Paule Mink (born Adèle Paulina Mekarska; November 9, 1839 – April 28, 1901) was a French feminist and socialist revolutionary of Polish descent. She participated in the

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (, ) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard (France), Nation ...

and in the

First International The International Workingmen's Association (IWA; 1864–1876), often called the First International, was a political international which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, social democratic, communist, and anarchist ...

. Her pseudonym is also sometimes spelled Minck.

Early life

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 Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon (; ; 17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), better known as Henri de Saint-Simon (), was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on po ...

. Adèle was well-educated, mostly by private tutors. She had two younger brothers, Louis and Jules; both participated in the

Polish uprising of 1863 The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last in ...

and in the Paris Commune. Adèle became a republican and an opponent of the régime of

Napoléon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...

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 Louise Michel (; 29 May 1830 – 9 January 1905) was a teacher and prominent figure during the Paris Commune. Following her penal transportation to New Caledonia she began to embrace anarchism, and upon her return to France she emerged as an im ...

Eliska Vincent Eliska Vincent (née Eliska Girard 1841–1914) was a Utopia, Utopian Socialism, socialist and militant Feminism, feminist in France. She argued that women had lost civil rights that existed in the Middle Ages, and these should be restored. In the ...

Élie Reclus Élie Reclus (; July 16, 1827 – February 11, 1904) was a French ethnographer and anarchist. Biography Élie Reclus was the oldest of five brothers, born to a Protestant minister and his wife. His middle three brothers, including the well know ...

and his wife Noémie, Mme

Jules Simon Jules François Simon (; 31 December 1814 – 8 June 1896) was a French statesman and philosopher, and one of the leaders of the Moderate Republicans in the Third French Republic. Biography Simon was born at Lorient. His father was a linen-dr ...

and

Caroline de Barrau Caroline de Barrau (1828–1888) was a wealthy French educationalist, feminist, author and philanthropist. She became interested in the education of girls, created a school in Paris where her daughter was taught, and encouraged her daughter and ot ...

Maria Deraismes Maria Deraismes (17 August 1828 – 6 February 1894) was a French author, Freemason, and major pioneering force for women's rights. Biography Born in Paris, Maria Deraismes grew up in Pontoise in the city's northwest outskirts. From a pr ...

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

. 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 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, ; ; 1809 – 19 January 1865) was a French anarchist, socialist, philosopher, and economist who founded mutualist philosophy and is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". He was the first person to ca ...

. 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. At some time, Adèle had a relationship with the painter Jean-Baptiste Noro, with whom she had two more daughters, named Mignon and Jeanne-Héna.

The Paris Commune

In 1870, Napoléon III went to war with Germany. As much a French as a Polish patriot, Paule Mink actively assisted in the French war effort and apparently distinguished herself to such an extent by her engagement at Auxerre that she was offered the Legion of Honour, one of France's highest awards. However, her love of France had not diminished her opposition to Napoléon III, and she refused the medal. The

Franco-Prussian War The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...

went badly for Napoléon III, and in late 1870, his government fell. Paule Mink was then in Paris and became active in the defence of the besieged city. She supported the uprising of the

and was a prominent revolutionary orator at the republican clubs of St. Sulpice and Nôtre Dame. She was a member of the Committee of Vigilance of Montmartre and organised a free school for the poor at the church of St.-Pierre. With

, André Léo, Nathalie Lemel,

Anne Jaclard Anne Jaclard, born Anna Vasilyevna Korvin-Krukovskaya (1843–1887), was a Russian socialism, socialist and feminism, feminist revolutionary. She participated in the Paris Commune and the First International and was a friend of Karl Marx. She was ...

and other prominent feminists, she organised a Women's Union and participated in the Commune's committee on women's rights. As always, she tirelessly advanced the argument that the struggle for feminism must be linked to the struggle for socialism. Paule Mink also made several tours to the provinces to drum up support for the Paris Commune in other cities; somehow she always managed to get through the German siege. She was absent on one of these tours during the Bloody Week (''Semaine sanglante'') and the suppression of the Commune. That is how she managed to evade capture and escape from France.

Later years

Like many refugees from the Paris Commune, Paule Mink settled in Switzerland, where she associated with the anarchist leader

James Guillaume James Guillaume (16 February 1844 – 20 November 1916) was a Swiss anarchist and writer who was a leading member of the Jura federation, the anarchist wing of the First International. Later, Guillaume would take an active role in the founding ...

. She attended the fifth international Peace Congress at Lausanne. In spite of her associations with the anarchist followers of

Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin. Sometimes anglicized to Michael Bakunin. ( ; – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, so ...

, she was not an anarchist. She was close to many

Blanquist Blanquism () refers to a conception of revolution generally attributed to Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881) that holds that socialist revolution should be carried out by a relatively small group of highly organised and secretive conspirators. H ...

refugees, with whom she had collaborated in the Commune, and read the writings of

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

with interest. In the summer of 1880, a general amnesty allowed Mink to come back to Paris. She helped found the

French Workers' Party The French Workers' Party (, POF) was the French socialist party created in 1880 by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, Karl Marx's son-in-law (famous for having written '' The Right to Be Lazy'', which criticized work as such, criticizing heavily l ...

which was led by

Jules Guesde Jules Bazile, known as Jules Guesde (; 11 November 1845 – 28 July 1922) was a French socialist journalist and politician. Guesde was the inspiration for a famous quotation by Karl Marx. Shortly before Marx died in 1883, he wrote a letter ...

and

Paul Lafargue Paul Lafargue (; ; 15 January 1842 – 25 November 1911) was a Cuban-born French political writer, economist, journalist, literary critic, and activist; he was Karl Marx's son-in-law, having married his second daughter, Laura. His best known ...

. Guesde was a former anarchist who had converted to Marxism, and the POF was fiercely orthodox. She attended the POF's first congress at Le Havre as a delegate for the workers of Valence. Although, she became unliked and banished from the POF meetings due to her strong and radical feminism. Further, her feminism caused trouble with the French authorities. In 1881 she was imprisoned for her role in a demonstration on behalf of the Russian refugee Jessy Helfman. Since Mink's family had strong connections and citizenship to Russia, the French government threatened to deport her. To avoid this, she married a fellow revolutionary, the mechanic Maxime Négro and had two sons with him: Lucifer-Blanqui-Vercingetorix-Révolution (who was born in 1882 and died in infancy) and Spartacus-Blanqui-Révolution (born in 1884, renamed Maxime by a civil tribunal). At some point in the 1880s Mink left the POF to join Édouard Vaillant's Blanquist

Socialist-Revolutionary Party The Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR; ,, ) was a major socialist political party in the late Russian Empire, during both phases of the Russian Revolution, and in early Soviet Russia. The party members were known as Esers (). The SRs were ag ...

. However, Marxists and Blanquists collaborated increasingly closely, and in any case Mink seems not to have had a sectarian bent. In later years she again worked as an organizer for the POF, and she contributed to Benoît Malon's non-sectarian journal ''Révue Socialiste''. She also helped found, and contributed to, the feminist journal ''La Fronde'' in 1897, with

Marguerite Durand Marguerite Durand (24 January 1864 – 16 March 1936) was a French stage actress, journalist, and a leading suffragette. She founded her own newspaper, and ran for election. She is also known for having a pet lion. The Bibliothèque Margueri ...

and others. In addition to her journalism and political activism, she wrote stories, poems and plays. Two of her plays were performed at the ''Théâtre Social'' in 1893. That year, Mink ran unsuccessfully as a candidate in elections for the National Assembly. During the

repression of January and February 1894 The repression of January and February 1894 was an episode of the Ère des attentats (1892–1894), during which France engaged in significant Political repression, state repression against Anarchism, anarchists. The passage of the lois scélérat ...

targetting anarchists, Paule Mink offered to care for

Auguste Vaillant Auguste Vaillant (; 27 December 1861 – 5 February 1894) was a French anarchist known for his bomb attack on the French Chamber of Deputies on 9 December 1893. The French government's reaction to this attack was the passing of the infamous rep ...

's daughter Sidonie following his death sentence. Mink accompanied her along with her adoptive mother, Madame Marchal, so she could ask to visit her father. This request was granted to both the adoptive mother and Vaillant. Mink was also one of the founders of the feminist organisation 'Women's Solidarity', to which she belonged until 1900. In the late 1890s, she was an outspoken Dreyfusard (a supporter of the Jewish officer who had been wrongly accused of treason). Mink died on 28 April 1901. Her remains were cremated and buried in Père-Lachaise cemetery. Her funeral was the occasion for a large demonstration of socialists, anarchists and feminists and ended in a violent brawl with the police.

References

Sources

* * 'Paule Mink'.
Ephemeride Anarchiste
.''

In: ''Femmes de la Commune.'' * 'Mink, Paule (1839–1901).' In: ''Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia.'' Farmington Hills, 2002. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mink, Paule 1839 births 1901 deaths French socialists Communards Members of the International Workingmen's Association French socialist feminists