Zofia Trashchkovskaya

Background

Zofia Mankovskaya was born in the family of the gentry.

The poetess was a niece of A. Raetskiy, a brother-in-law of V. Syrokomlya. When she was 6 years old, she saw Syrokomlya in the estate Zalucha for the first time. Zofia often stayed at his place, when she studied in Vilnius. In May 1862 V. Syrokomlya presented her an autograph of the poem “To panna Zofia Mankovskaya”. In such a way he blessed a 15-year old poetess, beginning her career, “to sing along with him in the desolate Lithuania (Belarus)”.



Later, after having married an officer of the Russian army, Trashchkovskaya lived in Zaraysk, Novgorod. In 1877 – 1878 she took part in the Russian-Turkish War as a nurse. The poetess communicated with V. Karatynskiy and Ya. Luchina, was friends with F. Zenkovich, who was a comrade-in-arms of K. Kalinovskiy. She spent the last years of her life in Dorogovitsa, where she studied the Belorussian folk songs (“Dorogovitskie songs”).

Education

Zofia Mankovskaya studied in Vilnius.

Career

Trashchkovskaya started publishing her works in 1887. She signed all the publications by the pseudonym Adam M. Ski. In 1890 the poetess published a collection of poems in Polish “One man of many”. Being a follower of Syrokomlya, she turned in her works to the heroic past of her native land (a number of poems “Past accords”). The poetess expressed tender emotions towards the native places, known from the childhood (“From life and nostalgia”, “Vynya”), sympathy with socially destitute people and admiration by tolerance of peasants. Vulnerability, humanistic outlook, and broad-mindedness of Z. Trashchkovskaya determined her appeal to the original (“God, our father”) and translated (“Arrow-wood” of T. Lenartovich, “Cossack” of Ya. Tchetchot) Belorussian-language works. The poetess also translated works from French, Portuguese and other languages into Polish.

Works

• book

  • “One man of many”