Ewa Felińska
Ewa Felińska was a Polish author and prosaist. She is most notable for authoring several novels and for her contributions to Orgelbrand's "Universal Encyclopedia". She was the mother of Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński. Biography. Felińska (née Wendorff) was born on 26 December 1793 in eastern Poland. Her family was considered to be moderately wealthy, either part of the landed middle class or poor gentry. Though born in the Russian Empire, the family was culturally Polish (Sluck, the province she was born in, had been partitioned to Russia the year of her birth). Ewa married Gerard Felinsky (brother of  writer Alojzy Feliński) when she was 18, and would go on to have six children with him; notable among them was Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński, a future archbishop of Warsaw. Following her husband's death in 1833, Felińska moved her family to Kremenets, which she hoped would have better educational opportunities for her children. While living in the city, Felińska became involved in a growing pro-independence faction in the city, which wanted to gain Polish independence from the Russian Empire. Using her writing talent, Felińska gained a position of importance in the organization, eventually being appointed as the secretary for  the independence group. However, in 1839 the group was broken up by the Russian authorities, resulting in Felińska being arrested, sentenced, and exiled to Siberia. Following her exile, Felińska remained in Siberia before being relocated to Saratov in 1841. During her time in Siberia, Saratov, and other locales inside Russia, she wrote a number of memoirs documenting her experiences. She also published accounts of Siberian and Volgan folklore. In addition, she wrote several novels and entries in Samuel Orgelbrand's "Encyklopedia Powszechna" - the first modern Polish encyclopedia. She died in 1859.