Garden of Venus (51 page)
La belle Phanariote
, Countess Sophie Potocka, died in Berlin on November 12, 1822. She was survived by two daughters and four sons.
Sophie’s children led the lives of opposing allegiances, illustrating the complexity of the times and the conflicting political options of a country which had been partitioned, subjugated in its interests, and left to desperate measures.
Jan de Witt, Sophie’s first-born son from her first (later annulled) marriage to Joseph de Witt, entered into the Tsar’s secret service and gained notoriety for his dubious role in destroying the Decembrist movement and spying on the Polish resistance fighters. In 1831, after the Uprising of 1830 failed to liberate Poland from Russian dominance, he headed a Warsaw court that exercised the Tsar’s revenge on the Polish patriots. Named the November Uprising, it was the first in a long line of Polish attempts to regain the lost independence of 1795. Jan de Witt died in 1840.
Alexander Potocki, the oldest of Sophie’s sons by Felix Potocki, inherited her beloved garden, Sophievka. Influenced by his sister Sophie’s patriotic feelings, he resigned his commission with the Tsarist army in spite of his excellent
prospects and in 1830, joined the November Uprising. When it fell, and when a period of repressions began, Alexander refused to ask for the Tsar’s pardon and chose to live in exile, mostly in Rome. Sophie’s garden was confiscated by Tsar Nicolas I who had renamed it,
Tsaritsin Sad
, The Tsarina’s Orchard. Alexander died, childless, in 1868. He had never married.
Sophie Kisielev was instrumental in her brother Alexander’s conversion into a Polish patriot, though she herself led a largely cosmopolitan life of privilege. She left her Russian husband and lived in France most of her life, winning big amounts of money in the casinos of Europe. Volodia died at the age of two. Later, Sophie Kisielev had a natural child, St-Claire, whom she officially ‘adopted’ and raised, but she never married again.
Olga married General Naryshkin and did not share Alexander’s and Sophie’s allegiance to the Polish cause. A few years after her mother’s death, she had a love affair with Pavel Kisielev, her brother-in-law.
Mieczyslaw Potocki had left a peculiar trail of betrayals behind him. His first wife, Delphine Potocka née Komar, fled the Tulchin palace and demanded a separation, citing her husband’s brutality and deviance as causes of her decision. Mieczyslaw then married again only to have his second wife accuse him of trying to murder their baby son, and he was then imprisoned for fraud and perjury in St Petersburg. In the end, after his sisters managed to obtain his release, he sold all his Russian assets and moved to France.
Boleslaw (called Bobiche or Bob), fathered by Sophie’s stepson Felix-George (called Yuri) lived a long and quiet life in Niemirów, in Ukraine, with his wife and daughter.
A Mademoiselle Romanowicz was one of the unknown beneficiaries of Sophie Potocka’s last will. Like Ignacy Bolecki and Thomas Lafleur, she is a fictional character.
Eva Stachniak
Eva Stachniak was born in Wroclaw, Poland, and came to Canada in 1981 as a graduate student of the English Department of McGill University, where she obtained her doctorate. Confronted with the imposition of martial law in Poland, she chose to stay in Canada with her husband and son.
In Montreal, she worked for Radio Canada International, producing Canadian programs for a Polish-language broadcast. Her debut novel,
Necessary Lies
, won the Amazon.com/
Books in Canada
First Novel Award in 2000.
Her short stories also met with acclaim, appearing in many Canadian literary magazines, including
The
Antigonish Review, The Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire
and
Grain
.
Garden of Venus
has been published around the world in England, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as Canada. It has also been translated into Greek, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Serbian, and Polish.
Eva Stachniak currently teaches intercultural communication at Sheridan College, in Oakville, Ontario. She lives in Toronto.
“The life of Sophie Glavani Celice, Countess Potocka, is one of the many stories from Eastern Europe that never truly made it to the English-speaking world.”
The Inspiration
Garden of Venus
blends historical fact and fiction. The life of Sophie Glavani Celice,
primo voto
de Witt,
secundo voto
Countess Potocka, is one of the many stories from Eastern Europe that never truly made it to the English-speaking world. Those who knew it were cut off from the West by the Iron Curtain for years.
In Poland, Sophie’s biography became widely known in the 1970s, when a Polish historian, Jerzy Lojek, published
Dzieje pieknej Bitynki
[
The Story of a Beautiful Bythinienne
], a historical account of the rise of
La Belle Phanariote
in the courts of Europe. I came across Lojek’s book by chance, in a Canadian library, alongside other Polish books on the late eighteenth century. Amidst the stories of national despair—for this is the time when the loss of independence became the defining aspect of Polish consciousness—I discovered this tale of enormous vitality and of struggle with fate.
I found Sophie irresistible. She captured my imagination with her
chutzpah
, with the scope of her social success, the power to overcome the misogyny that was so rampant in her times. I saw her as an immigrant to Poland: an immigrant without family and resources other than her beauty and intelligence; an immigrant arriving to a country in crisis, torn by conflicting political options, brought to the edge of despair. In spite of her many questionable choices, in spite of abandoned lovers
and betrayed husbands, when she was dying in Berlin in 1822, this “beautiful Greek” commanded genuine love and respect. I wondered what her secret was; I wondered about the mystery behind her power to captivate human hearts. I thought of the impact her extraordinary vitality could have had on someone whose life was defined by national loss, someone like Rosalia who was brought to the verge of despair by the same tragic forces Sophie learned to use so well.
“Sophie wished her Ukrainian garden to offer not only consolation and escape, but also precious moments of reflection.”
The Garden
The garden in the title,
Sofievka
or
Zofiówka
(in Polish), is a splendid park on the outskirts of Uman in western Ukraine that spreads over 150 hectares of land. It was a gift in honour of Sophie’s beauty, from her then lover and soon husband, Count Felix (Stanislaw Szczęsny) Potocki, the owner of vast estates in that part of Ukraine. It was on his orders and under the direction of Ludwik Metzel, a Polish military engineer, that the Ukrainian peasants transformed a gorge of the Kamyonka river into an eighteenth-century paradise, complete with the Elysian Fields, the Temple of Dianne, and the Grotto of Venus, where a marble statue of the love goddess stands half concealed by a veil of water. The construction began in the fall of 1796 and continued after Count Potocki’s death in 1805.
As I was writing the novel, the images from this beautiful garden came to signify Sophie’s skills of seduction, her ability to turn the ordinary into extraordinary, to please and to intrigue. Inspired by another famous garden
of her times, Arkadia, in Nieborow, Poland, Sophie wished her Ukrainian garden to offer not only consolation and escape, but also precious moments of reflection.
In her will, Sophie left her beloved garden to her son Alexander, who saw his inheritance confiscated by the Russian tsar as punishment for his involvement in the anti-Russian uprising of 1831, one of the many attempts to regain Poland’s lost independence.
The
Sofievka
garden has been an inspiration for Polish poet Stanislaw Trembecki and Scottish painter Allan William, who visited Uman in the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was also a secret meeting place for the society that led the Decembrist revolt of 1825 against the Russian tsar. It is still the pride of Uman, drawing visitors from all over the world.
“Napoleon Bonaparte was seen by many Polish patriots as the only force capable of restoring Poland’s independence.”
The Choices
Eighteenth-century Poland, weakened by years of irresponsible politics and bad luck, oscillated constantly between hope and despair. One of the political options supported by many was an alliance with Russia, though the extent of the alliance with Poland’s powerful and ruthless neighbour was heatedly disputed. By marrying Felix Potocki, Sophie found herself in the centre of the pro-Russian faction of Polish politics, a choice that was reinforced by the fact that the Potocki estates were part of the Russian partition. Fooled by Catherine the Great’s promises, her husband lent his name and influence to the Targowica confederacy, which was widely condemned as an act of treason since it led to the final partition of Poland.
Another political option that determined the course of Polish history at the time was an alliance with France. Napoleon Bonaparte was seen by many Polish patriots as the only force capable of restoring Poland’s independence. Polish historians differ in their assessment of this controversial alliance, which sent the Polish Legion to Haiti to subdue slaves fighting for freedom.
In
Garden of Venus
, Rosalia’s father, Jakub Romanowicz, lives the Polish Napoleonic dream, though ultimately it is his wife and daughter who have to live with the consequences of his choice.
“What I like about historical fiction is that it forces me to question my own assumptions.”
The Challenges of Writing Historical Fiction
I have to see and hear my characters before I can write about them. In historical fiction, where I cannot rely on my own memory or observation, it means giving myself time to absorb the voices and the details of the times. It is a long, often frustrating process, for many historical documents ignore everyday issues. It is much easier to come across a long commentary on the politics and scandals of the times than to learn what people talked and complained about when they met in the street, or how it felt to ride in a carriage. For many of the letter or memoir writers, these were ordinary details of life, self-evident and not worth mentioning. Yet, from time to time, I came across a diary or a letter that gave me insights into the ordinary lives spent in a Polish manor house, a Russian palace, or a French army unit. Since one of the characters in the novel,
Thomas Lafleur, is a doctor, I spent a lot of time studying the history of medicine, learning to see the world through his eyes.
What I like about historical fiction is that it forces me to question my own assumptions and my hindsight. It is easy to assume superiority over an eighteenth-century surgeon once we know of the existence of bacteria or viruses. It is easy to judge political choices once their outcomes become clear. But these are the luxuries we do not have in our own lives, so I find the process of re-imagining the past very rewarding. It gives me a sense of distance; it allows for more tolerance, more understanding.
“Unlike France or England or Germany, Poland hardly exists in the Canadian consciousness.”
Writing and the Immigrant Experience
In most cultures, memory, especially collective national memory, has traditionally had an assured and respected place in the national consciousness; in Canada such remembrance is a collage of ethnic impressions, to which each immigrant generation adds its own components. Canadian writers wishing to address this collective memory face the unique challenge of choosing which aspects of it they want to draw upon.
When I came to Canada from Poland in August of 1981, on the eve of the Solidarity crisis, I was asked the perennial immigrant question: “Where are you from?” A deceptive question, far more complicated than it may seem. “I am from Poland,” I answered, “from Wroclaw.” But here, on the other side of the Atlantic, these answers do not carry much meaning. Unlike France or England or Germany, Poland hardly exists in the Canadian consciousness, and so I began answering
this question by telling stories that define the place I came from.
I grew up in Wroclaw, a city in southwest Poland that was part of Germany before Stalin redrew the map of Europe. My first novel,
Necessary Lies
, told the story of Wroclaw, the city where I was born. I grew up in a country determined by its history, by its loss of independence and resulting dreams of resurrection, by its uneasy multiculturalism, its heroic uprisings and the tragic price paid for freedom.
“I like to think of the past as our cradle, not our prison.”
Garden of Venus
takes place in eighteenth-century Europe, a world from which Poland was excluded; it was a Europe torn by conflicting loyalties and interests, and a struggling Poland, hurting and looking for ways to forge hope that would sustain it through the loss of independence.
As a writer, I like to think of the past as our cradle, not our prison. It should inspire us to new vistas, but it should not contain us. It should be the beginning and not the end of our journey. I believe that, in the end, such a universal perspective enriches us all. By looking at ourselves through the lens of the past, we come to see what in our practices is unnecessary—and infinitely more important—what is universal and essential.
Emigration is a great teacher of that universal perspective. It stresses the value of stories we share, the stories of our origins, their power to forge emotional connections with other times, other people, other places. But this is not all. Sharing these stories with others who grew up outside of our cultural
tradition and do not take it for granted forces us to re-examine our cultural values, our assumptions, our national myths, and see them in a new, much more universal light. The meaningful stories, I have learned, often lie outside of the national scripts and the official memories. The meaningful stories, I have learned, have to be unearthed, patiently sifted away from worthless rubble. This process of discovering the other “pasts,” of giving life to them, of passing them on to others who would never have cared otherwise, I believe, is a worthy goal.
“The meaningful stories often lie outside of the national scripts and the official memories.”
The action in
Garden of Venus
takes place during October and November of 1822, but the novel’s events span the years 1760-1822, the years of Sophie Potocka’s birth and death. Below is a list of pivotal historical events mentioned in the novel:
1760:
Sophie Potocka is born in Bursa, the daughter of a cattle trader. Her childhood is spent in the fields and meadows surrounding her native town.
1764:
Stanislaw August Poniatowski is elected king of Poland. This election is greeted with mixed feelings. The new king is an enlightened man, but he is widely perceived as Catherine the Great’s puppet. (He has been her lover in St. Petersburg.) His election causes a civil war—the Confederacy of Bar, an unsuccessful attempt to assert Poland’s independence from Russia.
1768:
The slaughter of Uman. Ukrainian peasants rise against Polish nobles and Jews in a bloody uprising. Some accounts speak of 20,000 dead. When the uprising is crushed, its participants are severely punished.
1772:
First partition of Poland. Poland loses parts of its territory to Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
1789:
The French Revolution begins, spreading the fear of radical changes in Europe.
1791:
In an attempt to strengthen the threatened
country, on May 3, the Polish Sejm adopts a progressive Polish Constitution. The move alarms Poland’s neighbours, who fear revolutionary ideas and who have a vested interest in seeing the country weak.
1792:
The Confederacy of Targowica is formed. Three Polish magnates—Franciszek Branicki, Seweryn Rzewuski, and Stanislaw Szczęsny (Felix) Potocki—angered by the revolutionary reforms of the Polish Constitution, which limited the powers of the nobility, ask Catherine the Great to “intervene” in the Polish matters. They hope the old order will be restored, but instead Poland is subdued and partitioned again.
1793:
Second partition of Poland. Reign of Terror in France. The French king is executed.
1794:
Kosciuszko’s insurrection. Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the hero of the American Revolution, leads a brave but desperate Polish attempt to regain lost territories. He is defeated and imprisoned by Catherine the Great.
1795:
Third and final partition of Poland between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The Polish king is forced to abdicate and becomes Catherine’s prisoner in St. Petersburg. The country will not exist again until 1918.
1797:
A Polish Legion is formed under the command of General D
browski. Part of Napoleon’s army, the legion’s goal is to fight for Poland’s freedom.