The disobedient women – leaders of the National Organization for Women. A sketch for a group portrait of the National Democracy women activists 1919–1929)

The significance and scale of Endek influence in the nineteenth and twentieth century were not the outcome of stricly party organizations. A social movement, which had been built up since the partition era, reflected the strength of the nationalist camp. Vigorous associations – both secret and conspiratorial – united both men and women of various social backgrounds, economic positions, and professionial affiliations. This included the National Organization of Women (NOK) – founded in 1919 – which was one of the largest and most influential women’s groups in the Second Polish Republic. The following article is an attempt to present selected aspects of the biographies of NOK leaders, which collectively make up a collective portrait of Natinal Democratic women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The analysis includes such elements as: the intellectual climate of the era, the significance of the partitions in female political activism in indepent Poland, and the role of the Catholic faith (both in its individual and social dimensions). It is also indispensable to discuss the circumstances of the NOK’s founding and the motives propelling Polish women toward activism in the public sphere: first, in the electoral campaign to the Constituent Diet (1919) on behalf of the National Democratic movement, and, secondly, through involvement in the association’s actitivities. In this context, it is wortwhile to pose a question about the roles of men and women in the ranks of the National Democratic movement. This is an issue that deserves to be investigated since the members of NOK, in response to the needs of a newly-independent Polish state, rejected the notion of gender conflict, aiming instead to build a community in which the activism of men and women could be mutually complementary.