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Poland – Helena Modrzejewska
1975 Proof Silver 100 Zlotych 32mm (16.50 grams) 0.625 Silver (0.3316 oz. ASW)
Reference: Y# 78, Par# 272, Fischer Po# K005 | Engraver: Stanisława Wątróbska-Frindt
• HELENA • MODRZEJEWSKA • WS 1840 – 1909, Helena facing right.
POLSKA RZECZPOSPOLITA LUDOWA 19 75 mw ZŁ 100 ZŁ, Eagle.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
 Helena Modrzejewska (12 October 1840 – 8 April 1909), known professionally as Helena Modjeska, was a Polish actress who specialized in Shakespearean and tragic roles. She was initially successful on the Polish stage. After emigrating to the United States (and despite her poor command of English), she also succeeded on stage in America and London.
On 20 August 1877 Modjeska debuted at the California Theatre in San Francisco in an English version of Ernest Legouvé’s Adrienne Lecouvreur. She was seen by theatrical agent Harry J. Sargent who signed her for a tour on the east coast where she made her New York debut. She then spent three years abroad (1879–82), mainly in London, attempting to improve her English, before returning to the stage in America. In 1880, she visited the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall and on hearing that the parish church of Ruan Minor was in need of an organ she collaborated with Mr J Forbes-Robertson to put on a performance. Romeo and Juliet was performed on a temporary stage in the vicarage garden and watched by many local people. A resident of Penzance and soon-to-be member of parliament for the St Ives constituency, Charles Campbell Ross, played the part of Friar Laurence.
Despite her accent and imperfect command of English, she achieved great success. During her career, she played nine Shakespearean heroines, Marguerite Gautier in Camille, and Schiller’s Maria Stuart. In 1883, the year she obtained American citizenship, she produced Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in Louisville, Kentucky, the first Ibsen play staged in the United States. In the 1880s and 1890s, she had a reputation as the leading female interpreter of Shakespeare on the American stage.
In 1893 Modjeska was invited to speak to a women’s conference at the Chicago World’s Fair, and described the situation of Polish women in the Russian and Prussian-ruled parts of dismembered Poland. This led to a tsarist ban on her traveling in Russian territory.
Modjeska suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed in 1897, but recovered and soon returned to the stage, continuing to perform for several additional years.
During her last stay in Poland, from 31 October 1902 to 28 April 1903, she appeared on the stage in Lwów, Poznań, and her native Kraków.
On 2 May 1905, she gave a jubilee performance in New York City. Then she toured for two years and ended her acting career, afterward only appearing sporadically in support of charitable causes.
Modjeska died at Newport Beach, California on 8 April 1909, aged 68, from Bright’s disease. Her remains were sent to Kraków to be buried in the family plot at the Rakowicki Cemetery.
Her autobiography Memories and Impressions of Helena Modjeska was published posthumously in 1910. A Polish translation ran the same year in the Kraków newspaper Czas (Time). The last Polish edition of the book appeared in 1957.
Modrzejewska’s son, Rudolf Modrzejewski (Ralph Modjeski), was a civil engineer who gained fame as a designer of bridges.
 Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine and Belarus to the east; and the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) and Lithuania to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, as well as the most populous post-communist member of the European Union. Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions.
The establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a longstanding political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th-century Europe. The Commonwealth ceased to exist in the years 1772-1795, when its territory was partitioned among Prussia, the Russian Empire, and Austria. Poland regained its independence (as the Second Polish Republic) at the end of World War I, in 1918.
In September 1939, World War II started with the invasions of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). More than six million Polish citizens died in the war. In 1944, a Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation was formed which, after a falsified referendum in 1947 took control of the country and Poland became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, as People’s Republic of Poland. During the Revolutions of 1989 Poland’s Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy.
 Despite the large number of casualties and destruction the country experienced during World War II, Poland managed to preserve much of its cultural wealth. There are 14 heritage sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage and 54 Historical Monuments and many objects of cultural heritage in Poland.
Since the beginning of the transition to a primarily market-based economy that took place in the early 1990s, Poland has achieved a “very high” ranking on the Human Development Index, as well as gradually improving economic freedom. Poland is a democratic country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life and a very high standard of living. Moreover, the country is visited by nearly 16 million tourists every year (2013), which makes it one of the most visited countries in the world. Poland is the sixth largest economy in the European Union and among the fastest rising economic states in the world. The country is the sole member nation of the European Union to have escaped a decline in GDP and in recent years was able to “create probably the most varied GDP growth in its history” according to OANDA, a Canadian-based foreign exchange company. Furthermore, according to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is one of the safest countries in the world to live in.
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