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SUMMARY:Maria Dąbrowska with Bill Johnston – Encounters with Polish and Ukrainian Literature
UID:https://instytutpolski.pl/newyork/2026/11/02/maria-dabrowska-with-bill-johnston-encounters-with-polish-and-ukrainian-literature/
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DESCRIPTION:S6E11 and all video recordings are available on our YouTube.
Encounters with Polish and Ukrainian Literature is a video series for
anyone interested in literature and the culture of books and reading. Each
month, host David A. Goldfarb will present a new topic in conversation with
an expert on that author or book or movement in Polish literature. More
about the Encounters with Polish and Ukrainian Literature series and the
timeline.
Maria Dąbrowska (1889-1965), née Szumska, was born in Russów near Kalisz
to a family of impoverished landowners, much like Nechcic family who the
main characters of her epic family novel, The Nights and the Days (Noce i
dnie, 1932-34). She studied biology in Switzerland, also like the
Niechcic’s daughter, Agnieszka, and Belgium, continuing in Belgium in the
social sciences and economics. While studying abroad, she became engaged
with progressive social movements such as cooperativism, to which Agnieszka
is similarly attracted. She also wrote children’s stories, translated
Samuel Pepys’ Diary, and kept a diary of her own, which is viewed as a
rich guide to her life and to her intellectual milieu.
The Nights and the Days might be seen, at least structurally, as a
culmination of nineteenth-century realism, in contrast to the novels of
Dąbrowska’s more radical contemporaries, Gombrowicz and Witkacy.
Dąbrowska had a direct familiarity with the dialect and folklore that
appears in her work, and her language is clear and efficient, conveying a
sense of truth and authenticity. The main characters of the Niechcic family
are outlined at the beginning, and their biographies unfold
chronologically, beginning after the January Uprising of 1863 until the
beginning of the First World War. Her characters are psychologically
complex and are represented in such a way that the reader can sympathize
with each character as they are revealed, even as they may hold opposing
points of view to each other. The mother, Barbara, is a dreamer, always
wondering if life would be better in town or in the country, or if she had
married someone else. Her husband, Bogumił, is practical, always engaged
in the duties of the farm and the needs of the workers he supervises, but
he is not immune to moments of doubt about his path in life, managing an
estate for absentee landlords.
In this episode we focus on Dąbrowska’s masterwork, The Nights and the
Days, which Johnston sees as one of the most important works of Polish
literature, right next to the national epic, Pan Tadeusz, by Adam
Mickiewicz. We discuss the work’s place in the context of Realism in
Poland during an era of avantgarde modernisms and experimentation in the
novel between the two world wars. We look at the autobiographical aspects
of Dąbrowska’s story, and Johnston makes a case for reading it more as a
carefully crafted artistic fiction than as a thinly fictionalized memoir.
We also consider issues in the translation of the work and problems for the
translator in dedicating years to a roman-fleuve of four substantial
volumes without a contract up front.
Maria Dąbrowska in English translation and additional resources:
Dąbrowska, Maria. The Nights and the Days. Tr. Bill Johnston. 
Dąbrowska, Maria. A Polish Christmas. Tr. Dorota Debska-Daunt, afterword
by Dr Jerzy Szumski, and wood engravings by Chris Daunt. United Kingdom:
Society of Wood Engravers, 2001.
Dąbrowska, Maria. “A Village Wedding” and other stories. Warsaw:
Polonia Pub. House, 1957. (Mentioned in OCLC WorldCat with no known
libraries shown as owning a copy, but included here for reference. Some
libraries may have it in catalogues that have not been digitized and
incorporated into WorldCat. Copies may be available for purchase through
the internet from used bookstores in Poland. Search for the author and
title in your favorite search engine and look for an antykwariat with a
copy for sale.)
Folejewski, Zbigniew. Maria Dąbrowska. Twayne’s World Authors Series 16.
New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967. (Try your nearest university or research
library or interlibrary loan.)
Bill Johnston is currently Michael Henry Heim Chair in Central and East
European Letters at Indiana University. His most recent translations
include Wiesław Myśliwski’s Needle’s Eye (Archipelago Books, 2025), a
Financial Times Best Book of the Year, and, from the French, Great Fear on
the Mountain by Swiss modernist Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (Archipelago Books,
2024), a finalist for the PEN Translation Prize. His honors include the
National Translation Award in Poetry, for his rendering of Adam
Mickiewicz’s verse epic Pan Tadeusz; the Best Translated Book Award; the
PEN Translation Prize; and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has also received
the Transatlantyk Award from the Polish Book Institute and has won the
Found in Translation Award twice from the Polish Book Institute, Polish
Cultural Institute New York, and Polish Cultural Institute London for his
translations of Tadeusz Różewicz and Tomasz Różycki.
David A. Goldfarb, Host & ProducerBartek Remisko, Curator and Executive
ProducerNatalia Iyudin, Produce
Image:
Maria Dąbrowska 1914 © photo by Marian FuksBill Johnston © photo
courtesy of Bill Johnston
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