Hanna Malewska (1911–1983) was a Polish historian and writer, author of historical stories and novels, translator, Home Army soldier, member of the Tygodnik Powszechny team, and editor-in-chief of the monthly Znak.
Biography
Born on 21 June 1911 in Jordanowice (now a district of Grodzisk Mazowiecki) to a family descended from the Mazovian line of the Malewskis, impoverished nobility who made considerable contributions to nurturing independence traditions, the daughter of Bronisław Malewski a Jadwiga née Ciświcka.
Her father was a doctor and army general, from December 1914, in the medical service of, among others, Gen. Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki's I Corps. After the war, the first Head of the Sanitary Department of the Polish Army in the rank of major-general, a member of the Legislative Sejm on behalf of the National Democracy Movement, and the head of a sanatorium in Grodzisk Mazowiecki. He died tragically in 1920 when after a military commission meeting, he fell under the wheels of a car leaving Belweder Palace. Following her father's death, Hanna settled in Lublin together with her mother and older brother Andrew (d. 1984). She did not share her father's political views. Throughout her life, she was accompanied by the support of her mother. From her family home, Hanna inherited the cult of quiet work and selflessness as well as the ethos of independence.
In 1921, she started attending the Union of Lublin State Gymnasium for Girls in Lublin. The years spent at this school (1921–1929), in a class with an extended humanistic profile, allowed her to acquire basic education and language skills. She thus learned to speak fluent Latin and French, which increased her fascination with France and Romance culture. Years of conspiracy, during World War II, taught her to speak fluent English and consequently also made her an admirer of English language culture.
In 1929, Hanna Malewska began studying Polish and history at the Catholic University of Lublin. After a year, she gave up her Polish studies to have more time to deepen her historical knowledge. In this period (1929–1933), she honed her historical research skills under professors, such as Jerzy Manteuffel, Kazimierz Michałowski, Leon Białkowski and Aleksander Kossowski, under whose academic supervision she wrote her master's thesis entitled Diary of Cardinal de Retz as a historical source. From these masters, she acquired the methodology and humility to engage in time-consuming historical research and conduct in-depth analysis of archival sources.
There is no evidence that during her studies, Hanna had attended Lublin branch meetings of the Rebirth Association of Catholic Academic Youth. At that time she did, however, develop a universalistic view of social and religious problems, sensitivity to the plight of the unprivileged and the need to provide them with aid.
In 1930, she was recognised as a talented student. In a competition marking the centenary of the outbreak of the November Uprising, she was awarded a prize for two unpublished and now probably lost works entitled Battle of Rogożnica and Międzyrzecze and Chrzanowski’s Expedition in the Lublin Region.
It was also during her studies that debuted as a journalist and the author of a historical novel. In 1931, the Żołnierz Polski (1931, No. 27–30) published episodes from her Napoleonic era tale Cabrera (A True Story), for which the periodical awarded her the first prize. That same year, during convalescence from typhus, she wrote a story for a completion organized by the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Education. Drawing on Hellenistic models, her Greek Spring (Wiosna grecka) referred to Plato's passion for sports and philosophy. Receiving a distinction, this work was also her first book.
After graduating, at the turn of 1933/1934, she gained work experience as a trainee teacher at the St Stanisław Kostka Gymnasium for Boys, Warsaw, under the guidance Tadeusz Bornholtz, a distinguished historian and teacher, the author of books and textbooks on the methodology of teaching history. Faced with unemployment, she found her first job as a history teacher at a trade school in Niepołomice. In 1935, together with her mother, she moved to Warsaw and up to 1940 worked as a teacher of history and the introduction to philosophy at Krystyna Malczewska's Gymnasium and Lyceum (middle and high school).