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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Orzeszko, Eliza

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19334441911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 20 — Orzeszko, Eliza

ORZESZKO or Orszeszko, ELIZA (1842–), Polish novelist, was born near Grodno, of the noble family of Pawlowski. In her sixteenth year she married Piotr Orzeszko, a Polish nobleman, who was exiled to Siberia after the insurrection of 1863. She wrote a series of powerful novels and sketches, dealing with the social conditions of her country. Eli Makower (1875) describes the relations between the Jews and the Polish nobility, and Meir Ezofowicz (1878) the conflict between Jewish orthodoxy and modern liberalism. On the Niemen (1888), perhaps her best work, deals with the Polish aristocracy, and Lost Souls (1886) and Cham (1888) with rural life in White Russia. Her study on Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism appeared in 1880. A uniform edition of her works appeared in Warsaw, 1884–1888.