Between sacrifice and duty. The changing image of the Polish Mother-Patriot and evolution of women’s national agenda in the Province of Posen at the turn of the twentieth century

Abstract

ABSTRACT One of the consequences of depriving the Polish population of its own sovereign state in 1795 was that women were now tasked with fulfilling a ‘patriotic mission’. It was to constitute their contribution to culture and, in the long run, to winning back an independent nation. That was when the figure of the Polish Mother-Patriot became the role model, which throughout the nineteenth century remained as the only socially acceptable archetype of conduct for women. Until recently, the prevailing view proposed in the source literature has been that the Polish Mother-Patriot model held in the Province of Posen was static and subject to no change. However, research findings indicate that both civilisational changes and the periods of intensified Germanisation caused the tasks set for mothers to begin to vary, resulting in the model itself undergoing certain transformations. The purpose of this article is to discuss these modifications in literary, familial, social, and political terms. Owing to modern motherhood being reinterpreted to include national needs, women in the Province of Posen were given the opportunity to participate in public life and join the national community.