Thursday, March 30, 2017

Born Today March 30: Gabriela Zapolska


1857-1921

Polish writer Gabriela Zapolska, birth name Maria Gabriela Stefania Korwin-Piotrowska, was born to a landed Polish gentry family on this date in what was then Galicia, Austrian Empire (now part of Ukraine).  She was educated there until she was forced into an arranged marriage by her family in 1876.  This did not last; she quickly left her military husband and formally divorced him ten years later.  She then became pregnant in an out wedlock relationship, which caused her to permanently sever any ties with her family.  During this period of time, she got into amateur acting at a local Philanthropic society in Warsaw.  In 1889, she moved to Paris to continue her artistic career.  She had already written and published her first short story by the time she made the move to France; upon arriving there, she continued act, but also increased her writing output.  After a time, she returned to her native country and settled in Krakow.  In 1904, she married for the second time and became a patron of a traveling theater.  Through all of this, she had continued to act and write.  In all, she was a extremely well rounded writer; her works range from plays, novels, stories, and many works of journalism--she even wrote one screenplay.  She was also a woman of letters.  In terms of film, 9 movies were made from her work in the silent era.  The first of these came in 1912 with Niebezpieczny kochanek, a Polish production.  The first sound film made from her work was Moralnosc pani Dulskiej released in 1930, also made in Poland and based on one of her plays.  The latest film to use her work for a screenplay came in 2015 with the Polish Panie Dulskie; it also based on one of her plays.  It does not appear that as yet, her screenplay has been filmed.  She died in what was then Lwow, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine) on the 17th of December in 1920 five years after the town was captured by the Russian Army.  She was 64 years old.  She is buried in that town in the Lychakiv Cemetery there.



For More:



Wikipedia Poland  (can be translated)

Leave Virtual Flowers @ Find A Grave

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