Books of Jacob | I. Book of Fog, Chapter 2
"Kossakowska has animal instincts, like a she-wolf in a pack of males"
“Now bloodstains have flooded these joyful little flowers, their ominous, irregular contours completely swallowing up any ordered pattern. As if malicious forces had escaped from somewhere, surfacing here.”
Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob, I. Fog, Chapter 2, p. 936
In chapter 2, the Polish noblewoman Katarzyna Kossakowska travels from Lublin to her family estate in Kamieniec with her companion Elżbieta Drużbacka. Period pain and a broken carriage force a stop in Rohatyn where the women seek help from a reluctant, distant cousin, Szymon Labęcki. He calls on a local Jewish doctor, Asher Rubin to treat Kossakowska.
Father Benedykt Chmielowski visits the noble visitor to Rohatyn. He discovers the book he received from the Shorr family was not the special, secret book he had hoped for. He also meets Elżbieta Drużbacka, who is a poet, reader of his works, and a woman with whom he can talk about ideas. Over dinner, Kossakowska discusses with her guests her views on politics, the economy and the Jewish people in Poland. But most of all, Chmielowski and Drużbacka begin an intriguing friendship.
The character this week is Katarzyna Kossakowska. Again, this week, Olga Tokarczuk is on hand to help us pronounce this name in Polish.
Katarzyna Kossakowska, neé Potocka, wife of the castellan of Kamieniec, whose dominion extends over numerous villages and towns, mansions and estates, is by nature a predator. Predators, even after falling into dire straits, such as into the grips of a poacher’s trap, lick their wounds and go back into battle. Kossakowska has animal instincts, like a she-wolf in a pack of males.
(Tokarczuk, Books of Jacob, p.934)
Kossakowska is married to a Kossakowski. Names in Polish, as in other Slavic languages, have gendered endings. A male member of the Kossakowska family is a Kossakowski. Katarzyna came from Potocka/Potocki family
She is a grandee of the Polish aristocracy, known as the Szlachta, who by accident of a loose wheel and a period ends up in this town of Rohatyn with its connections to Jewish sects and, in some way that we do not yet know, Jacob Frank.
For paid subscribers below I have some more notes to enrich your Slow Read.
chat question - about women in historical fiction, and reading about this “she-wolf in a pack of males”
character, Katarzyna Kossakowska - a clip of Olga Tokarczuk talking about her role in the novel and in history
context - Polish society, the Szlachta and hints of intolerance.
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