'We Are under a More Terrible Shackle than Censorship': The Queer Life and Writings of Narcyza Żmiwchowska, 1819-1878

• In Event: Literature and/as Liberation: Studying Early Queer Literature from Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

This paper will discuss Polish novelist and poet Narcyza Żmichowska’s struggles to “liberate” her queer voice under impossible circumstances as illustrated by her sapphic writings. The paper seeks to shed light on the tension between queer expressibility and the patriotic demands put on Polish writers during the partitions, leading to a later process of “patriotic straightwashing” employed by critics and literary historians.

Author

• Anna Dżabagina, U of Warsaw (Poland)