Maria Dąbrowska

Polish female novelist. After studying at universities in Lausanne and Brussels, she started out as a social critic, and published her first collection of short stories in 1912 while studying abroad in London. During World War I, she participated in the independence movement, co-editing magazines such as The Peasant Question, and after independence, she worked for the Ministry of Agriculture. She also participated in the tragic Warsaw Uprising (1939) during World War II, and after the uprising failed, she temporarily fled to Breslau (Wrocław). She first attracted attention as a writer with her series of short stories, The Child's Smile, published in 1923, and since then has been actively involved in writing. Her most famous work is the four-volume novel Night and Day (1932-34), a realistic chronicle of the changes in Polish society and people's consciousness at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. This epic novel, sprinkled with deep observations and sharp criticism, has been praised as the pinnacle of traditional novel form. All her works, with their humanistic and civic foundations, were widely read in post-war socialist Poland.

[Shozo Yoshigami]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

ポーランドの女流小説家。ローザンヌ、ブリュッセルの大学に学んだのち、社会評論から出発、1912年ロンドン留学中に処女短編小説集を出した。第一次世界大戦中は独立運動に参加、雑誌『農民問題』などの共同編集者として、また独立後は農業省で働いた。第二次大戦の悲劇的なワルシャワ蜂起(ほうき)（1939）にも参加、蜂起失敗後一時ブレスラウ（ブロツワフ）に逃れた。作家として注目を集めた最初は23年に出した連作短編集『子供の微笑』で、以来旺盛(おうせい)な作家活動に入った。代表作は長編『夜と昼』四巻（1932～34）で、19世紀から20世紀の転換期のポーランド社会と人々の意識の移り変わりを写実的に示した年代記。深い観察と鋭い批判をちりばめたこの叙事詩的長編は伝統的な小説形式の頂点と評された。ヒューマニスティックで市民的な基盤にたつすべての彼女の作品は、戦後の社会主義ポーランドでも広く読まれている。

［吉上昭三］

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