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ZOFIA DASZYNSKA-GOLINSKA (1860-1934) - BIOGRAPHY AND THOUGHT

Anna Smywinska-Pohl

Abstract

This article is a part of a project reminding women philosophers in history of philosophy, their achievements and a story of women emancipaction in scientific world, esspecialy on the Polish lands, and later – in Poland. Presented text shows biography and thought of Zofia Daszynska-Golinska (1866-1934). In my presentation I would like to acquaint the audience with the biography and thought of Zofia Daszynska-Golinska (1860-1934), a philosopher, an economist, a feminist, a social activist and a stateswoman. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, one of the key issues raised in the public debate were public rights for women and their admission to study at universities. Because women were not allowed to study on Polish lands and education system was in a very low level, women travelled aboard motivated by their need to learn. But even in Western Europe women needed to overcome many formal, legal and moral obstacles. One of them was Zofia Daszynska-Golinska, who as a first women received a doctoral degree at the University of Basel, where she conducted research on economics and her work „People of Zurich in XVII century” was the very first socio-economical study of the city. After that she worked at Humboldt University of Berlin and People’s University of Poznan, Flying University, at Adrian Baraniecki higher odds for women in Krakow. She became an important figure because of her activism for the women empowerment. In the field of philosophy, she was a specialist in the thought of Nietzsche and Marks. In her short work „Nietzsche-Zaratustra” she describes Nietzsche as a great artist and essayist, but not a philosopher, what was characteristic for her first current of research on Nietzsche in Poland. However, she is mostly known for her activism for women rights and against alcoholism. She worked on women rights for voting, divorce, reproduction rights and more equal salaries. She published a short text „Woman – Citizen”, she was a member of Progressive Women’ Political Club as a senator. Moreover, she worked in commission for social policy demanding for „more ethics in political and social life”. In a question of alcoholism, she wrote several works as „Alcoholism and Society” (1902), „Alcoholism as a Symptom of Social Disease”(1905) or „Fight against Alcoholism in Galicia” (1911) and she was active in associations working on the problem of alcohol in Poland as „Eleuteria and Future”. In the academic world she is an author of more than seventy research works about economics and social policy. I want to remind her character and achievements to people for whom she belongs to their local history and acquaint other with Polish heritage from this time.

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