Klementyna Hoffmanova

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Klementyna Hoffmanova
Hoffmanowa's tomb in the Pere Lachaise cemetery

Klementyna Hoffmanowa (German: Klementine Hoffmann ; born November 23, 1798 in Warsaw , † September 21, 1845 in Passy, ​​today Paris ) was a Polish writer. She was the founder of Polish children's and youth literature.

life and work

Klementyna Hoffmanowa, nee Tańska, came from a small noble Polish family and was the third daughter of the author Ignacy Tański and his wife Maryanna Czempińska. As a small child, when her father entered service at the court of the Czartoryski family in Pulawy in 1802, she was separated from her family and housed with relatives. There she enjoyed a careful, if more French than Polish, upbringing. Some time after the death of her father on August 15, 1805, at the age of 12, she moved to live with her mother, who was again living in Warsaw, and her grandmother. Now she made thorough studies of the Polish language, literature and history. As a result, she was one of the first women in Poland to work as a writer, while only a few women in this country were literary at all at the time.

In 1818 Klementyna Tańska wrote six historical novels and in the following year became one of the most popular writers for children and women with her first novel Pamiatka po dobrej matce, czyli ostatnie jej rady dla córki ( Memory of the good mother or her last advice to the daughter , Warsaw 1819) Mothers. The work, which is a guide to the education of girls, has seen many new editions and has even been declared the basic equipment of girls' schools by the government of Congress Poland . The author took the position that education should primarily give women practical skills for life and through her literary work she made a significant contribution to making utilitarianism in women's education in Poland popular. Furthermore, she wrote the children's stories Amelia matką ( mother Amelia , 3 vols, 1822–24) and Wiązanie Helenki (1823).

After Klementyna Tańska, who was influenced by Rousseau , made her breakthrough with her first novel and received a high level of financial support from the state in 1823, she founded and edited the first Polish children's magazine Rozrywki dla dzieci ( Entertainments for children) based on the example of Christian Felix Weißes Der Kinderfreund since 1824 ). This very popular monthly newspaper, published until the end of 1828, conveyed not only moral values ​​but also Polish national consciousness. The children's newspaper also published the two novels Listy Elzbiety Rzeczyckiej ( Letters from Elzbieta Rzeczycka , 1824) and Dziennik Franciszki Krasińskiej w ostatnich latach panowania Augusta III pisany ( Diary of Franciszka Krasińska, written during the last reign of King August III in 1825); the latter work has been translated into several languages, including English and German.

The government gave Klementyna Tańska the supervision of four girls' schools in Warsaw in 1824. In the next year she became a teacher for "female morals" at the newly established Educational Institute in the same city, where Polish teachers were trained for the first time. In 1827 she was given the well-paid position of supervisor for all girls' schools in Warsaw. In 1829 she married the lawyer and writer Karol Boromeusz Hoffmann and now mostly called herself Klementyna Tańska Hoffmanowa.

After the outbreak of the Warsaw November Uprising in 1830, which was supposed to lead to Polish independence from Russia, Klementyna Tańska Hoffmanowa founded a women's organization to collect funds and relief supplies for her rebel compatriots and also took care of the wounded in battle. After the rebellion was suppressed, she followed her husband to Dresden in 1831 and then into exile in Paris in 1832 . There she occupied herself with literary work and the upbringing of the children of Polish emigrants, but had little influence on the political life of her exiled compatriots.

Her larger writings (novels, short stories, teaching books for girls with religious, moral and historical content) originated from this time:

  • Karolina , 3 vols., Leipzig 1839.
  • O moralnosci dla kobiet . Krakow 1841.
  • Krystyna , Leipzig 1841.
  • Jan Kochanowski w Czarnolesie , Leipzig 1842.
  • Opis przejazdu przez Niemcy , Leipzig: Breitkopf and Haertel, 1844.

Klementyna Tańska Hoffmanowa made several trips to Switzerland , Germany and Italy during her French exile . In 1845 she returned to Paris and died on September 21 of that year at the age of only 46 years of complications from a serious illness. She is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris . Her literary estate appeared in 9 volumes (Berlin 1848), the first 3 volumes being her memoirs, the fourth to sixth volumes being excerpts from her lectures in Warsaw on the duties of women, the seventh volume being moral and other sentences from her diary and the eighth and ninth volume contain excerpts from various scriptures. N. Zmichowska (12 vols., Warsaw 1875–77) obtained a more recent complete edition of her works.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hoffmanova, Klementyna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hoffmann, Clementine; Tanska-Hoffmanowa, Klementyna; Hoffmanowa z Tańskich, Klementyna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1845
Place of death Passy (Paris)