Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłł (, ; February 13, 1705, Chartorysk – May 23, 1753, Navahrudak), was a Polish writer and playwright, the first female writer on the territory of modern Poland and Belarus. She was a Princess, the last female representative of the Wiśniowiecki noble house, and, until her death, the first wife of Michał Kazimierz "Rybeńko" Radziwiłł.
Biography Franciszka Urszula was the only child of famous and wealthy parents. Her father Prince Janusz Antoni Wiśniowiecki (1678–1741) was the Castellan of Kraków, governor of Vilnius and Kraków, mayor of Pinsk, while his wife Teofila (1680–1757) was a member of Leszczyński family and a daughter of the Royal epicalyx and cupbearer, governor of Podlasie, mayor of Kovel and Kamenetz.
Janusz Antoni was a public speaker and writer who wrote religious tracts, eulogies, and religious songs, and Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłł received an education at home, learning to speak several European languages, writing poetry, and reading world literature.
On April 23, 1725, Franciszka Urszula married Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł "Rybeńko", maecenas and head of the most wealthy family in the country. He was the IX ordinate of Nesvizh (later the great Lithuanian hetman). In marriage they had four children: Karol Stanisław "Panie Kochanku" Radziwiłł (1734–1790), Janusz Tadeusz (1734–1750), Teofilia Konstancja Radziwiłłówna (1738–1818), and Katarzyna Karolina Radziwiłł (1740–1789).
Prince Michał was often away to participate in parliament, tribunals, and tours of their other lands, leaving the young Franciszka Urszula to make decisions on majority questions in management and leadership in Nesvizh. She led the restoration of the Nesvizh castle after devastating wars with Sweden, protected Nesvizh from raids of Russian army in the 1730s, streamlined and expanded the Library, and restored the printing house. Nesvizh one of the centres of cultural life in the kingdom in a very short period.
In 1740, for the first time, a foreign troupe staged a play called "The Example of Justice” in Nesvizh Castle, proving popular, and additional plays like Molière's comedy, Voltaire’s "Zaire", and works by other European authors were staged. Full life of Radziwill Theatre started after 1746, when Franciszka Urszula became its manager. That time her first dramatic works appeared. Almost every year the Princess wrote a few new plays of narrative content: in some Franciszka Urszula made accents to the need for education, in others – condemned unfaithful husbands or admired female goodness, and sincerity. However, the dominant theme of her drama was love, as evidenced by the eloquent names of the plays: "Love – a biased judge", "Love – a skilled master," "Ingenious Love" and others.
The work of Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłł can be divided into two periods. The first (1725–45) was bilingual, and genres – mainly poetic and epistolary. The most fruitful period of dramatic art and theatre activities in Nesvizh was during 1746–52, when the princess led the cultural life in the castle herself.
The last stage play in the Nesvizh Theatre, according to “The Diary" of Michał Kazimierz Radziwill, dates December 27, 1752: it was "operetta of Europe" (i.e. opera "Happy unhappiness"). Earlier in October, the princess was ill so badly that even wrote a farewell letter to her husband. She lived for another six months. The disease, which retreated in the first months of 1753, suddenly escalated on May 18 when the princess, heading to Grodno, was forced to stay in Putsevichy, a village near Navahrudak. On May 19, she was transported to Navahrudak, where she died on 23 May 1753 in the house of the mayor of Bobrujsk.
Writing
Poetry Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłł is the author of 80 poetic (undramatic) works of various volume – from four to one hundred and fifty lines. Genre system and figurative art palette of her poetry was based on the classical literary heritage of antiquity (Cicero, Ovid, Seneca), formed under the influence of Western European (primarily French classical) poetic school of the 17th century (poetry of François de Malherbe, Jean de La Bruyère) but in close connection with the artistic achievements of the national culture of the Renaissance and Baroque.
The first (recorded in the manuscripts) poetic experiences of Princess originated within epistolary. Of the large amount (more than 1300) of Franciszka Urszula’s letters the most interesting are four poetic notes to her husband. The poetic works of this genre reflected conversation concept, which was formed back in the ancient epistolary theory and gained popularity in the French salon poetry of the 18th century. According to Cicero’s regulations, the author writes letters «cotidianis verbis» («in everyday words"). Traditional epistolary formula combined with the "information of the heart."
All four poetic letters to Prince Michał imbued with a sense of sadness of separation, bear the stamp of the hot subjective feelings. Nevertheless, Franciszka Urszula wrote her epistles, clearly hoping for a wider audience, as between the lines she articulates the main points of the Code of ideal love: eternal loyalty, recognition of the highest values of love, boundless sadness and loss of interest in life in separation from loved ones.
S. Wasilewski, characterizing poetic letters of Princess Radziwiłł, seen them as “riotous bloom of feelings without literary powder and hairstyles".
A number of poetic works of Franciszka Urszula imbued with expressive didacticism. Admonition is an ideological dominant in poetic work of Princess titled "Cautions of relieve alles life information", which was written after the birth of daughter Anna Maria in 1732 and was devoted to her, and shortly after the Princess's death, in 1753, was printed by Jesuits of Nesvizh. After the opening prayer, in fifteen paragraphs the author formulates the basic tenets of chaste life. Traditional Christian concepts are interwoven here with humanistic spiritual values that are rooted in the Seneca’s "Moral letters to Lucilius". For example, tips "to glorify the Trinity of the One God", to get rid of pride, to avoid corruption and laziness, respect parents connect with the glorification of wisdom, affirmation of the priority of spiritual values over beauty. If the advice to approach the ideal of holiness (infinite mercy and goodness) are interpreted in line with the Christian-humanist doctrine, the call for restraint corresponds with the views of the Stoics and Epicureans about the serenity of the soul, not burdened by envy and greed. Organizing principle of all that is good and positive is God, so in the last paragraph the advice "to keep the commandments diligently" is connected with the desire of God's blessing for the little daughter.
Only three of the seven children of Michał and Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłł survived and reached adulthood. The loss of each child was the cause of severe mental anguish to the mother, and she wrote memorial poems. So, on the occasion of the death of two-year first-born in 1729 "The gravestones inscription... to Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwill" was written, and the death of seventeen-years-old Janusz in 1750 gave "The regret over my son" ("Farewell to the son"). Both funeral works stood out with eloquence and were full of panegyric elements. Thus, the death of a young son Mikołaj is shown through the typical images of baroque elegiac poetry, most of which are concentrated around the motif of the "harvest of death." This choice allows to the author make a special poetic oxymoron: Mikołaj, who was born in May, and died in July, is likened to "a May flower", which is premature, still in the summer, mowed by death; or a young beast hunted in May (when hunting is permitted only in the autumn).
Lamentation of Mikołaj portrays both the grief of a mother and the significance of the loss for the Radziwiłł and Wiśniowiecki families, as well as for the kingdom. The death of young prince is represented through heraldic symbols associated with Radziwiłł’s emblem (an eagle and pipes) and Wiśniowiecki emblem (star, cross and month), as well as through the use of the emblems dominant colors, yellow and blue. The work also includes references to the history of the two noble families and incorporates elements of prayer and rhetorical expression.
The cycle of poetic portraits "Description of ladies of Her Highness Radziwill, Chancelloress of Great Lithuanian Kingdom" was written most likely in 1733, when Princess Franciszka Urszula was visiting her mother-in-law (the one mentioned in the title) Anna Katarzyna Sanguszko. This is a typical example of court poetry, created under the influence of the French salon culture of the 17th century. Poetic portraits are mainly complementary; they had a recreational function, and therefore were full of verbal sophistication, periphrasis. Active in the social life the Princess used notable facts of her surroundings in the poetry. Thus, a number of poems on a particular occasion were written. These poems are varied in content and mood: greeting poems, farewells, etc. The reason for writing could be a wedding or the feeling of friendly affection, or even the prince's hunting or sending a letter from Leon Michał Radziwiłł to his wife Anna Luiza Mycielska.
A significant part of the poetic heritage of Princess is lyric poems in which the author tries to reflect the "tyranny of the soul." Nesvizh poet expresses her personal understanding of the nature of relationships between women and men ("I often do not understand those people..." "Phony fun of variable affects..."), from the height of her life experience analyses her era ("those who cannot read the personalities"), formulates her own strategy of inner life ("Complaint", "Verse with a murmur of marriage "). Self-presentation mostly covers the sphere of her intimate feelings.
Lyrical poetry sometimes comes in the form of religious poetry. However, the poems addressed to the God become poetic illustrations of various states of a Christian soul, which coincide with the three parts of the rosary (joyful, mourning and praise). This is the confession of faith and humble prayer ("God, you're the paradise defender ...") or mournful memories about the torments of Christ (freestyle interpretation of anthem «Stabat Mater» – «Your wounds bleed, Jesus"), or doxology affection with miracle of God's creation ("The call for creatures to praise their Creator"). Sometimes biblical topic can be an artistic background for the unfolding of moral concept of the author (the poem "Sweet memories on Paradise "). This lyrical poetry of Princess Radziwill is the most consistent in the development of baroque aesthetics and style.
Art techniques help the author to disclose her philosophy of life, first – the inner life. According educated aristocrat, her personal spiritual experience is worth to make it public; like other poets of the Baroque period, she felt to be the happy owner of the truth. This feeling led to the awareness of intellectual elitism.
An important fact is the "sloppy" attitude of to copyright. On one hand, Princess Franciszka Urszula considers it possible to personally rewrite a poem by French poet François de Malherbe and "forget" mark in the manuscript the author's name, on the other hand – she assigns her poems authorship to other persons (such as, "Gratitude of His Highness Prince Leon Radziwill" or "Verse on the memory of Her Highness Anna Luiza Mycielska... ").
Prose