Virtuous Slavic Women and Scheming German Ones: The Model of the Good Wife in Józef Kraszewski’s Bracia Zmartwychstańcy 

Emnilda, the third wife of King Bolesław Chrobry, is presented in the work of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski as a woman who manifests in an exemplary fashion a set of character traits that are summed up by the expression “women’s virtues.” This article shows how the heroine of the novel implements this specific system of values. This takes place not only through her personal deeds, but is also highlighted thanks to the counter‑model of Chrobry’s next wife, Oda Meissen.

In Kraszewski’s approach, an interesting national context related to “women’s virtues” emerges. This pattern, based on Catholic values, is used by the writer to idealize the image of the Polish nation and its past, and, at the same time, to diminish the German nation, to show it as morally inferior. This is an obvious commentary on the attempts at Germanization then being undertaken by the Prussian government.

The concept of medievalism is used in the article, as the action of the novel takes place in the medieval era. This period has been referred to many times in similar types of narratives, because this era was considered the period of the creation of the Polish nation. It also underlines the alleged eternity of the Polish‑German or Slavic‑Germanic conflict. In addition, the construction of Emnilda’s character is inspired by the thirteenth‑century lives of the holy princesses of the Piast dynasty.