World-class researcher in anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, ethnography. She made her academic career at Oxford, mainly through her field research in Siberia. Emancipator and Polish patriot. As great as she is forgotten.

Maria Czaplicka - the beginnings of her knowledge
Maria Antonina Czaplicka was born in Warsaw's Praga district, most probably in 1884. Her father came from the impoverished gentry of the Lubicz coat of arms. She was named after her mother, Maria of Zawisza. She had numerous siblings.

From her early youth, she was passionate about science, access to which in the Russian partition was severely restricted for Poles, and especially for Polish women. This was as a result of repressions following the January Uprising (1863). Czaplicka attended the illegal Flying University (the famous "women's university", in the words of historian Bogdan Cywiński, the answer of the suffragette generation to the positivist slogan of women's equality). She was also a student of the Towarzystwo Kursów Naukowych (Society for Educational Courses) - the first open Polish university since the liquidation of the Main School (1869), registered in 1906 by the tsarist authorities. Later, she herself was an organiser of secret teaching.

She developed her interests under the influence of Wacław Nałkowski, a geographer, publicist and writer. It was he who got her interested in "human geography". She was also friends with his daughter Zofia - later the author of 'Medallions'. Together they shared a passion for literature. Between 1910 and 1911, she published poems in the Warsaw magazine "Odrodzenie". She also maintained contacts with the circle of left-wing Polish émigrés in London, centred around the antiquarian Michał Wojnicz (Voynich), who became famous for revealing a famous medieval manuscript that was one of the world's most enigmatic artefacts.

Maria Czaplicka's career in the UK
In November 1910. Maria arrived in London, where she took up a chair in anthropology at Bedford Women College, part of the London School of Economics. She attended classes with the pioneer of modern social anthropology Bronislaw Malinowski (later author of the famous work The Sexual Life of the Wild). Her career accelerated when she was offered the opportunity to complete her studies at Oxford. Here, in 1915, she received her doctorate in anthropology as the first woman in Europe (and generally the second person with such a title). At the university she met Russian researchers of the peoples of Siberia, who inspired her to further her knowledge of remote areas of Eurasia.

In 1912, she obtained a degree in anthropology. Numerous scientific articles, studies and readings date from this period, including on the beliefs of the indigenous peoples of Australia. She also joined the Royal Anthropological Society and supported the suffragette movement.

Siberian expedition of Maria Czaplicka's life
Alleys, libraries and lectures, however, were not enough. In May 1914. Maria Czaplicka set off on an expedition that would establish her in the scientific world. There were four of them: British women, Dora Curtis, a photographer and painter, and Maud Haviland, an ornithologist; American Henry Usher Hall, a student of anthropology; and Maria Czaplicka, a Polish anthropologist from Oxford. Together, they set out to investigate the culture of the Evenks in the Yenisei valley in southern Siberia, which was poorly understood by Europeans.

Today we would call it an extreme expedition. They set off from Charing Cross station in London to Moscow via Warsaw. They then travelled on the Trans-Siberian Railway to Krasnoyarsk to travel north down the Yenisei by steamer for three weeks to the settlement of Golczycha. They travelled further on foot, by ship, by boat and on reindeer. In total, they travelled some 5,000 km of Siberian wilderness.

The effects of Czaplicka's research in Siberia
In August 1914, the Great War broke out. Curtis and Haviland decided to return to England, Czaplicka and Hall continued their expedition in extreme conditions, with temperatures dropping to minus 60 degrees in winter. The press in America and Britain, however, was mainly interested in the fact that a single woman and a strange man were staying in one tent.

The expedition, which lasted a year, yielded a wealth of scientific material: interviews, photographs, observations, artefacts and significantly deepened knowledge of indigenous Siberian peoples, including shamanism, spirituality, sexuality. The expedition also resulted in Maria Czaplicka's book My Siberian year, written in English and published in Britain and the USA in 1916. The publication not only shed new light on the subject of the peoples of Siberia, but was also distinguished by its narrative. The author wrote in the first person, not shying away from personal reflections, digressions and descriptions of her many adventures. The combination of engaging adventure literature and solid anthropological material was something of a novelty at the time. In the first words of the introduction, the author also bore witness to the Polish struggle for freedom:

"When, as a child, I heard the word 'Siberia', it meant only one thing to me: a deadly threat to the bodies and painful torture to the souls of those bravest, wisest and most independently thinking representatives of our nation. Were not thieves and robbers also sent from Poland to Siberia? If I knew or remembered such cases at all, it was only as a disgrace added to the sufferings of brave men and women condemned to exile from their beloved country; an exile shared with criminals. I could not help remembering that in one year alone, 1863, 15,000 to 20,000 young men - the flower of Polish youth - were driven in chains through the Siberian outback; most of them died there [...]"*.

My Year in Siberia is a very interesting publication, which to this day has not lived to see a Polish translation.

Maria Czaplicka's activity for Poland
. After 1918. Czaplicka fought against propaganda hostile to Poland, writing articles and essays for the British press and giving lectures and talks. In 1919, she visited Poland and met, among others, Józef Piłsudski, who thanked her for her publications. Unfortunately, she lost her chair at Oxford and had difficulty finding a permanent job. In the scientific world, she too often had to give way to colleagues.

Still, she remained active in numerous scientific and social organisations. At the same time she gave lectures on Siberia, wrote journalistic articles in connection with the revolution in Russia, took part in discussions on the League of Nations, the status of Danzig and compiled secret reports for the Historical Section of the Foreign Office. The Siberian expedition, however, plunged her into debt.

In 1921, she was hoping for a prestigious Albert Kahn travel grant. However, she received a rejection. At the same time, news reached her that Henry Hall had married in the United States. She did not receive an invitation to the wedding. It was to him - the expedition companion with whom she had been through so much - that she dedicated her book My Year in Siberia.

Tragic death and memory of Maria Czaplicka
It is likely that professional failures combined with a love disappointment led Maria Czaplicka to her tragic death. She was only 37 years old when she ingested mercuric chloride on 27 May 1921, having previously left a will. She handed the manuscript of her Siberian report and other materials to Henry Hall to complete, which he never did. Most of the memorabilia from the Siberian expedition is in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. In accordance with her last will, she was laid to rest in Wolvercote Cemetery.

The gravestone is located in the north-eastern part of the necropolis and is largely neglected. A cross with a difficult-to-read inscription in English has fallen over and rests within the grave field. Maria Czaplicka's eternal resting place is surrounded by a stone border. Unfortunately, it is apparent that the grave is not cared for on a regular basis.

The inscription on the base of the cross reads:

IN MEMORY OF
MARIE ANTOINETTE DE CZAPLICKA
BORN AT WARSAW OCT. 25.1884
DIED AT BRISTOL MAY 27.1921

Wojciech Kwilecki

* Excerpt from Maria Czaplicka's book My Siberian year translated by Wojciech Kwilecki