo, nekatere so obiskovale tajna predavanja, vendar niso pridobile diplome. Mlajše so končale srednjo šolo v istem tajnem sistemu. Stvari so se začele spreminjati, ko so ženske v drugem povojnem desetletju napredovale v karieri ter pridobile diplomo in univerzitetne položaje. Prispevek obravnava kariero pomembnih filologinj: to so Zofija Abramowiczówna (1906– 1988), Leokadia Małunowicz (1910–1980), Daniela Tennerówna- -Gromska (1889–1973), Izydora Dąmbska (1904–1983), Anna Maria Komornicka (1920–1983), Iza Bieżuńska-Małowist (1917–1995) in Ste- fania Światłowska (1914–2009). KLJUČNE BESEDE klasična tradicija, raziskovalke, zgodovina komunizma, poljska klasična filologija, klasični študiji