Paule Minck
| Paule Mink | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Adèle Paulina Mekarska November 9, 1839 Clermont-Ferrand, France |
| Died | April 28, 1901 (aged 61) |
| Known for | feminist and socialist revolutionary |
Paule Mink (born Adèle Paulina Mekarska; 1839–1901) was a French feminist and socialist revolutionary of Polish descent. She participated in the Paris Commune and in the First International. Her pseudonym is also sometimes spelled Minck.
Adèle Paulina Mekarska was born on 9 November 1839, in Clermont-Ferrand. Her father, Count Jean Nepomucène Mekarski, was a Polish officer who had gone into exile after the unsuccessful Polish uprising of 1830; he was a relative of the last Polish king, Stanislas II. Her mother was an aristocrat, Jeanne-Blanche Cornelly de la Perrière. Adèle's parents were enlightened liberals who apparently became adherents of the utopian socialism of Henri de Saint-Simon. Adèle was well-educated, mostly by private tutors. She had two younger brothers, Louis and Jules; both participated in the Polish uprising of 1863 and in the Paris Commune.
Adèle became a republican and an opponent of the régime of Napoléon III sometime in the 1850s. As a young woman she was married to a Polish aristocrat, Prince Bohdanowicz, with whom she had two daughters, Anna and Wanda. Nothing much is known about this epoch in her life, but the marriage seems not to have been a happy one and ended in divorce. Neither the date of her marriage to, nor that of her divorce from, Bohdanowicz are known. Possibly marriage turned Adèle's thoughts toward the oppression of women. In 1867, she moved to Paris, where she gave language courses and worked as a seamstress. She also associated with Polish patriotic organisations and with revolutionary socialist circles.
In 1866 a feminist group called the Société pour la Revendication du Droit des Femmes began to meet at the house of André Léo. Members included Paule Minck, Louise Michel, Eliska Vincent, Élie Reclus and his wife Néomie, Mme Jules Simon and Caroline de Barrau. Maria Deraismes also participated. Because of the broad range of opinions, the group decided to focus on the subject of improving girls' education.
Adèle first burst on the public scene in 1868, when she began speaking and writing about women's issues and socialism. She was convinced that the emancipation of women could only be fully accomplished through the abolition of capitalism. She contributed to the venerable journal La Réforme and joined the First International. With her friend André Léo she founded the oddly-named Female Workers' Fraternal Society (Société fraternelle de l'ouvrière). It was based on mutualist principles inspired by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Adèle was now calling herself 'Paule Mink' or 'Minck' (she used both spellings) and became a tireless orator at socialist and feminist meetings. She was also active in providing aid to Polish refugees from the Russian empire.
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