Kazimierz Rzepecki – idealista i mąż nieidealny Izabeli Moszczeńskiej

Abstract

The history of Izabela Rzepecka’s, nee Moszczeńska’s (1864–1941, a Polish publicist, an educational, political, and emancipatory activist), marriage with Kazimierz Rzepecki (1866–1902, a publicist, and a social activist) illustrates the process of transformation of a patriarchal, noble, or bourgeois model of a family into a family, which, at the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth century, was set on the grounds of partnership. Under the new, democratic model of a family, followed more willingly by left-wing intellectuals, the traditional gender roles of men and women have been redefined by, for example, the fact that the popularization of women’s professional activity was accompanied by the process of warming up of a man’s emotional image. However, as it is apparent from the memories of Moszczeńska, the transformation of a traditional standard of femininity into a modern model of a suffragist took less dramatic course than a crisis of masculinity.

Keywords

• Izabela Moszczeńska
• Kazimierz Rzepecki
• Polish emancipation movement
• Polish culture of the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century