17.10.2024, 18:00
We invite you to the premiere meeting around the book 'The Death of Anisa. A Tale of Polish Old Believers' by Katarzyna Roman-Rawska. The conversation with the author will be led by Katarzyna Surmiak-Domańska.
Attention! Registration is required: katarzyna@czarne.com.pl
The history of the Old Believers begins in the 17th century when they rebelled against religious reforms and left Russia. They carried with them a few bundles and hope for peace. They divided into many smaller communities: they settled in China, Australia, and the United States. Some of them settled in the vicinity of Suwałki, Sejny, and Augustów. Many of them still cultivate their tradition to this day.
In the year 7530 from the creation of the world, Katarzyna Roman-Rawska began to evoke memories and collect stories. Her mother Olga, grandmother Anisa, great-grandmothers Agafia and Warwara, who served as a shaman, as well as great-great-grandmothers: Agrypina, Warwara, Fiewronia, Anna were Old Believers. She speaks of pride and shame in her origins, of the difficult Russian Polishness, or perhaps Polish Russianness. About the nooks of Old Believer homes, where icons still hide. About the joy that comes from religious rituals, but also about remaining on the margins of great history. And about ordinary life, which may disappoint those who try to forcefully exoticize this community.
'The Death of Anisa' is an intimate, nostalgic tale about one of the smallest religious minorities in Poland. Roman-Rawska, combining the perspective of a researcher and an Old Believer, records the history of her maternal lineage and her voluntary belonging to it.
Katarzyna Roman-Rawska – writer, journalist, literary translator. She works at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where she deals with issues related to the intersection of art and politics. Translator of anti-war poetry in Russian and Belarusian. Participant in workshops of the Literary Office dedicated to socially engaged literature. Author of a book on anti-systemic Russian prose 'New Realism in the Russian Literary Field after 1991.' She has written for OKO.press, 'Krytyka Polityczna,' and 'Mały Format.' On her mother's side, she is a descendant of Polish Old Believers, and on her father's side, she belongs to a family with cooperative traditions.