WOMEN'S RIGHTS ALLEY/Author's meeting with Anna Brzezińska

TypeLiterature

LocationSala Wielka

Hour

18

Datum 8.10.2026

Price

7 PLN

“Patient Genowefy, shameless Magdalene. A guide to the Middle Ages of ordinary women” — author's meeting with Anna Brzezińska

conducted by: Agnieszka Jankowiak-Maik

Duration: 90 min/age: 18+

Bankers and slaves, bridesmaids and clerks, beggars and midwives, witches and mystics—fifty women of blood and bone. Not the statuesque and canonical ones, but those that usually remain on the margins of great history.

In the Middle Ages, women were considered the sinful daughters of Eve, morally and intellectually inferior to men. Laws and customs subjected them to the power of fathers, husbands, and brothers—for their own good, of course. But the fates of real women prove that they were beings much more complex and complicated than we are sometimes told.

So here is the story of a heretical nun who declared herself pope and celebrated masses. About a frustrated mother who went to court for alimony when the father did not want to lay on her son. About the tough Sołtysh woman who shook the Podkarpackie village, and the respectable clerk who managed one of the oldest law firms in Silesia. And also about those women who collected books in monasteries, quarreled with the clergy and wrote learned treatises. Which defended the family castles, and sometimes Jerusalem, and when the need arose, could steal even the royal crown.

Anna Brzezińska does not romanticize the past: she shows agency where it was possible — as resistance, cunning, adaptation or the struggle for dignity. The women in her stories teach what the Middle Ages really was—and many of their experiences remain surprisingly current. {publisher's description}

ANNA BRZEZIŃSKA (born 1971) is a Polish writer and medievalist, valued above all for her fantastic and historical literature. She graduated in History at KUL and Medieval Studies at the Central European University in Budapest. She made her debut in 1998 with the story “A loved her, that fear”, for which she received the Janusz A. Zajdl Prize — which she also won for the novel “The Viper Harp” and for the short story “Waters deep as the sky”. She is the author of, among others, a series about Babuna Jagódka (“Tales of the Wilżyńska Dolina” and “The Witch of the Wilżyńska Dolina”), monumental novels “Daughters of Wawel” or “Water on a sieve” and the essayist “Twilight of the world of knights”, as well as many collections of short stories. Her work combines a rich historical background with elements of fantasy, and the books belong to the classics of contemporary Polish literature of this genre. She is a regular columnist for “Ale Historia”, an appendix to Gazeta Wyborcza, and also publishes in “Polityka” and “Tygodnik Powszechny”.

AGNIESZKA JANKOWIAK-MAIK — teacher of history and knowledge about society, doctor of humanities, publicist and educational activist, known online as Babka od hista. Promoter of modern teaching methods, civil society and the female side of history. Vice President of the Women's History Museum Foundation. Winner of the 14th edition of the Irena Sendler Prize “For Fixing the World”, the Grand Press “Medal of Freedom of Speech” in the “Citizen” category and the title of Wielkopolska Teacher of the Year 2021. A graduate of the International Visitor Leadership Program. Author of the book “History, which was not there”, as well as (together with Bogus Janiszewski and Max Skorwider) a series of children's books “Where did Poland come from”, “In what Chrobry was good”, “Czy Trzyżacy are cool guys?” “Which way to Grunwald?”

On a cobalt background, on the left, the inscription “avenue of women's rights”. On the right is an illustrated book cover entitled “Patient Genovefy, Shameless Magdalene. A Guide to the Middle Ages for Ordinary Women”.

The cover is expressive, colorful and contrasting. His style refers to old woodcuts and manuscripts. On the cover in the center you can see two women in medieval costumes.